ideas that i like to visit

I am inspired by so many things.

Some appear more frequently than others

and some are sitting on the sidelines for now.

Some things are more easily made into tangible things - aesthetic things.
Some are just ideas that I like to visit again and again.

 [Woven Enamel Necklace in Pastel Turquoise Enamel, available here]

When I first applied for art school, I didn't know that I would have to choose a major. I had this grand idea that I could just be an artist and do whatever art form I chose for four years.

I eventually chose jewellery but I still took classes in textiles, ceramics, woodshop, metalshop, furniture, and bookbinding.

[Scalloped Enamel Earrings in Grape Purple, available at Organic Metal Gallery and Etsy]

So it doesn't surprise me that my jewellery can be inspired by scalloped collars, or woven forms, or the colour of glazes.

I love the fragility of fabric, how it's held together by infinite numbers of tiny threads, as well as the strength and durability of metal. I think it's something I need to explore some more.

beautiful and devastating

I've read a lot of novels this summer. Even more so now that I've discovered I can download e-books from the Toronto Public Library too. Now my zest for reading is insatiable, and distracting. 

I came across The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and I found myself surprised to love the slow but enchanting storyline and atmospheric language. A lot of the novels that I enjoy are more straightforward, where every word makes an impact - I tend not to care for flowery, languid descriptions. The descriptions were mostly concerning the circus itself, and the acts of "magic" that took place, but the thoughts and words of the characters themselves were less descriptive and more evocative.

There was turmoil, weariness, a constant struggle - I could almost feel the words, as if I could see myself saying them, feeling their effect as if I was one of the characters. And there were a lot of passages on the idea of control and discipline, things that I value highly. Passages on how things can be both beautiful and devastating. Passages on endurance, on bindings and responsibility, on the ties that hold us together and connect us.

Erin Morgenstern did a wonderful job. Here are some excerpts:

"I have spent a great deal of my life  

struggling 

 to keep myself in control...

to know myself inside and out,

everything kept in perfect order."

"I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held.

Trying to control what cannot be controlled.

I am tired of denying myself what I want 

for fear of breaking things I cannot fix."

"Our instructors do not understand how it is - 

to be bound to someone in such a way...

it is never simple.

The other person becomes how you define your life,

how you define yourself.

They become as necessary as breathing.

Then they expect the victor to continue on without that...

they would be whole, but not complete."

"...if I could put into words everything I want to say to you.

A sea of ink would not be enough."

"I have been surrounded by love letters 

you two have built for each other for years,

encased in tents.

It reminds me of what it was to be with her.

It is wonderful and it is terrible."

"You are the greater loss, but too selfish to admit it.

You believe you could not live with the pain.

Such pain is not lived with.

It is only endured."

"Someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative.

There's magic in that.

It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different 

and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.

From the mundane to the profound.

You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul,

becomes their blood 

and self 

and purpose.

That tale will move them and drive them.

Who knows what they might do with it because of your words...

Your sister may be able to see the future, 

but you yourself can shape it."

the struggle

"this moth is just about to emerge.

it's in there right now, struggling.

it's digging it's way through the thick head of the cocoon.

now, i could help it. 

take my knife, gently widen the opening 

and the moth would be free
.

but it would be too weak to survive.

the struggle is nature's way of strengthening."

- john locke, lost

the dark and hollow places

"there's a difference between the possibility of hope,
the idea of things that we can never know
and the starkness of reality.
the w e i g h t of knowledge."

"something tugs on each syllable

making his words h e a v y."

"i can't hear the words he speaks to her...
but i can feel the w e i g h t of them.
like they fill my hollow chest and drag me down"

 "the lightness i felt earlier solidifies

into something dense

as panic teases my mind."

"inside wells a want so fierce

that it threatens to consume me."

