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

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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.

Fog in NB

I think I've found my favourite shooting conditions: fog and lots of it.  With plenty of light the fog becomes diffuse, like a giant silk.  This foggy day rolled in through the coast around Cape Enrage, New Brunswick.  My brain almost exploded when I saw the photo of the pile of rocks (that was already nicely placed before my arrival) on my computer screen. Friends, this series was shot with an iPhone! No DSLR with a sexy lens, just the old telephone and some fog.  Thank you Bay of Fundy!

BK-NYC

Crossing the Canadian/US border by car, the border patrol agent asked me where I was going.

I replied : "New York." 

To which he said: "You are in New York."

Why do I always get the snippiest guards?

Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I said, New York City.

We were then waved through.

 a bike ride that took us from the Brooklyn Bridge to delicious pizza at Roberta's

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 loving some NYC architecture on Lafayette

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 water taps at La Colombe supporting Coffee For Water and Charity Water non-profits

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Betten adorned doors outside the McKittrick Hotel

My trips to New York are always quickies, a couple of days max, and never enough time to see all your friends (sorry!), go to a gallery or two, shop, or see a show. This time around chilling with my sister was key, exhibits lost out (sorry!) and considering I haven't seen a show in NY since I was seventeen, Sleep No More (finally!) won out big time.

Ai Weiwei

Surveillance Camera, 2010

Marble Helmet, 2010

from Ai Weiwei's According To What? exhibit, AGO, 2013

When I began this blog 200 posts ago I wanted to share images of aesthetic occurrences and everyday awesomeness that centred around film, fashion and art.  Toss in a little bit a of travel, food, and flowers and you've got a sampling of what I love.  Although my infatuation with aesthetics runs deep, more importantly it is what these passions can teach when we go beneath the surface that concerns me the most.  Learning and sharing discoveries has been the main drive behind this blog and I hope that these objectives have reached you.  Thanks to everyone who's been reading along and for those who want to get the posts in their inbox you can subscribe below!

For post number two hundred, a quote from Ai Weiwei, an artist who wields mighty socio-political criticisms with his art, taken from his According To What? exhibit:

"We cannot just learn from Western art, but also need to examine and criticize our daily experience and our own thought.  This is the nature of intellect as well as art, to question the basic foundation of being and our state of mind."