Borealistic

August is in. Frightening how quick the season moves.

The personal photography drought has passed. Amen.

Rolls are rolling in. Even though I swore I would never bring another damn contrast roll in to have processed, the great lull got the best of me. One measly roll processed while ten others wait in agony for this old horse to get back into the basement darkroom.

What I received back today was a mixed bag of photos from three rolls of film shot over the course of May, mostly June and a little of July: 35mm contrast Tmax 100, 120 color Ekar 100 and one really whacky 35 color Kodak X-tra 400 roll from Craig (partially double exposed considering I snapped over what he had shot years ago). That was a mouthful. Does anyone care or take interest in film stock? I always appreciate when people name their film stock, so be it.

Posted here today are a few of my favorite photos from the Wenasaga planting contract. My cameras were stored in my kitchen trailer, just a quick arms reach away from the usual daily prep station activity. One afternoon while Emily and I were making five million burgers for dinner, I noticed a strange looking man fly out of the treeline and beeline for our cook shack. I would be lying if I said the question am I going to be murdered today? didn't cross my mind. A quick kitchen scan for weapons: long handled axe, machete, cleaver. Good. The guy turned out to be a half crazed mining staker; a job that revolves around trolling through the bush (solitary mission) with a GPS in hand, a backpack full of stakes, an axe and flagging tape for staking out future mining sights. Not knowing what else to do, I invited the man in. Benoit was his name, a french man from Northern Quebec who preferred to live in Mexico in his off-season.

Thankfully there was a fresh pot of soup on the go and he was hungry. Fresh cookies and beer to boot, with no murders to be had. In thanks Benoit sharpened my long handled axe. Then he split pile of wood (show off) and got on his merry way.

I enjoy photos that offer full narratives the most. Keeping that in mind while I shoot, this was as close as he would let me in. Benoit was a real character. My attempt to parle en francais with him was pitiful. Thank goodness the soup was good.

Here are some photos with character.

Benoit sharpens my axe with a file.

Tree Camp comes to a close.

Markell and his girl Kita.

BFF's all the way from Montreal, Larry Legend and Guillaume. 

Rolling Ripper about to depart from the Maxi Pad.

View from the Earfalls beach. Powerlines!

Contrast nature--never quite the same as living color.

Photo. Lisa King; taking one last dip in the Earfalls lake.

Sitting quiet so as not to forget.

Fruit of Juillet

Letters Electronica

Grey end-of-afternoon light leans against the wall like a lazy cowboy. Basil the pup lounges in different parts of the home rather jumpily. Now after four cups of strong coffee this body lounges rather jumpily also. Life rattles along.

I thought I would take a moment to write.

The house plants are happy for once, which is nothing short of a green miracle. Cool settles in at home as the sun switches over to the other side of the house. The shady side grows shadier.

What is new? Nothing wild.

I found this bizarre and random piece of a letter today while meandering through my electronic past. Hotmail is the digital letter graveyard of my youth. I can't help but laugh over old writing like this. Twenty year old naive writing, free as can be.

Time changes us, we change with time.

I loved you today, you all tender and soft with generous, fruitful hands and me 
wishing for more time, more words, more exchange than just a 
caramelized onion hug and softness from your rimmed eyes. I read your letter in the back alley and cried huge gasping bellows until Dorian the tall, gangly one found me. I turned away into a chain link fence to hide my face from him. He was kind to me and I will be more kind to him from now on because of it. 

Today was full well, grocery shopping after work with a simple song in my ears. I sang in the aisles, weaving in and out of the produce wishing for Nathan and the boy in picture you sent in the yellow European shirt with holes and mop-top hair. Wishing and buying with selective fingers and a knit brow. I spent 33 dollars and bought a fridge full of greens for health and fancy water for us to share in bed. 

Afterwards, Yosh picked me up in his giant white car and it felt like we were flying and hovering above the road without wings. I stuck my feet out the window even though it was an inappropriate car to do so. I don't care, and I didn't care then, and neither did Yosh. We went for Thai food and unscrewed the light bulb and ate in the dark. Eating the masaman and red curry soup greedily, wolfing like two teenaged boys. After the dark dinner we watched 'A lot like love' with feet slung over rearranged furniture and a cat on my belly, quietly wishing I looked more like Amanda Peet when I laughed with my mouth open instead of like my long-dead great grandma with her too-full set of teeth. 

Genetic laughter.

I went home and Amy was waiting on my steps in pajama's and white hair like a hip Santa Clause and we crawled into my bed and talked about sex. I figured out a lot of things and so did she. We agreed that I am a tender lover and she is opposite. I need touch and raised arm hair and she needs to be on top without thinking. The last contact I had with a man was wild and there are reasons to be terrified and also to be confident around men after something like that. She had the glowing rivers for veins in her eyelids. I love her the most in that glow.

Well. That was something.

Grandma Penny goes big

In July of last year I met a little girl named Uma at the splash pad in Montreal's Mile End. We got to talking about our grandma's and Uma told me she had a Grandma Penny. For reasons unbeknownst to me, the name stayed in my head for weeks like any good ideas or imagery tend to do from time to time.

Ode to Grandma Penny. Later that week I came across a portrait from some database or other of an old woman who suited the name to a tee. Thus Grandma Penny came to be in stencil form. She has been a work in progress over the course of the year (no idea why I stick with some projects like the plague and abandon others) and yesterday I made the biggest stencil yet measuring in at 4x6'. 

