nothing lasts forever (or awards for nothing meets printshop forever).

as those who follow this blog will know, i have more than a passing interest in stuff. why do objects hold such value in our lives? and why do certain objects hold more value than others? why does that value shift from person to person? where is the line between collecting and hoarding? these questions have lead me all over the place and are borne of my earliest days and experiences.

for over a year now, i have been percolating awards for nothing, a button-based gallery project that addresses some of these concerns by illuminating scrappy detritus and converting it into markers of worth. but finding a venue for the project's initial outing has been a challenge. enter printshop forever, a milwaukee-based one-year project of monthly artist editions that matches awards for nothing so much in aches. what's more? cortney thought so, too!

initially, i had envisioned editions of 1000 unique awards for gallery installation, but since printshop forever is an mostly online project that number didn't make sense. at 100 awards, this first release is still going to be the largest release she will deal with this year (thank you, cortney!). 100 is probably a more reasonable edition to start with, anyway. and it's nice to have conditions that force me to be at least mildly reasonable from time to time.

so here i am in albuquerque with a month (and roughly 1500 miles) between me and the launch of the project. i will be driving to milwaukee (with plenty of stops in between) to hand deliver my edition. i am lucky enough to be piggy-backing on an opening at sky high gallery there to release the first awards into the real world. but more about that event soon. for now, i am armed with a porta file that is quickly filling with scraps from portland, arcata, eureka, berkeley, oakland, phoenix and my mother's home in vancouver and the first awards are seeing the light of day...

dust in the wind.

i have been hearing tales of the museum of natural and artificial ephemerata since the last time we passed through austin. on that tour, i abandoned aitor in bat city for a week while i flew up to edmonton to shoot a movie. he got to explore everything while i jumped from oil town to oil town. his excitement over the museum was palpable - he even wanted to turn our apartment into a rotating display as a result. although we never fully acheived this dream (well, not yet, anyway), i have felt a great desire to visit this inspiration point ever since.

the museum, run out of the front room of co-curators scott and jen's home, is usually open only on saturdays but we were lucky enough to schedule a special appointment today. partly inherited from a mysterious great uncle of scott's, the 'impermanent collection' is a deceivingly small assortment of sub-categorized (aura, trace, natural, artificial, abject) cultural relics - elvis' hair, marilyn munro's cigarette butts, a yeti toy, glass from new york's doomed crystal palace, a bottle of sleep, incubator air, a flamingo head, snow globes, hair wreaths. although this collection is quite dense and dazzling enough, scott and jen also program a themed show or two a year with pieces from their own collection and relics on loan from kindred locals. they just wrapped up what looked to be a great show about the underground and caves. it was extra funny to see the cave room complete with fabric stalactites making its transition into their growing son's room.

the packed collection made my head spin with thoughts of other projects and general notions about objects, story, value and collecting. many of these themes have been ongoing in my life and i very much enjoyed being immersed in an environment dedicated entirely to the exploration of collecting. i was reminded of works by collectors and arrangers like barton lidice bennes, william davies king and even some friends like faythe and leah. as a side note, one of my most haunting regrets of last year's tour was becoming too run down and harried in california to collect on mr. king's invitation to visit his nothing collection. hopefully, i will find my way to rectifying that situation this year. but, i digress...

even with such a relatively small collection, i can't wait to revisit the museum should we ever find ourselves back through austin. even looking at these pictures i see objects whose stories i did not hear. we did go home with a bit of ephemera of our own - a couple of publications from the museum's past shows and impermanent collection. these books are as slim and dense as the museum itself and i hope they serve to fill me with thoughts and stories that will tide me over until we find ourselves deep in texas once again.

red runner.

photo by reverend aitor

i have a new car!

i am not going to lie to you, the crunch to find a new (well, used) vehicle in time for the tour to start was really getting to me. i was secretly within a hair's breadth of cancelling at least our first stop. after all, it is friday and we need to shove off wednesday. i didn't have another moment. but the miraculous has happened to me once again and today i picked up my new ride - a 1998 subaru station wagon. i move up a decade with every car! even more miraculous is that this was accomplished on a budget that was hard to serve in this fancy city. amazing! a million times amazing!

i am definitely feeling some adjustments coming on. i miss boris and his charms (as well as ample storage space). i am also getting used to driving something so...red. i feel like i need to up my style to match the car! like i should be dressing like a hot mom. but the safety features, leather interior, moon roof, sun roof and other silly extras i have never had before (like an antenna) really ease me away from most of my awkwardness. so...let the naming begin! any ideas? we will see what fits as we get to know this new ride.

