More Lists

Here are two lists I’ve written in the last two days. They aren’t quite complete but I think the general idea gets across. Also, in the comments from the previous post Marco requested I provide photographic evidence of my black, white and red years. I don’t normally post photos of myself on the blog but I will make this exception, here are three photobooth pictures of myself, circa 2003 (there are so many more examples but oh my god, they are embarrassing).

THINGS THAT AREN’T SCARY IN MOVIES BUT ARE TERRIFYING IN REAL LIFE:
-Reality turning from black and white to colour
-If a stranger (no matter how attractive) decides unbeknownst to you that they love you and vigorously romantically pursues you
-The thoughts that all locks could be picked in seconds with a hairpin
-Getting hit with a baseball while watching a major league baseball game
-Someone that decides to disregard all of their professional aspirations and start a longterm relationship with a prostitute they’ve known for a few days
-Finding a snake in your boot
-The casual use of very strong drugs
-Sitting in the passenger seat when the person driving only looks at you instead of the road
-Magic


NAMES I WOULD GIVE MY ENEMIES’ BABIES, IF GIVEN THE RESPONSIBILITY:
-Olga
-Poop
-Quintavius
-Adolf
-Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
-The Chosen One
-Eggwine
-T.E.R.R.O.R.I.S.T
-Carrot Top

Living List to List

I’ve been chipping away at a mountain of work. And though I’ve been working 14 hour days on various projects I haven't completed much. As of right now, I may not have a lot of finished pieces to show for all these hours but I do have a wastebasket full of checked-off daily to-do lists.

Some people have religion, I have lists. I believe they are the most efficient way to manage daily and long-term goals, nevermind being a fun categorical tool! My personal touch when making To-Do lists is two columns of check boxes. The left column is to be checked off once the item has been started and the right column for when it’s finished, to convey the maximum accuracy of your progress!

Though of course, not all lists have to be To-Do lists. They are, most definitely an unrated creative form. I have a few book projects in the works write now and when I can’t find 30 minutes in a day for creative writing I try to at least write a list to get some ideas out. Here are two pretty standard lists (as far as subject matter goes). I will post more (perhaps crazier ones!) in the upcoming days while I chip away at my mountain.

THINGS I WILL LEARN, EVENTUALLY:
-to be perfectly ambidextrous
-flawless French
-basic carpentry
-the names and appearances of about 50 fonts
-advanced carpentry
-how to swim
-how to service a wet chemical photobooth
-how to play the guitar enough to justify owning a guitar
-how to dance, cool

EMBARRASSING PHASES THAT OCCURRED BETWEEN AGES 12 AND 17:
-When I was a hockey fan and occasionally wore my dad’s oversized Guy Lafleur jersey to school.
-The time I learnt everything I could about all the Canadian Prime Ministers with certainty that the knowledge would come in very handy, all the time.
-When everything I owned had to be Anime, no, really, EVERYTHING.
-When my fashion philosophy only had room for black, white, and red clothing, preferably striped garments featuring diagrams of the human heart
-When I wanted to be a writer and titled my first finished novel “Determined Destiny”
-That time I bought a guitar
-When I used Sailor Moon as inspiration for how to style my bangs


The image of my magnet board features magnets from the Regional Assembly of Text in Vancouver, a very fine store indeed.

Photobooth Project: Tracking Desmond

Quite a few years ago I started tracking photobooths by their model and serial numbers. I then began to volunteer for Photobooth.net by giving them the booth information I had collected. With all the traveling I did in 2009 and 2010 I was able to find and document quite a few booths in Canada, Australia and Europe in the hope that people would find them on the website, use them in person and that the booths would then be less likely to disappear as a result. While tracking for the website I also, sorta accidently started tracking something else too.

In Canada we still have many chemical photobooths because we still have a distributor (whereas in most countries, chemical booths are owned privately and are found in bars or museums instead of in shopping malls and bus stations.) Auto-Photo, the manufacturers in Canada (founded in 1953) have quite a few models in circulation and most Canadian cities have at least one and as many as twenty-five booths. The example photos on the exteriors of the booths are not taken in that specific booth, but, I imagine at the warehouse in Montreal. (Photobooths develop photos without negatives so no strip can ever be authentically reproduced). As a result you can find reoccurring individuals on the sides of the booths, which is interesting because some of the booths are decades old. For whatever reason, this past spring I started photographing one individual that I kept seeing. A few months ago, as I was walking to a new booth I thought in my head “I wonder if I’ll see Desmond?” And sure enough, this fellow, whom I subconsciously named Desmond, was featured on that booth. I assume that he must be an employee of Auto-Photo to have been featured so readily for what appears to be about a decade. There are lots of other fun folks to follow too, the women especially are interesting because you can guess the year pretty well based on their hair styles.

Here’s a melange of some of the photos I’ve snapped of Desmond from booths in nearly every large Canadian city. He seems to like the colour orange.

Duck Duck (Canadian) Goose

I promised at the start of December that I would post the finished piece of photobooth art that I made for Fotomaton: Selections, a show in Miami showcasing photobooth art. I meant for the piece, Duck Duck (Canadian) Goose to be a fun and visually simple piece based on the idea of a Canadian artist sending their work South for the fall.

I planned and made the piece in a short time frame, and I’m happy with it though if I had more time I think I would have retaken the strips with the bad hotspots… but then again those kind of characteristics are just part of the charm & frustration of working with chemical booths.

(Click to enlarge the image)

The times are a changin’

Well, after an exciting whirlwind of projects, holiday festivities and a 5000km move across the country, I’m finally ready to dust off the blog. On a personal note the holidays were a very exciting time, I was in Edmonton with my parents and one brother and got to see my sister and bro-inlaw who live in Montreal, my brother who lives in Scotland and my sister and her family who live in Japan. I also made a quick trip to Saskatoon to say hellos and goodbyes to family out there.

On the professional front, my new website and product line, Two Hands Two Crowns will be ready this month. Stay tuned for a contest giveaway I’ll be hosting on the blog to coincide with the launch. I also had pieces in Love and Money (see the post below), I was happy to sell three of my five pieces and additionally I was privately commissioned for two more pieces. To the right is a picture of the ten dollar bill once it was hung. Again, it was a pleasure to work with the lovely ladies in the Toronto craft scene, so my many thanks so all the City of Craft organizers!

In December I was very flattered and excited when I was asked to contribute to a book that is being published on photobooth art. (As the book is still in its early stages I won’t go into any details quite yet.) In the small window of time I had between the holidays, the stomach flu and the move I executed a new piece for the book in a black and white booth. This was done with much help from my mother and brother who didn’t complain for the whole hour and a half that they stood outside the booth (my brother patiently holding the storyboard and my mother endlessly feeding loonies into the machine.) I won’t post the finished piece here as it’s reserved for the book but as a teaser I’ve posted this one frame and will say that afterwards I was covered in bruises.

The biggest change though, by far, has to be my recent move to Halifax. I’m still getting set up in my very cosy and lovely home with lots of help from my roommate. The house was built after the Halifax Explosion in 1917, and being the historical appreciator that I am, I feel very content in this home and neighboorhood. I live a few minutes walk from some lovely little coffee shops and a yarn store! I’m in awe by a city where you can walk from one end to the other in an hour.

I’ve also had a good response to the Photobooth Drawing Swap, I’m waiting for a few more pieces to come in the mail and I’ll post scans of what I’ve sent and what I’ve received (with permission of the senders, of course.) As I have just moved, you can email me at meagsfitzgerald@hotmail.com to ask for my address if you would like to participate!