 - the dark and hollow places by carrie ryan

i've mentioned before that i love dystopian novels. in them, decisions have more weight. they can mean life or death. sometimes i think the things we worry about seem so futile, so removed from what is really important in life. our problems are first world problems. 

i like reading these kinds of novels because the core of all the decisions tend to resonate with the character. when there is a sacrifice, it is for something greater than their self. it is for love, for strength, for hope for a better future.

there is weight in their words and in their actions. 

and i gobble it up because i've been tired of empty words for a long time.

thankful

"to begin writing from our pain eventually engenders compassion
for our small and groping lives.
out of this broken state
there comes a tenderness 

for the cement below our feet 

the dried grass cracking in a terrible wind.
we can touch the things around us we once thought ugly
and see their special detail
the peeling paint and gray of shadows as they are — simply what they are:
not bad, just part of the life around us
and love this life because it is ours

and in the moment there is nothing better."

- Natalie Goldberg

as some of you may know, i also work at OCAD University making study materials for students with learning disabilities. i love this job, because it allows me to audit classes - i've learned so much, about art, design, culture, film, and writing. i've gotten much more out of my degree there than any paper could say.

this semester i'm sitting in on a creative non fiction writing class. the teacher is fantastic and excitable, motivating and inspiring. i always come out with quotations to tuck away into my sketchbook, and an itching to try out her writing exercises or apply them to my own creative process.  

right now the students are working on confessional writing. and isn't that what so much art is about? revealing something honest and true, something that is hard to say, and hard to put into words. how much to reveal, how much to keep in? this is something i always think about.

beautiful people

"the most beautiful people we have known
are those who have:

known defeat.
known suffering.
known struggle.
known loss.

and have found their way out of the depths.

these persons have an appreciation

a  s e n s i t i v i t y 

and an understanding of life 
that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. 

beautiful people do not just happen." 



- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

how bad do you want it?

"when you want to succeed as much as you want to breathe 

then you'll be successful... 

most of you say you want to be successful but 

you don't want it bad. 

you just kind of want it. 

you don't want it bad if you want to party. 

you don't want it as much as you want to be cool. 

most of you don't want success as much as you want sleep. 

if you want to be successful, you've got to be willing to give up sleep... 

if you go to sleep, you might miss the opportunity to be successful...

sleep is for those people who are broke. 

i don't sleep, i have the opportunity to make a dream into a reality. 

don't try to quit.

you're already in pain.

you're already hurting.

get a reward from it.

don't go to sleep until you succeed...

 

you will never be successful 

until i don't have to give you a dime to do what you do...

you won't be successful until you say 

'i don't need that money because i got it in here.'"

- "how bad do you want it?"

via thingsaboutlove

i've recently discovered stumbleupon, and it keeps giving me great links like this one. it has completely revolutionized my internet experience. i really liked this video because it makes you question your drive. success is a relative term. it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. and it changes over time. i used to think i knew what i wanted, but if you had asked me 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago - you'd get very different and sometimes opposing responses.

are success and happiness the same thing? i don't think so. and while i am not old, i am getting older.  the last few years have allowed me to really understand myself - my habits and limitations. i am always asking, consciously and unconsciously, how much i am willing to sacrifice to get where i want to go.

coiled within

"maybe great books were 

coiled within him like springs." 

  - extremely loud and incredibly close

i continue to think about this book - because it is so eloquent, so thoughtful, and so relevant to my life at this point in time. i tend to fixate on certain ideas and i surround myself with things that remind me of them - songs, movies, novels, phrases, people - sometimes i don't want to let things go.

i like to reflect, to reminisce, to analyze things that have come to pass. everything i ever take note of, anything that you can find in my sketchbook, written or drawn, is something that has a pull to me.

recently i was asked if i ever get that itch to create. i think i answered before he finished asking me. i do. i get it all the time. and it's why, even when things are discouraging at best, that i can't bring myself to even imagine a world where i am not a maker in some way.

the quote at the beginning of this post initially reminded me very much of someone i know - but now it also reminds me of anyone who has something creative in them that is aching to be released.

if you're one of those people, i encourage you to react to that itch. the world is waiting to see the results.

moving on

i kind of hate moving onto a new sketchbook, but only because i feel as if i'm leaving ideas behind. so for a while i tend to carry around two so i can look back and continue working on ideas from the older one.

this is the first page of my book with a quote from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. those words sum up exactly how i like to work, and i like the reminder.

sometimes i'm messy and sometimes i'm neat. it depends on how desperately i need to get an idea out, or how long i'm fixating on it. 

