in a quarry

Last weekend I found myself about a one hour drive outside of Montreal.  I drove through a very functional rock quarry wearily dodging oversized trucks.  Photographer Elena Willis rallied the troops to help with the creation her newest image in the striking blue and very deep waters of the quarry.
Yours truly was tasked with swimming out with the yellow fibreglass boat (above) and guiding it into Willis' frame.
I hid myself behind the boat as Willis clicked away on the very bad assed Phase One camera, watching the murky runoff (top) dump into the very waters I was floating in.
#artlove

shoot studio X ans

Shoot Studio recently held their annual photography exhibit and showcased their roster of talent with a big bash to celebrate their ten years of image making.  Experimental filmmaker Karl Lemieux (above) was invited to stage a multi-projector performance/cacophony with the use of 16mm film.  The audio component was not dissimilar to distorted drone metal like sounds which emanated from the film being manipulated through the projectors' magnetic heads with an equally grindcore-ish vocal accompaniment on the microphone.

With visions of Cremaster 2/bees/death metal drum solos, I grabbed a glass of wine and headed downstairs to the gallery to check out the photography.
A couple of faves:

Geneviève Demers, positive and negative images of the waters of Kalymnos, Greece.

soft and ethereal underwater photography by Sandrine Castellan

dark and moody with awesome use of colour by Pierre Manning

wedding flowers

This lovely labour day weekend was apparently host to many, many weddings.  Other than Brad & Angie*, two dear friends were also tying the knot and invited me to a morning of lots of croissants (and other assorted pastries), coffee and itty-bitty bouquet arranging.  Needless to say, but I was like a pig in shit. Pardon the crassness, but I was deep in my happy zone for several hours surrounded by these tiny beauties.  The above flowers made me squeal with delight.  These ping-pong sized flowers with the texture of paper are called scabiosa stellata, or commonly 'Drumstick" or what we affectionately dubbed "the balls."

The bride picked out about a twelve little varieties from a wholesaler and put her friends and family to work, cutting and arranging different stems in dozens and dozens of glass vessels of varying dimensions.  The result was whimsical, eclectic and effective.

Above from left:
-The astilble erika or false spirea are pink buds in a cluster of spike shaped stems
-Flat petals seem to characterize the phlox paniculata species which come in tons of variations, ours were a deep pink/purple that still had lots of buds ready to open
-The ivory flowers with pink and green hues are astrantia maxima, or masterwort, or million star or what we liked to call them "the droopies."  Their heads were hanging sad and low out of the box, but the overnighter in a vessel of water picked them back up.
-Last in the image, to the right is eryngium supernova, also known as the thistle

photo by Margot Ross

Happy as a clam,

As happy as a lark,

As a fish in water

Or a pig in poop.

*Oops, apparently Brad & Angie got married the 23rd of August- the weekend before-my bad.

Veggies & Compost

I had just finished preparing a quick snack and tossed the discarded bits into a bowl that resulted in this photograph.
I'll take this opportunity to do my yearly acknowledgement to the wonderful bounty that is our veggie baskets from Les Jardins d'Ambroise.  The thyme and eggplant make regular appearances but the lemon is definitely from the grocery store.

After I took this photo I took the bowl and tossed its contents into my Compost Montreal bin, made a mental note of gratitude for this service, as only several boroughs have the door to door pick-up service. I may have to wait until 2016 to get my compost picked up for free, but am very patient especially if it's done the right way.
Otherwise a quick google search for "sites de compostage communautaire montreal" will point you towards the many options where you can bring your compost material for free or low costs.
Small steps.
Or hey, you can build your own composter too!

#InMyFeed

I do collages
I like to organize things visually and catagorically
I think that's why Pinterest suits me
I've been spotting similar images in my Instagram following feed and piecing them together.
This is the first one that worked for me in a way that was more than just thematic.
Carved wood and a fig tree, a little retouching via VSCO cam.  A lightbulb went off.

left LaLaYeah right Dominic Poirier

Here are a couple more of the #inmyfeed series that got this all started (maybe I have some OCD tendencies too...)

top left Tyson Bodnarchuk top middle UNTTLD top right Lara Kaluza

middle left Patricia McNeil centre Kevin Ledo middle right Massivart

bottom left Elisabeth Olga Tremblay bottom middle Atelier B bottom right Angela

.

top left Charle Demers top right Cult MTL

botton Alizee CD

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top Sara A. Tremblay bottom La Petite Mort Gallery

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top left Martin Reisch top right Nicolas Blanchet

bottom left Sophie Desbiens bottom right III MNKYS

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left Atelier B right WRG magazine

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left Jeremie Saindon right genipj

Southcliffe

image from den of geek

One evening, during an endless browse through Netflix I was really excited to find Warp Films/Channel 4's wonderful Southcliffe.  I watched the four-part mini-series last year at TIFF without any prior knowledge to the work other than the fact that it was directed by Sean Durkin.  That was pretty much all I needed to know.

Like his work on Martha Marcy May Marlene, the dialogue is pared down to the minimum, the narrative is not so much plot driven, but rather character studies of people in exceptional conditions. In Southcliffe a shooting takes place and the series explores the psychological toll that is taken on the small town.  Painful, beautiful and slow moving were words that resonated as I left the screening.  It is works like this that truly lets the actors flex their thespian muscles and deliver heart wrenching performances.  It didn't hurt either that the images are stunning, with an overall grey heaviness of the English town.

So needless to say I'm ready to watch it all again.
May I recommend that should you have the luxury of watching this in one or two sittings that you do so?
Enjoy this great interview with Sean Durkin from Den of Geek.

swimwear syndrome

It is not this blog's M.O. to feature images of me so this post feels very narcissistic right now. I was asked to participate in a project featured in the August's issue of ELLE Quebec, regarding women's complexities towards swimwear.  The kicker? Find several non-model women who were willing to pose in front of the camera lens in a bathing suit.  While the idea made me extremely uncomfortable, I thought it was important to feature bodies on the printed page other than the VS Angels of the world.  Although, I would be lying if I didn't admit my brain is definitely conditioned to perceive willowy model bodies as being one form of "perfection."  This perception is a concept I play with in my art work with the use of store mannequins and a tongue firmly planted in cheek!

For the ELLE QC shoot we were asked to self-style, so I am wearing with great pleasure a bathing suit from Eres and all jewelry by Pearls Before Swine.  Enjoy some quotes from myself and two fellow non-models in the story Gaëlle Leroyer and Simone Fortin.