Beaver Sheppard - Never Apart

He's that guy, you met at a bar/restaurant/show/party, where he was cooking/hanging out/playing in a band. You've seen him around town, met through a friend, bumped into each other some time later.   He's that guy that you can't even remember how you met, but you've seen each other around for a better part of a decade. He's that guy.

I popped into Never Apart one afternoon to participate in a sound meditation practice and took the time afterwards to check out the galleries.

Lo' and behold was the exhibit Chefs I've Worked For by Beaver Sheppard; a series of expressive paintings accompanied each with an incredible anecdote of his time at a restaurant.

I'm a little late to the party so the show will be up only until the 8th of April!
In the meantime, here's an interview with Beaver at Never Apart and some images from the show. Read. The. Captions!

 oops glitch

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Kodak Funsaver

Back in 2013 we headed to Thailand to visit an old friend and get some vay-cay time in.  Armed with a DSLR, a super-8 camera, an iPhone, and three disposable cameras, I'd say we covered most of our bases.  One of those Kodak Funsaver GT-800 never got used and made its way to Iceland three years later.  Without any control of the focus and the on-camera flash I shot the whole roll with abandon over the course of two trigger happy days in Ólafsfjordur and Reykjavik. Conversely to the previous post all shot on a Canon 7D with it's greeny-blue hues, the Kodak is very, very warm and a little pink-y giving the roll serious vintage vibes.

 click! Hallgrímskirkja church

 click! Harpa concert hall

 click! Reykjavik bar scribbles and stickers.  Everyone in this bar was stunning. Is that normal?

yup and I walked around the Blue Lagoon with a disposable camera above the surface of the water

Ólafsfjörður, IS

Lo' and behold the lovely and remote town of Ólafsjörður, Iceland.  Nestled in the mouth of a fjord on the Tröllaskagi (troll!) peninsula, this fishing town was once only connected via a road around the mountain from the 1940s until a (scary) one-lane tunnel trough the mountains was built to Dalvík. A tunnel connecting the town westward to Siglufjörður was built recently in 2010. 

I'll be here for the next month staying at the Listhús artist residency hoping to bang out some inspired collages, hike over the mountains, discover magical lakes and stare dumb-faced at the most beautiful elfin Icelandic girl at the cash of the grocery store.

In the meantime, I leave you with a snippet of the stunning views, some plant life and the fluffiest sheep that ever crossed my path. 

Byredo

If you took a moment to click through the "perfume" label at the bottom of this post you might find a handful of blog entries on the subject.  I never thought that it would be a subject of significance or importance but in some way it has. Not being much of a beauty connoisseur, my first memories of thinking that I should find a perfume for myself was when I caught a delicious whiff of a friend's Dior Addict over a decade ago.  Whaaaaat are you wearing?!

Fast forward to trials, errors and missteps and settling my dear Flowerbomb for so so long.  After a decade of the same odour trailing my sphere, along with the conscious and unconscious memories and associations it was time to move on.

I finally zeroed in on Byredo's Bal D'Afrique, a warm and rich perfume that carried over bergamot top note from Flowerbomb. Founder Ben Gorham underlines the association of fragrance to memory where each scent created for Byredo starts from his connections to places, time and people.  This notion made me wonder about that bergamot consistency, it also being the active flavour in my tea of choice Earl Grey, as this was a tea I always drank with my mother for as long as I can remember.
Coincidence?!
I think not. Or otherwise the hypnotically beautiful and astute sales associates at Byredo's Wooster boutique are just that good.

The Wilfrid

Not even a year ago Nancy and François had purchased a 175 year old farmhouse complete with 4 acres of land and a couple of barns with the vision of transforming the former dairy farm into a stylish, country getaway from the city. Situated in Prince Edward County (beaches! vineyards!) within weekend escape distance from Montreal and Toronto, The Wilfrid Boutique Farmhouse was open for its first season this spring.  Feeling particularly adult I decided to book a treat yo' self weekend and savour the country flavour.

