I’d rather sit in the sun than waste my time on the nasties.

Good morning, day dreamers!

It has occurred to me that I have not yet shown you the new piece I did for the People We’ve Been show (which is still on, by the way!). She’s big and she’s another “Girls Can Be Nasty” piece (I like the combo of these three characters, and the story they instantly create).

In this one it looks to me like they are getting ready to go out to a party, and the one in the middle has not dressed up to the others’ liking, or maybe is not ready to go and is keeping the others waiting. Or maybe they’re at the party already and just picking on this unfortunate bunny girl. But the outer two don’t have their shoes on, so I think they’re still getting ready to go out. I wanted the background to be messy and fun and pink – sort of like a stereotypically “girly” party was vomited onto the backdrop. Hah!

I think people are lovely, and certainly we are capable of stunning selflessness and generosity, as well as committing atrocious monstrosities, but boys and girls tend to be nasty to others of their own gender in fairly distinct ways. The psychological warfare of little girls is nasty indeed and intriguing to me (but not TOO intriguing – I’m not interested in getting caught up in that elementary school drama again!). Some people I guess don’t grow out of it, and seeing these adults acting as nasty children makes me laugh in a way. It’s sad, but it’s silly too, and such a waste. There is so much beauty right in front of us all the time, and that’s what I want to put my energy into, to soak myself in and get lost in. Speaking of which…

It’s like spring out there, can you believe it?! I’m writing this in the sun, next to my passed out jungle cat, who knows all about the simple pleasures of life and takes advantage every opportunity she can. What an inspiration! Two happy cats in the sun, we are, and right now this is all I need.

A smile for Kurt as I say out loud: if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

Good times during a blizzard in Barrie

Ah, the magnetism between art openings and stormy weather. Despite the blizzard, the opening reception for People We’ve Been at Bohemia was great! A number of dedicated art lovers made it out, and the Awkward Stage opening reception was positively jumpin’! It was warm, it was cozy, it was friendly, it was hot apple cidery, and it was arty. Mmm arty.

I only thought to snap a couple pictures after the place was closed and the last of us were running out the door. But here’s some of the art:

And here’s some nut job with more of it.

Notice that she is dressed appropriately awkwardly (that is, the skirt is the Annie Get Your Gun skirt from Awkward Stage).

A big thank you to the brave souls who drove up from the GTA to bring me smiles and hugs. You are awesome, and totally made my day.

THANK YOU to everyone who came out that night! Thanks for the warmth, the feedback, the flowers, and the red dots! All things I like very much.

The show is on until February 19th if you still want to check it out! Bohemia is at 125 Dunlop Street East in Barrie. I recommend the maple latte with soy milk. It’s awesome.

Shine on, you crazy diamonds!

xo.

“People We’ve Been” at BOHEMIA!

Okay, here’s the scoop on the new show: I’ve got a solo show, called People We’ve Been, at Bohemia Cafe in Barrie, starting next week! If you’d rather, you can skip the story and get to the logistics by clicking here.

The funky lady I’m standing next to in front of Bohemia here is my cool new artsy pal Alana, owner and creator of Awkward Stage and curator of Bohemia. I met Alana at the Queen West Art Crawl in the summer where we did an art swap, resulting in the acquisition of some of her amazing reclaimed-vintage creations. She’s the cool cat who hooked me up with this show. Thanks, Alana!

It gets even more fun though (and I love this part too): she and I get to share the limelight on Saturday the 28th with back-to-back openings! Her shop (Awkward Stage) is just out back  of Bohemia, so after my opening at Bohemia from 5 – 7, you can meander down the steps at the back to her opening from 7 – 9 where Awkward Stage Gallery is showcasing the works of artist Robin Luoma (showing from January 25 to February 18).

When I drove up to drop off my art, we had lunch in Bohemia, and let me tell you, this foodie gives her approval. And it’s so pretty! See for yourself:

Those are my dirty dishes on the counter. That mug was full of hot apple cider. Until I drank it all, of course.

And now, here is Awkward Stage:

This is going to be fun! But it’s all ready been fun. Okay, this is going to keep on being fun!

The details be here:

People We’ve Been (Candace’s show)
January 23 – February 19, 2012
Opening Reception Saturday January 28, 5-7pm
Bohemia
125 Dunlop Street East, Barrie

Awkward Stage Gallery opening reception:
Saturday, January 28, 7-9pm
Awkward Stage
Lakeshore Mews (just south of Mulcastor and Dunlop E), Barrie

If you are in or near Barrie, let’s be awkward together in person on the 28th! I am so very ready to offer my left hand to shake when you extend your right, and to step on your feet if and when you should attempt to give me a hug. How can I be so confident of this? Years of practice, friends, years of practice.

beep beep: art show comin’ up!

Later this month I’m having a solo art show at this lovely cafe in Barrie. Details will be on my website shortly. The show opens on the 23rd, and runs for about a month. Woo hoo hoo!

Stay tuned!

Who am I today?

I just read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (good read!) and at one point he talks about personality and nature versus nurture, and it made me think of Billions Pass Through this Landscape.  He talks about the Fundamental Attribution Error, in which we overestimate the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimate the importance of the situation and context. He says that we erroneously think of character as “something unified and all-encompassing” and relates it to an information-processing blind spot.

