2. Ocean by Sue Goyette. This is a great book of poetry by a prize winning Halifax poet. The poems are hearty and packed with complex metaphors such that I can tell it's a book to be read over and over. The book itself is beautiful, published by Gaspereau Press, with wonderful textures. I think every ocean front or ocean view home in Nova Scotia ought to have a copy. I had the pleasure of receiving this book, as well as Outskirts, which I'm still reading and awesome so far, from the author as part trade for some stoneware bear figurines.
3. Commissions and trades. Now that Christmas is long past I figure it's ok to post these pics.
Here are the herds of standing up black bears that I made to trade with Sue Goyette. I didn't know she was a famous poet when she contacted me so that was a nice surprise! She asked for 5 so I made 8 in case a few didn't turn out. Good thing too - since they all narrowly escaped getting wrecked in the bisque firing by a large exploding crow bowl. I had nestled them around that bowl thinking that since it was long dry, it would provide good habitat for bears. Not sure why it blew up, but am glad the bears survived unscathed.
Sue and I met at the Halifax Shopping Centre because I liked the thought of pedaling my art there. She picked out the ones that suited their recipients best. It was fun and such a nice exchange of energy that I'm keeping one of the bears too.
The bears are inspired by the front cover of her latest book, The Brief Reincarnation of a Girl, also published by Gaspereau Press. Sue was out of tradeable copies of this book unfortunately. Lexicon Books in Lunenburg has it in stock though.
In the same firing, my last of 2015, were 3 ornaments that were requested by artist friend Helen Opie: a black cat, an orange cat, and a colourful frog. These will be in trade for one of her juicy pear paintings. Helen trades lots of cards and paintings for lots of things such as meat from a local farmer. Up with the barter system!
I haven't done a lot of commissions in the past but now that I feel more confident about my sculpting abilities, I'm very open to considering future requests for both commissions and trades for all sorts of things or professional services.
4. Slaughterhouse 5 or the Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut. Been re-reading this, it's one of my favourite books ever. Here's a link I found with the entire book online. Where he's dead I figure he won't mind that I shared this. I do have a copy somewhere.
As an aside my father loaded bombs aka "cookies" onto Lancaster bombers, for the Polish airforce in England, which fell on Kurt Vonnegut's head in the firing bombing of Dresden, the main topic of the book. My father was 20. Kurt Vonnegut was 23. So it goes.
5. The Vancouver Song by Tim Sars. This song was getting liked and shared like crazy on Facebook, so it's good to see it's now on youtube.
Tim is a baritone saxophone player and leader of Vancouver's Carnival Band - I used to play tenor saxophone with these people 2003 - 2005, it changed my life. According to Tim's Facebook post he wrote this song in 20 minutes, inspired by some bitterness at the housing bubble in Vancouver which has made housing ridiculously unaffordable for most people.
It's not just hippies that struggle with the bubble, but all sorts of professionals as well. I read the Vancouver Sun online quite a bit and it seems almost everyday there's been a headline about the Vancouver area's superhot real estate market, fueled largely by foreign investment.
"The Koots" = The Kootenays, a mountain range in BC containing towns such as Nelson, popular with hippies. Nice to see young Tim grown up and looking like his musical dad, Ross Barrett.
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