Uma--where ever you are--this one's for you. I almost threw the whole lot in the garbage after going a little heavy handed on the spray adhesive. Thin paper, lots of delicate pieces, a shit tonne of glue and a mid air flip equals disaster. I had to take a rooftop BRAIN BREAK and remind myself not to get angry over such a trivial mistake considering the beauty of making art in my home on the floor at twenty six without a care in the world. What a luxury. Regardless and as always, it felt good to lay yet another project to bed. In the stencil process I ended up totally marring the original positive resulting in a one off. This one is for my home. 'Hope Lisa likes it, it's humungeous. 

Stencil hell to finished product! Grandma Penny stencil on muslin. July 2012/ Winnipeg.

KINDERMANN

Collaborative art. Photo date unknown. Stencil April 2012/ Winnipeg.

Nashville Skyline on repeat for hours and hours. Currently walking around the house in age old glow-in-the-dark boxers and a giant hat. Pint sized G&T. That sounds small. Too hot for cool. Selfish twenties, you'll be but a dream one day. Today I am in the thick of it, the self serve of this decade of age. Making and doing at my leisure, sweating to the oldies of Bob Dylan on the turntable in my studio. When I say studio I mean bedroom. Perhaps one day I will find the path to move my work out of my sleep space. For now it works. Going through my notes from a recent Concordia art history class, I found some sketches smack dab in the middle of an artist profile on german Industrial Photography duo Bernard and Hilla Becher. Apparently their work was a far cry from captivating--considering the lack of doodles elsewhere in the notes.

From aimless silhouette to aimless stencil, a new direction. Now which President was this again? Lord knows.

Silhouette of a mystery. July 2012/ Winnipeg.

The art of unfinished work

A new house midway through. Combination india ink and beach house fantasy. Tiff, consider this a warm up. Sorry I am operating as slow as molasses. It's coming. Index finger click the house for large scale size. Print. Write a letter to someone who needs one. Voila! Poorman's stationary. Now if only I had a printer...

Step one. Draw bones.
Step two. Let dry.
Step three. Pick up quill. Continue. 
Step four. Guzzle iced coffee for inspiration.
Step five. Shut off computer.

Puch lookbook

Recent development. Back into color's arms I fly, for faith is restored once again.  Love / Hate; color vision. These three photos shut the doubt right out and confirm that color film has its place. Pictured is Craig. He makes me laugh like nobody else.

Photos were made en route to the Winnipeg Folk Festival on a hot July morning using Ektar 100 film stock and the old faithful Kiev 60 (which coincidentally we each own in slight variation from the other).

Buddy guy brought his Nikon Super 8 out for the trip and we made a little movie while riding through the back forty and also while people watching contentedly from a bench. Tie Die vision he had. I always have to laugh at what he zeros in on. We both shoot, but he is better.

59er pitstop with Creme.

Myself and a pair of Puchs.
Photo. Craig Dueck.

Magnum in da back and Maxi in da front.

OV Picnic

4:11 am report. Sleep? Who needs it. Got a good 24 hour sleep in after a single day at the Folk Festival.  Cashed and mushy brained, there was no choice but to sleep Saturday away in it's entirety after riding home from Bird's Hill. Somehow Creme and I made it out of the hub of it all and despite the cool air of dawn whipping all around my body, the scenic route home was the best part of the trip.

The darkest part of the night hangs around even though the birds have long risen for the day. Four treeplanters sleep in tents in my little yard. Two in my bed and one (the permanent Maxi resident) just down the hall. Six strong on the stoop they rang the bell over and over until I hopped to it and answered, bewildered. Treeplanters. Visions of the recent woods life came rushing back as shop talk is unavoidable with reunions of this variety. Pizza in threes, OV by the dozen, whiskey by the texan and eight pairs of bare feet on the concrete, we sat and laughed; my kind of picnic.

Before the circus arrived on the stoop, Craig and I pulled in after a great day on the road and a hearty BBQ. Food coma quiet, just the two of us at the Maxi house. We had a hell of a day. One worth writing home about. Before the party cam flew off the ass end of the truck while sailing through an intersection (don't worry, a lovely man on a bicycle scooped it up and rode after us to return it unscathed), before the BBQ dinner, before hustling through Super Store on a hamburger mission, before all that we rode. From morning to night we rode. My god it feels good to rip beside Craig, trying to anticipate his moves while navigating through the flow of traffic. 

We make a good pair. 

Creme and I woke to a brunch invitation. After guzzling the coffee and tossing the poach waters back where they came from, we hopped on the Maxi and the Magnum and hit the road. Jessica Alba leans forgotten in the dust (I do ride her daily). The moped just trumps every mode of transportation these days. It's too easy to do a running start, hop on in the nick of time, hold on for dear life and ride the hell out of that thing in traffic. 

I think there's a woodtick making a home for itself in my skull. 

Trains rattle the house but no one wakes.

I wish I was riding.

In my own time

From Biggie to the bush, here is some fruit of the Kiev's labour. A medley, if you will. Time to put on the biggest hat I own and skip to Parlour for a coffee with my girl Chanel.

Erin and Biggie.

Izzy and her Aunty Jenny.

Izzy and her Grandpa Jim.

Rookie baby still early on in the Ktown spring contract.

Whack exposure that I love. I smell a lettering project.

Boots in nature. I thought I was shooting color here.

Driving northwards.

Tom, you sexy beast.

Back Forty

A hefty portion of the last entry was wiped clean, so be it. Here is a display of photowork from the woods to fill in the blanks. Nothing to write home about today as I am home. Sick, but home nonetheless. My filled ears are throwing off my game. Craig is in the garage tuning while I soak up the cool wind billowing through the Victor House. Photos are unedited straight off the process counter as per usual, but the color slides are even better! No point in digitalizing slides, they speak for themselves up on the wall. Mounting begins this evening with a slideshow to follow. Stay tuned if you care to.