He quotes the psychologist Walter Mischel, who argues that “the human mind has a kind of ‘reducing valve’ that ‘creates and maintains the perception of continuity even in the face of perpetual observed changes in actual behavior.’”

Here’s a blurb from Mischel:

“When we observe a woman who seems hostile and fiercely independent some of the time but passive, dependent and feminine on other occasions, our reducing valve usually makes us choose between the two syndromes. We decide that one pattern is in the service of the other, or that both are in the service of a third motive. She must be a really castrating lady with a façade of passivity – or perhaps she is a warm, passive-dependent woman with a surface defense of aggressiveness. But perhaps nature is bigger than our concepts and it is possible for the lady to be a hostile, fiercely independent, passive, dependent, feminine, aggressive, warm, castrating person all-in-one. Of course which of these she is at any particular moment would not be random or capricious – it would depend on who she is with, when, how, and much, much more. But each of these aspects of her self may be a quite genuine and real aspect of her total being.”

And the follow up blurb from Gladwell:

“Character, then, isn’t what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn’t a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context. The reason that most of us seem to have a consistent character is that most of us are really good at controlling our environment.”

…or as I end up saying over and over to people at art shows when they ask for the schpeal about my art: we all play different roles to different people at different times. We don’t seem to have one solidified identity, rather, it’s as though we have a whole cast of characters under our skin, passing under the guise of a single person, and we pull out a character according to what the situation calls for. It’s not that we are acting; they can be genuine to who we are, although certainly sometimes we do act and wears masks as well; however perhaps that tendency to don the mask or put on a show speaks to another genuine personality trait as well.

And that’s why I use the animals in my art: their stereotypes are easily read as different personality types. We constantly change. Which version of you is reading this, and which version of you last went to work, met up with a friend a couple days ago, sat with strangers on the train? Who are you right now?

Hello, world. Which Me am I today?

 

The full painting and thoughts on the new year.

New Year’s eve and day took place in Ottawa this year. I hear it happened in other places too, but that is where I found it this time around. Last year it was in Hamilton, and the year before that, in Oakville. Each new year makes its debut in a different place – lucky I’ve always managed to be in the right place at the right time to catch it! What would happen otherwise? Would I be in limbo? Maybe I’d become unstuck in time like Billy Pilgrim, and would wake up one morning beside the ocean under the grey sky in my striped hand-me-down sweater as a four-year-old again. And then I’d blink my eyes and suddenly be running down a hill in a forest at night, and I’d wonder where I am and why I’m running, so I’d turn around to see what I’m running from, and there would be a huge moose right behind me, and I’d realize that I’m back in Algonquin Park and would stumble down the hill in surprise. When I’d collect myself and stand up again, I’d find myself on a strange planet in a giant glass bubble with some frightened movie star, surrounded by weird lookin’ dudes with their eyes on their hands, and I’d be inhabiting version of my body that I’m not familiar with yet. Surely that’s how it would go. And I’d go on jumping back and forth like that, having a really confusing but fun time. And when I find myself back in 2012 along the way, maybe things will be different for me than they are now, because I would have known to invest in Google back in 2004, and I’d be able to afford my own chicken farm with a huge art studio and a pet pig named Newton.

Man, if I really could go back, if just for a moment, to some earlier point in time to tell myself something, what would it be?  Invest in Google? Invent some thing called Facebook before that Zuckerberg kid does and make millions? …Naw. I think I’d tell myself not to worry so much; to not worry about what goes on in the outside so much and just make art – let whatever’s in my head out.  To not censor myself, to let my freak flag fly a little higher. Hey there little Candace, you’re better than you think you are.  Oh yeah, and seeing as we’ve got another minute here together, invest in Google.

What would you tell the eight-year-old version of yourself now if you could? I think we all still carry that version of ourselves around inside us – it’s the part of us that knows things a little more instinctively, and that takes things to heart when we’re criticized. We can probably still tell ourselves that very Something that needs to be said.

May 2012 be the year you hear your own wisdom and give your inner eight-year-old a hug.

And now, brought to you by the internet, the art of yours truly featured in a blog about toes.

 

Ain’t the internet a wonderful, funny thing.

So I’m still getting used to this blogging business. I’m not sure what half these buttons do, behind the scenes here. And all this time I have been both categorizing and tagging each post identically, treating these two options as the same thing – just couldn’t remember what the difference was. Then yesterday I thought, okay, the categories are clearly the things listed on the side of the page, so the tags must be ways for people to find my posts in all the wide web. So I decided to add more tags. Yesterday’s post was the first time I used this tool differently if not properly, and because of the picture I posted, I tagged it a bunch of extra things: painting, drippy paint, feet. (Apparently my reasoning was incorrect because now I have the word “feet” in my categories on the side of the page. Hmm..)

Well wouldn’t you know it, someone must have googled “feet” and found my image that way, because within an hour I had an email from someone with a blog all about feet and toes, asking if they could post my image on their page.

Excuse me? Did that just happen? Um, yes please!

Good old internet, uniting people together in the quirkiest of ways. You can find anything here! The last medium of free speech: ah, it is worthy of love and protection. Wiggle on, toes, wiggle on!

See the “toemail” blog here!