i used to worry about neatness when i was in high school but i don't anymore. my sketchbook is about working out ideas and making progress. it shows how i think. it lets me know what concepts i really want to work with.

fear of empty spaces

just showing you all some new lichen pins i was working on recently based on some hand doodles done in my sketchbook.

right now i'm very interested in the idea of space - particularly negative space and empty space. these may seem like the same thing, but they're not to me.

i learned some new terms today: horror vacui, which is Latin for fear of empty spaces, and cenophobia which is fear of the empty - who would've thought there were terms for that? but they're interesting concepts, ones that i definitely want to delve deeper into.

extremely loud and incredibly close

whoever knows me, knows that i'm constantly in the middle of a novel. i live outside of Toronto so my average one way commute takes about 75 minutes, and since i read fairly quickly i've managed to read A LOT of books over the years. this is one reason why i don't mind traveling long distances - because then i have an excuse to get lost in a new story.

if i didn't love making things so much i know that i'd try to be a writer. i love how art can articulate indescribable ideas but i greatly admire when a writer/poet/lyricist can find a way to describe a situation perfectly, evocatively, or poetically. and i always LOVE finding new metaphors.

i had heard about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close years ago, but my to be read pile is fairly long, and gets longer all the time. from the first few pages i was hooked and completely fell in love with Jonathan Safran Foer's writing style. the story was wonderful.  Foer artistically described a coming of age - solitude, the struggle to understand yourself and difficult situations, the process of loss and levels of acceptance, the different kinds of love and bonds we have towards one another, as well as the often forgotten importance of  family history and memories.

 some of my favourite quotations from the book:

"'Is anything wrong?'

I wanted to say 'Is anything right?'

I wanted to pull the thread

unravel the scarf of my silence 

and start from the beginning."

"I left behind a thousand tons of marble, 

I could have released sculptures, 

I could have released myself 

from the marble of myself."

"My life story was spaces."

"I couldn't speak the language of his feelings."

"What am I going to do? 

I   n e e d  m o r e   r o o m.

I have things I need to say

my words are pushing at the walls
of the papers edge."

"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live."

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining 

under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."

"She saw through the shell of me into the center of me." 

"‘That’s not true,’ I said, 

not knowing what the next words out of my mouth would be, but
wanting them to be mine

wanting

more than I’d ever wanted anything

to express the center of me and be understood."

just beautiful. you should all get your hands on this book. next up - his first novel: Everything is Illuminated.

ten things i love lately

chai tea lattes .01

 that it (sometimes) feels like spring here in Toronto .02

Adele's music .03

 Game of Thrones .04

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer .05

almond chocolate chip cookies from Riviera Bakery .06

carrying a small purse so i don't break my back overstuffing my large one .07

seeing old friends .08

that some of my favourite songs are being played in my yoga classes .09

my new spring coat .10

the useless days

"the useless days will add up to something.

the shitty waitressing jobs.
the hours writing in your journal.

the long meandering walks.

the hours reading poetry 

and story collections 

and novels 

and dead people's diaries...

these things are your becoming."

 - tiny beautiful things

there is a lot of process work involved in being a maker. it is more than just the doing - it is also the observing, the analyzing, the reading and writing - the living of life. my latest sketchbook mostly consists of writing. i've been spending a lot of time distilling my thoughts, honing in on ideas, pin pointing what it is i really want to capture. it is a process that is crucial to my work.

it is both easy and hard - it's easy in that writing introspectively is something i've been doing ever since i bought my first diary when i was 8. it's hard in that i may have ample time to be in the studio, but my idea isn't finalized - leaving me frustrated and unable to start that particular project. 

to some people it may seem like if you're not physically making something then you're not actually creating, but it's not true. jotting down wisps of ideas, being moved by films, relishing in beautiful moments - these are all part of the process.

worth fighting for

"what's the point of your existence?"

"to feel...

you've never done it, so you can never know it. 

but it's as vital as breath. 

and without it - without love, without anger, without sorrow, 

breath is just a clock...ticking."