prayers that the car has no secret, looming issues also gladly accepted.

oh, and i was happy to see that the new car was 'team crafted' - in indiana, no less! i have a feeling this car was made in my friend jerry's hometown of lafayette. is this possible?

the process of finding this new ride would not have been possible without gracious help from michal, dusty, everyone who kicked into the 2011 tour kickstarter campaign and my absolutely wonderful mechanic, eric. thank you all endlessly! the tour is rolling!

bye bye boris.

today i finally screwed up the gumption to open the above envelope, delivered to me by mike. it contains the remains of my beloved boris carefully collected by mike before the tow truck came to take the car to the scrapper. i have to mail the plates in to get my insurance money back but the other little bits may find their way on tour with me in whatever new car i end up with. boris always took care of me before...i kind of want him around still, if only just a little bit.

thank you mike. so much.

car and tunnel sydrome (or more musings on the power of objects).

3151445km by the misanthrope specialty co.

driving back from austria yesterday, i was really focused on the cars on the highway - checking out every station wagon that passed us. i am wracked with nerves and guilt over finding a new car and disposing of my old one (that latter deed is done). i feel like i let boris down and am having a really confused time figuring out my feelings towards what amounts to a bunch of metal. i think some of this examination speaks to a greater relationship with stuff. it's a field of exploration that i often find myself in. after all, i am in the business of making things. i hope they are things that will last, be useful and/or enrich the psychic space of those around them, but they are still objects, material. i do know deal in transcendental awakenings. well, not that i know of, anyway.

my friend sarah recently mentioned me in a post she wrote about similar issues of stuff, repair and quality. i am happy to find compatriots in this material-based confusion. i don't feel much closer to any awakening, but it is nice to know that other people are plumbing these same murky depths.

but back to boris, i still cry whenever i think of him. like now. i cry like he was a friend i have lost. worse, still, i had to made the call to terminate our relationship. it feels obscene to spend time embroiled in such angst over a material object when the world is filled with people struggling through real life and death challenges daily.

still, when i told mike (a dear friend and car enthusiast who helped me retire boris while i was in europe) about my shameful weeping, he had this to say:

I'm glad Boris spent the night at our place and that I had the solemn charge of making sure he went away with dignity.

When the man picked him up he parked out front and asked me to drive it out from the back. I rolled the window down to let him know that he'd have to get in through the passenger side and he stopped me when I went to roll it back up saying no to worry about it.

It was raining that day. I did not leave it down.

thank you, mike, for understanding my feelings possibly more than i do and for being unapologetic about them. none of it is making me less of a materialist, i guess, but it sure makes me feel better.

feel free to call me opulent or share your own feelings about material emotions below.

zascitna.

i know i bought this hand cream just because of the packaging.

final four.

after some technical difficulties, i got the final post up to round out my week guest editing at four for the day. phew! it was hard to finish up on the road and my final collection was far less planned than my previous ones. maybe that's a good thing. this collection of objects found in my pockets was assembled and photographed on a piece of copier paper while tabelling at a craft fair - another testament to the internet's vast acuity for mythologies of omission.

i'd like to thank arden for the opportunity to share fours with the world. it was a new and wonderful experience!

climbing geometries.

as i sort through my office (in accordance with my resolution to do so), i keep finding objects that were important enough for me to collect on the road. sometimes the way things fit together is very clear to me and sometimes it takes a while to figure out. i have been thinking about this a lot as i work towards my week as guest author on the four for the day blog.

these guys may or may not figure into my fours. there is no shortage of fours-of-things around here. but they really go me to thinking about my impulses to collect. i did not buy the pot holder in that louisville thrift store because i wanted to use it as a pot holder. i bought it because it is crocheted, because it is a hexagon and because the progression of colours just slayed me. it seems more at home with this decorative souvenir hex sign (also thrifted) than with the kitchen utensils. so what is this - this impulse to reorder already ordered sets of things? whatever it is, it comforts me. as i brush away the settled junk that does not speak to me these equally unimportant objects (by economic standards) get some space around them. i have to wonder why they hold so much importance and beauty to me.

maybe i am just working towards making my own nonsense string of mythological symbols - like led zeppelin did.

stocking stuffer.

i managed to avoid the outside world entirely yesterday (with much help from cramps). today can not be the same. i have to run out for my daily mail run and perform tonight.