Nancy and François really outdid themselves with the renovation of the farmhouse.  Opening up and streamlining the space for large common areas and creating three awesome guest rooms (oh and the shower!!) while maintaining the cozy county feel incited many ohhs and ahhs from me.  From the reclaimed sliding barn doors (from uh...their barn!) that leads to the crisp ensuite bathroom, to the pulleys holding the light fixtures, the attention to detail was apparent everywhere.  

After cocktails we strolled down the road to Long Dog Vinyard and Winery for some wine tasting and met the lovely owners James and Victoria.  We learned that James was involved in IMAX movie-making and that they would soon be rolling out the last IMAX movie to be shot on film.  Nooooooo! Say it ain't so!!!!  I get it, film is dead and dying and all that.  But I was secretly holding on to the idea that this crazy 70mm format would survive the transition.  Appreciating our film-nerdiness James gifted us with a couple of frames of this glorious medium.

After our last delicious and filling breakfast, we poked around the barns, played around a really old looking tractor and paid the hens a visit to gather some eggs before heading back down the 401.

During our weekend we toted around a Fuji Instax camera that is provided by the Wilfrid for guests to document their stay with the condition that we leave one image behind; creating a photographic guestbook at the farmhouse.

Connect4

This past week I was asked to help out at the merch table at the Connect4 vernissage.  The pop-up art show was brought together by the artists' themselves in conjunction with Mural Festival and Station16.  Alex Scaner, Kevin Ledo, Labrona, and Mathieu Connery busted out their works for an eager art-buying audience.

signature works by Alex Scaner

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Plantlife! Works by Mathieu Connery

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Left, sunflowers by Mathieu Connery  Right, a large Labrona (one of my faves!)

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and a quick stroll down St-Laurent to try to catch some of the art in progress.  Chain-link fence work by Fafi

ok, found another Labrona in a doorway.

Roadsworth for Amnesty International

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Winded down the art tour at Station16 where the insane felted works of Lucy Sparrow transformed a room in the gallery into Lucy Sparrow's Erotic Emporium: Le Sex Shop Feutré.  Holy moly EVERYTHING was made of felt!  From little condoms, to DVDs, porno mags, and giant butt plugs, all rendered in fuzzy felt giving the works caricature absurdity.  Do yourself a favour and check it out if you're in this fair city.

Japan photo diary

Shall we start with this image of cherry blossoms *almost* in bloom? We were a couple of weeks early for the grand floral explosions, but had enough of an inkling of what was to come.  Of course that did not deter us nor the tons of other tourists from flocking to Kyoto, known for temples, palaces, shrines, kaiseki and lesser known Kyoto style sushi. We rented some bikes for a couple of days and discovered the city with frozen toes (we are flashing back to early March here).

Tom on above-mentioned rental bicycle.  At the rental shop, the owner set us up with a "manual GPS" by clipping a map onto the basket.  Awesome.  We managed to get lost anyways.

1. At the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine

2. Shrine signage with a construction worker apologizing that there is work taking place

3. These two visitors with their masks, with a hint of the amount of tourists at the frame edges

A visitor making a prayer or offering with tons of Ema behind her. The ema are wooden plaques sold to those wanting to communicate to the gods their hand-written wishes, generally for health, wealth, happiness and good marks on an exam.

Or sometimes visitors wish for Saint Laurent, Air France Premiere seats or jewels from Van Cleef & Arpels.

Some of the thousands of Torii gates at the Fushimi Inari Shrine.

The bamboo groves at Arashiyama

Spooky deer and friendly deer in Nara

So we got ourselves onto a bullet train or a Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo with a glimpse of Mount Fuji while drinking bottled water from Mount Fuji.  It was all very meta.  Speaking of meta I am typing this post while on a regular 5hr train ride from Montreal to Toronto.  The distance from Kyoto to Tokyo is almost equivalent and via those bad assed trains took about 2.5hr.  #bringhighspeedrailtoCanada #please #thankyou

1. Bright light and shadow in Ginza, Tokyo

2. Shoes almost in a line at Dover Street Market Ginza

3. A giant fallen rose by Andy Hillman for Visvim