Cabane à Sucre

That week of kooky summer weather was awesome! But now we have returned to more "normal" spring-like conditions for which we leave a little heat on in the house, and I leave my snow tires on my car for the impending final snow dump of April.

To usher in the spring, team "fun all night long" decided that it was time to return to our childhood memories of Cabane à sucre, aka: the sugar shack.

Above are tapped maple trees, with no snow in sight affecting the Québecois tradition of tire sur la neige-which became tire sur la glace-not quite the same effect!  After the delicious maple snack we got ready for some fiddle music and a giant meal consisting of pea soup, tourtière (meat pie), and fèves au lard (baked beans) among other sinful dishes.

We randomly chose Sucrerie de la Montagne as our destination and were relieved that the food was pretty darn good.  We asked for more!  We ate it all!  (Well we left half a tarte au sucre-that was just too intense!!)  Oh man, the pancakes were SO GOOD!!!  And as randomness and the small world effect that seems to occur all the time should have it, our waiter was an acquaintance of the raver/junglist days of yore!  It's a small world indeed at the cabane à sucre.

Lifetime Collective

I got to peruse the fall/winter12 collection of Lifetime Collective, a laid back west coast line with dotted with the street/skate/art collab vibe, if I may boil it down in a couple of words.  While there are snow tires are still on my car, here is a taste of next fall.

Above is a super cozy cable knit grandpa style cardigan and a detail of a knit motif that appeared in scarves and sweaters.

The jacket above was a my favourite piece from the men's line, on me it became an oversize shell that would be easy to layer with sweaters in the fall.  (I know it's not even summer yet! And we're talking about fall!)

A shot of some images in Lifetime Collective's zine.  Want to play the six degrees of Montreal connection? Ok, so the zine's launch party will take place at the HVW8 art + design gallery in LA. HVW8 (Heavyweight) was a crew of artists from Montreal that toured doing live art installations.  Bam! That was barely three degrees of separation!
Just for fun here's some vintage Heavyweight paraphernalia that I have kicking around:

Also in the showroom were the footwear from Generic Surplus, these spotted and floral beauties were an Obey collab, just hanging out with their zine.

Jewels and Paper Flower

This is probably the girliest post title I have come up with lately.  But I have to admit my eyes glaze over when it comes to jewelery (ummm and shoes!)  While I don't wear many pieces I find myself always on the lookout.

This past week has been full of ohhhs and ahhhs towards visual stimuli.
I will share a little bit (with the use of Instagram) with you:

 The model was being shot from the waist up, so she kept her feet comfortable in her awesome Isabel Marant kicks.  There lies a giant paper flower.  Stunning!

My favourite piece of jewelry that gets daily wear is a Pearls Before Swine double ring.  On a shoot it made friends with a Pamela Love talon ring.  Are those Givenchy magnetic horn earrings? Just wow.

Just to add to the girly sweetness of this post, I share some dessert with you.  An almond and pear tart-miam!

Saturday Art

This morning I woke up with the urge for some Saturday art.  My most favorite gallery in town HANDS DOWN would have to be the DHC/Art Foundation-I have never been disappointed with a show curated here.  One memorable moment for me was during the John Currin exhibit when one of the security guards gave his insight of several paintings and directed us to the basement level where visitors can watch archived artist talks. Nice!

Above is the guide image of the current exhibit (as image taking is not allowed), featuring a still from Philippe Parreno's June 8, 1968 (2009) short film shot on 70mm(!)
While I can rave about the whole show, a standout for me was Taryn Simon's An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007), a series of documentary photographs accompanied with a short text of the back stories that recontextualize our understanding of the image.  The viewer is presented with "the realms of science, government, security, religion and nature, [and] unveils that which is foundational to America's functioning and mythology." (From the guide.)

You have until the May 13, 2012 to go! Get your art on!

I leave you with this charming stencil of beach ball play on St-Pierre street.

Palm Springs, CA

Back from a four day (including travel) in-and-out work trip to Palm Springs, California. Yeah, that's right, not Florida-I didn't know either.  I'm laid up in bed with a West Coast cold (a bad one might I add) so I will share some sunny pics with you who are in northern snow like me.

Shall we?

Some of the team at LAX
See those clouds? That will be the last time I will see them for the next few days.

1. Instagram views of Palm Springs . 2. more Instagram 

3. Seemingly abandoned building 

1. Insanely cloud-free sky with palm trees

2. getting to work! taping some shoes 3. setting up next to the pool

4. golf ball at the bottom of the pool

1. poolside owl  2. poolside swans
3. beautiful grapefuit tree!

This was the first time I'd ever eaten grapefruit fresh from the tree-it smelled and tasted delicious.  Makes you think about what we are getting at the grocery store in winter time...

Here's one last look before we're back to snow:

Origami Mobile #4

I have finally completed Origami Mobile #4 for a dear friend whose son is at least seven months old... Well better late than never!

This one worried me a tad, because this little dude's dad is an industrial designer, I felt that this one might be scrutinized a bit more.  The choice of shapes were pared down to the always favourite of mine, the angel fish and the balloon from a book I had since the 80s!

Did you print nerds out there take notice that the fishes' colours were CMYK- as in cyan, magenta (ok, pink...), yellow and black? And that the ballons were RGB-as in red, green and blue?!

Check out the new shape that this mobile is rocking:
I call it pyramid with bird swing!

Nuit Blanche 2012

Nuit Blanche! We got the "art-all-night-long" troops assembled chez nous and my friend Tim of Original Heads Agency (they're working on a website, no links yet!) showed up in this trompe oeil puffer.  Tim takes care of the marketing and brand management for the Adidas Skate China team and got hooked up with the Adidas Blue beauty, a debate ensued on the yellow zipper though...

First stop: The Canadian Centre for Architecture for some drawing, drinks and musical fun.

The current show is called Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture an awesomely intriguing show, that has been on my list for a while, I have until April 1 to get my CCA on! 

Fun-all-night-long team member Shabana got straight down to drawing on the communal tables littered with markers. Shabana drew a bundled up character-appropriate for the chilly evening. My contribution was a fat marker tip line splotches. Yeah!

Some awesome visuals were created the analog way with scratching out designs on acetate and an overhead projector.  I met Mathieu of Organ Mood and I told him I loved his old school imagery.

Next stop: Palais de Congres for some Art Souterrain in which there were kilometers of art to be experienced.  Well we limited our visit to the Palais and we took in the distorted vision of Mathieu Grenier's Dans le cube blanc and the disease-like balloon sculpture of Padejo's Air Borne 3 in the pink trees.

Onwards team!

So the SAT had a dj and vj line up in the Satosphère, where the visuals just BLEW.MY. MIND.  The dome enables an immersive visual experience, allowing for perception of depth.  There was a temporary lapse of a projector showing it's start up screen, but it gave a good idea of the layout of the projectors.

Above are some images when Beat Market took the stage and VJs Zef & Santo gave us some awesome visual stimulation.

Then 3am rolled around...we had poutine...oh man.