- Equilibrium

i actually have a small obsession with dystopian novels and films. they can be so interesting,  and besides my own life, they tend to be one of my greatest inspirations. whenever i hear about a new one that's coming out i'm always determined to read or see it. 

in general, dystopias are depictions of a future society where some major element in human life is missing - literacy, security, the ability to speak freely, or love deeply. but overall, the inability to make your own choices tends to be a common thread. 

all my work centers in some way around the idea of choice - of choosing where to go, or when to stay, or what to keep inside. i like my choices to be meaningful. 

from restrictions we see what is worth living for, what is worth fighting for, and what is worth dying for. there is no other way to see it. 

(image via Matched by Ally Condie)

that which does not change

"this story is that of adult Jack,

a lost soul in a modern world,

seeking to discover amid the changing scenes of time

that which does not change:

the eternal scheme of which we are a part.

- Terrance Malick on The Tree of Life

it's almost funny how i really want to see this movie. but only because after watching the trailer you still don't really know what it's about. apparently its plot is shrouded in secrecy for now. but i'm drawn to it because the trailer seems so poetic - full of evocative language, sweeping landscapes, and an eye for the ephemeral.

i like the slowed down moments and gestures - the  emphasis  on the beauty of every day life. the cinematography is breathtaking -  so clear and vivid; i can only imagine what the rest of the film will be like.

i got more interested in the film after reading what the director said the movie was about (quoted at the beginning of this post).

i've always found the idea of that which does not change so intriguing. years ago i compiled a list of my favourite films, and looking back on them realized that many of them had something in common: they revealed the different paths that one could have taken in life and how that would have changed them.

while that is an interesting topic in itself, what resonates with me are those elements that are present no matter what path the person takes - things that are fated. i believe we all have agency, but i have to admit that i've always liked the romantic notion that some things are just meant to be.

there are too many ideas in my head right now, it's so hard to focus on one - my sketchbook is a whirlwind of thoughts.

stay tuned faithful readers...these thoughts will become tangible someday (soon, i hope!)

absence

"when i was young 

i didn't understand

but now, i know, how 

absence can be present

like a damaged nerve

like a dark bird."

- the time traveler's wife

i've been toying with the idea of how to represent a void for years now.  it's very complicated - but intangible ideas always are. after all, how can you show that something immaterial takes up space and has weight?

my thought process is not linear. i find my inspirations from countless places and times, leaving my sketchbook filled with fragmented sentences and half formulated ideas. i can dance around an idea for ages because something essential - the cincher, is missing, and until i find it, that piece won't come to life.

(image courtesy of Morgenstemning) 

there is more than this

this is definitely one of the more laborious pieces that i've done since i've graduated. i showed you all in a previous post some process shots. A LOT of sawing and enameling went on here, more than i've ever done in one piece. i really wanted this necklace done and photographed for the Outdoor Show application deadline, so every spare second i had for a few weeks was spent in the studio.

there is more than this is about both secrecy and emotional baggage using the lichen form as inspiration. in my research i found some images of a form of lichen i had never seen before and was immediately drawn to its open spaces, gentle curves, and geometric forms that were so different from the other lichens i had created. so, from first glance i found myself planning and shaping a stylized form of them in my head for my own work.

i also liked how the combined forms are both broad and encompassing as a neck piece but also revealing in their negative spaces - similar to how emotional baggage is almost tangible on the outside by its overwhelming presence in the mind. but while it may suggest the problems underneath, it gives nothing more than that.

i think one of my favourite parts is actually the shadows they cast, they're so dynamic!

"life's inside the hollow."

set the fire to the third bar

i don't normally post videos but i have to for this one.

i love this song. A LOT. and most especially this live version.

i've always liked the sense of something building to a crescendo, but what i like most here is that there's something very honest and vulnerable in this performance which is not present in the music video. it's the way they move their hands, how their voices trail off, the times they close their eyes - it evokes a feeling that i long to capture in my own work.

i keep trying to grasp that feeling, but it seems fleeting - as if i can only really understand it in that moment. 

nevertheless, i'm working around ideas in my sketchbook. things are slowly coming together, and this song keeps popping up in my mind (and my computer screen). 

"i want my own will

and i want simply to be with my will
as it goes toward action.
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near
i want to be with those who know
secret things or else alone.
 
i want to unfold


...because where I am folded...i am a lie."


- Rainer Maria Rilke