Sunset in Toronto

While in Toronto I stayed with my very good friend Disa.  We went to Art school together and since that time (11 years ago now!!) she has moved to Toronto, back to Vancouver, and now to Toronto again last year.  So the first time I visited her, and my very first time in Toronto, she lived near Liberty Village in a beautiful condo just over the tracks from their place now.  They just moved into this new condo and I couldn't help thinking their summer is going to be great.  I loved the proximity to Queens Street West, along with the restaurants and shops near by.

I have a few new pieces available online along with some new work that I dropped off at the Gallery of BC Ceramics yesterday.  I'm taking the afternoons off this week so not a lot will happen in the studio until next week, when I will be back to filling wholesale orders.  It's been a really good break just to focus on the show, making new work and new designs, but I do need to get back to some regular work again. There's also a studio move in the works for me for mid-July, with a few renos needing to take place before I move in.  It's only up the hall from where I am now, but I'll finally, after 5 years of being in this space, have a window.  Yes, a small, little window. 

Painting preview: Green Train Tower

I promised a little sneak peek at some of the paintings I was working on last week.  As a little preface, my current paintings deal with architecture and landscape as they pertain to memory and a sense of connection to a place.  I'm also interested in the concept of 'building' a painting's composition using the language of architecture.  Usually I find/remember a particular building, be it one I pass daily or one I've seen in my travels, and I decide to paint it.  I may use a photograph as a rough guide, but most often, I don't- I use my memory of the building to guide me along in the painting.  Thus, the final painting is a 'familiar' place that is both real and imagined.
The one above is my 'Green Train Tower' painting (about 80% finished), inspired by the train tower in the photo above that I see on my way over the bridge towards North Vancouver from the studio.  Most people driving over the bridge are too busy making sure they don't rear-end the person in front of them.  That or they are checking out the Upper Levels Hwy to make sure the traffic isn't too bad.  Me, I'm usually sneaking glances at the train tower and wondering what it looks like inside.  I also quite like the shape of it- rounded on one side, squared off on the other.  I'm slowly working on the background and haven't quite decided what kind of day I'm going to stick with.  A typical rainy day or foggy...

Lovely Homes: Part 2

Ok here's a few more homes that I was drooling over on my walk with the kids the other evening.  The sun was casting some serious shadows and washing out the windows on some of these, but you get the idea... it was a lovely evening to be outside taking pictures of the homes in the neighbourhood that I like. 
Our neighbourhood is a real mix of these lovely, charming houses but then there are a lot houses like ours, a little bungalow from the 60's that is sitting on a $million dollar lot.  So people with the cash to buy the property are just coming in for the view, tearing houses like ours down and building these monstrous houses that lack in the charm and character of the houses you see above.  All the little details that make these homes so lovely- like a curved roof, gabled windows, arched entryways and porches and ohhh, the windows, make me glad to live in such an architecturally diverse area.  Living in the suburbs with homes that are all the same, cookie cutter shapes of themselves doesn't seem quite so inspiring.