'Empty City'

While I was interested in the 'urban dowry' of this city, from cars to streetlights, have the sole position of subjects, this photograph has always evoked very creative and different reactions from other people.
My favourite is the idea from another photographer that this was the perfect tourist 'backdrop' and that people with Hawaiian shirts, Tilley hats, a camera around their neck and a map could walk right into it for a photograph at any point. There are no other people to date the photograph with fashion styles, and the streetcar is iconically Toronto. While this actually was no part of my intent, I love that interpretation of such a commercial use for an empty city photo.

Bookmaking: J'aime Paris

In 2005, I had the opportunity to visit Paris for two much too short weeks, and created this book out of all the paper ephemera I collected in the metro, the subways and the streets alongside photographs. I added vellum silkscreens to give a reader some visual rest between the many, many pages.

The OCAD Papermaking Anthologies are a collaboration with fellow printmaker Sheila Jonah. We collect fibres from marsh grass to found paper, and continue from there! Papermaking and bookmaking is a culture of collaboration. Artists share facilities, pulp ideas and credit. OCAD's anthologies offer opportunities to meet staff and students who share interest and ideas, as well as get a wonderful opportunity to have examples of other people's work .

As an artist, part of my challenge is to not blind myself to chance opportunities. Chance within the process of printing meant my original print of a woman in a red dress was able to transform inadvertently to a person of conflicting faces, one with the ability to see but not speak while the other could speak but was blind, a spontaneous work rich in mythological symbolism of hegemonic blindness and silencing.

Glass Lampworking

I've been renting torch-time at TANK Fire + Metal Studio, and now have all kinds of beads!



Lampworking is very addictive. See if you can spot at least 3 ray-guns, a Thanksgiving ham or a wolf-head in the photo!