so it's a good thing that these two new pairs of tights arrived in the mail today from the west coast. thanks for making the dream a reality, mama! and just in time for another cold snap.

i don't care what all the complainers say, give me some wool blend tights and felted insoles for my shoes and i can conquer the perceived terrors of a winter wonderland. okay, and a scarf and a pea coat. and mittens. you get the idea.

gourd face.

this is the bottom of the gourd from which aitor sips maté.

this level of anthropomorphism always make me think of missy.

the misanthrope also loves.

look what i found on my pillow a few nights ago. it's a one of a kind special message from my favourite misanthrope. who says hating people means you can't love them?

sorting, cleaning, rummaging.

i have been going through my surprisingly large collection of clothing and trying to pare down. it is surprising how much i own considering that i am usually dressed it something tattered and weird. i have a lot of tatters, it would seem. i also have some untattered things like vintage dresses, aprons and skirts. i also have a few indulgent purchases (usually local designers) that never worked out. those really make me sad because new clothing figures into my budget so rarely.

anyway, i am about to flee town and it is spring so a bunch of these items must leave my home and make their ways out into the big bad world in hopes of finding more appreciative homes. enter the upcoming spring trunk show at the workroom. this time, i am going 100% rummage. so bring out your vintaging eyes and see what you can find!

the interconectedness of it all (or, i got a new tin).

yesterday, leah, jen and i all made a plan for a last-ditch meet-up at the st. lawrence antique market before leah takes off to berlin forever. it was pretty fun. i got to eat a cruddy fried breakfast (in the best possible way) and scored a great vintage tin from holland for a dollar. what a deal! i got it from a man named morris who used to run a shop here called fun-o-rama. the shop existed before my time in toronto but it just so happens that he knew the entire rest of the fun family (uncle fun, sister fun, paper boy, sideshow, big fun, fun rockin'...). i am happy to say that this network of novelty shops is very dear to me. they provide a great amount of infrastructure (not to mention fun and friendship) to our touring. we have not met all the folks involved in this network yet (our travels have not yet been to cleveland or new orleans much). but maybe this next time...

i like it when the world seems smaller. i also like deals.

all things in harmony.

above is the tiny quilted bookmark that jen made me for my birthday. jen knows my wildly snobbish attitudes towards design and bookmarks and has supplied me with successful options in the past. in fact, when faced with an aesthetic challenge, i often turn to jen because her complex and inexpressible requirements of colour and palette dwarf my snobberies considerably. even when i can't understand her mysterious formulae, i tend to appreciate the finished result or her colour combinations (in outfits, textiles or otherwise).

so let me know jen, does this combination of afghan, bookmark, vase and flowers explode in a perfect symphony of colour? or is that just how i see it?

either way, the bookmark will be put to quick use and the flowers (from kayla) are brightening up my mornings considerably.

flower hour.

kayla gave me this big bouquet. i was testing out the new camera on these flowers and realized the 1980's gold found within fuzzy, saturated floral shots.

puzzled.

serena gave me this puzzle for my birthday. just goofing with the wee camera's settings. look at their prying eyes.

wunderkrammer.

here's a little slice of the new curio cabinet that we got from my grandparents. it's a fairly shallow bookcase with a plate groove on the back on each shelf! pretty nifty. in this little collection i can spy work by nadja sayej, ottoman, small stump, margie oomen, tara bursey, the museum of jurassic technology and holly procktor. also acorn tops from my mom, a buckeye from southern illinois, lichen from pender island and the edge of a plate from nevada. as we try to rearrange everything in our home, i am sure it will take better shape. the light was just catching it very well this morning.

for my valentine.

what do you get the dapper man who wants nothing? buttoneers. i made a call to my gal alison at coriander girl and requested a custom creation. he was delighted (in his subtle way) and sports these like a pro. we might be launching a new toronto trend. move over, steampunks; it's all about nosegays now.

i also got to poke around the manic pre-valentine's shop. it is full of lovely stuff:

birthday weekend begins.

yes, sweetie pies are born on valentine's day.

leah has gone away to tour in the snowing states this weekend, so i got an early gift from her. some lovely spinning fibre (ready for the church of craft spinning workshop), a spinning pin and a maw mug. why did i get the mug? because i already had its mate...

legstravaganza.

these arrived in an unmarked package from winnipeg with a bunch of other stockings, some pms tea, a package of ancient cigarettes, some pins and other things.

i have my guesses as to the culprit.