I am launching my new PET STORE COLLECTION at SURTEX, starts Sunday!
Category Archives: Events
Pattern Pico de Orizaba
I was almost ready to give up on figuring out a way to keep the Pico de Orizaba, a volcano in Mexico, in some new floral pattern designs without it looking too out of place… Took a break and went and sat in the Bell Jar café and spotted the volcanoes in the mural across the street.
Took some pictures:
BOOM! I like the pyramid-like steps up to the mouth of the volcano! I have always admired this mural, it’s titled “The Winds are Changing” and is by artist Andrew Schoultz.
What a difference a coffee-break can make!
After photographing the mural I went right back to my Pico de Orizaba patterns and decided to drop all the flowers and focus on the volcano itself. What eventually came out was a total surprise for me – I am very happy with these drawings.
Here’s a sneak preview. See the entire collection at SURTEX:
The patterns contain other emblems of Mexico like Day of The Dead skulls
The pyramids of Mexico
There are cacti on the Mexican flag
SURTEX runs Sunday the 19th through Tuesday, 9am to 6pm at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. My agency, i2i art, is in booth 340!
You can see more of Andrew’s work here.
Ice Cream at Surtex!
From my Ice Cream collection, a chocolate covered ice cream treat as table-cloth
Love my new tablecloth. Goes down well with the ice cream I brought home from Dolce Gelato. That maraschino cherry really was heart-shaped!
Hot Dog!
Looking forward to showing my Clown Collection at Surtex:
I collect discarded photos of people wearing party hats — I’ll save that for another post!
The only thing on this plate I would actually eat is the mustard
This one was the hardest to photograph because the slice of cake kept disappearing
Kalpna’s Clouds
City of Craft at The Great Hall
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Kalpna’s beautiful display comes down at the end of City of Craft.
City of Craft!
I’ll be assisting the basket of nuts at the rcboisjoli table this weekend!
Come and visit!
City of Craft 2012
December 8 & 9
Saturday 11 am – 6 pm
Sunday 11 am – 5 pm
$2 Admission
Children under 12 FREE
The Theatre Centre
1087, 1093 & 1095 Queen Street West
Fundraising with Fancy
Five Faces of Fancy
Shaun Moore of Made commissioned twenty artists and designers to each decorate five auction paddles for use at the Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line’s yearly Line Art Auction fundraiser taking place November 6th at the Neubacher Shor Gallery.
If you want to bid you’ll need a bidding paddle!
October 10th 100 paddles will be up for a silent auction, 7:30 to 9pm at Made, 867 Dundas Street West (just west of Bathurst, between Euclid & Manning). Bids open at $50. Leftover paddles will be available online and the night of the Youth Line Art Auction.
Once you have a paddle, you can participate in the Youth Line Art Auction Fundraiser, November 6th, at Meubacher Shor Gallery, 5 Brock Avenue (north off Queen, west of Dufferin). Viewing of generously donated works of art available for auction begins at 6:30 p.m. with live auction at 7:30.
LINE ART AUCTION PREVIEWS: Wed. Oct. 24th 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., at Bonhams, 20 Hazelton Avenue. The preview continues Thursday, Oct. 25 to Sunday, Oct. 28. Opening hours : Thursday and Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 12 noon to 5:00 p.m.
Support the Youth Line!
Youth Line is a toll-free Ontario-wide peer support phone line for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, 2-spirited, queer and questioning young people. The Youth Line also provides online peer-support through their online forum and email response.
On Stage: The Haunted Hillbilly
The Haunted Hillbilly
Montréal’s Centaur Theatre
May 8 – June 3, 2012
The award-winning musical based on
the novel by Derek McCormack.
Produced by Sidemart.
I saw it 3 times last summer in Toronto at Theatre Passe Muraille!
Featuring all-original music by Matthew Barber, this season’s production launches the soundtrack on both vinyl and CD. The album includes twelve songs from the play and has guest appearances by Doug Paisley, Justin Rutledge, Oh Susanna, Julie Fader and of course, Matthew Barber (and others!). The album will be exclusively available at the theatre during the run of the show and will have a wider release in June.
The hatch-show style poster for the original theatrical production & Derek McCormack’s book
Matthew asked me to design the cover for him — such an honour!
I wanted to keep the same character I used on the original book cover and poster – the skeleton in a cowboy hat, playing guitar. I found this old photo at a flea market and altered the person’s face to resemble a skull.
Found photo and collage
This doesn’t have the impact I was looking for. Dropping the photo and
updating the illustration I came up with something more effective:
Introducing characters from the story: the lonesome cowboy, and the vampire bat
Something closer to the original poster could work. I used a
typeface that is easier to read at smaller sizes, but the type and the
cowboy are competing for attention — more revisions!
Thinking of bats, some snapshots I took at the South
End Cemetery in East Hampton came to mind:
Nathan Baker, who died by the fall of a tree, South End Cemetery, East Hampton
I’ve always liked those little angels on tombstones. They remind me of bats.
Changing one angel wing to a bat wing and adding cowboy hats,
I came up with this new design:
One of 26 variations – my second favourite, with a leather and denim texture
I wanted to keep the new cowboy so used him elsewhere:
The lonesome cowboy appears in the liner notes
I really liked the leather and denim colours on the design, but we
decided something warmer and more colourful would
be better. It’s more musical, more sideshow, more carnival.
The final design:
Matthew Barber's new 12-inch vinyl
In Montréal? Order tickets for the play here.
Matthew Barber’s webpage.
Derek McCormack’s reading list.
Two-Headed Critters of Canada at City of Craft
My humorous 4×6-foot sideshow posters are now available as a set of five 4×6-inch postcards, professionally printed on matte stock. Full descriptions of these unusual creatures are on the reverse of each card, and there’s room for a personal message, address and postage stamp.
Postcards launch this weekend at City of Craft
and are available in my shop.
Makes a great gift as a set, or surprise someone by mailing one with a quick hello on the back. They could even be framed – don’t forget to check out the larger limited-edition print versions also available in my shop.
Check ’em out this Saturday on the RCBoisjoli table,
alongside fine porcelain and more!
