Positives Attract

About three years ago, on a trip to Vancouver I bought a couple magnets from The Regional Assembly of Text, probably my favourite store ever. I liked them so much that every time I visited Vancouver I made sure to buy a few more. They’re made from vintage papers, rubber stamps and a 1 ½ inch button maker, with a magnet glued to where the pin would be. I eventually bought enough that could spell my first, middle and last name with a few odd letters leftover. I love anagrams and I take an odd pleasure in rearranging these magnets to spell various words.

This fall I found out that the Student Union at NSCAD (the University I’m at) has a 1 ½ inch button maker that students can use for the tiny fee of $0.30 a button! I got so excited at the prospect of making my own lettered magnets that I started to collect alphabet stamps and dead-stock accounting paper, to best mimic my store bought ones. (And no, I don’t want to put The Regional Assembly of Text out of business, it’s just that it might be many years until I visit Vancouver again.)

In the last two months I’ve made about 45 magnets, ensuring I can spell just about any short phrase that comes to mind. I’m going to make more this week of numbers zero to nine and then that’s it, I’m cutting myself off!

For now, it is clear to me that I have gone bananas for magnets and that my collection has far exceeded my little metal white board. But one day I’m sure I’ll be the proud owner of a vintage avocado refrigerator that will undoubtedly double as a playful message board.

Improv Art at 10th Anniversary of ViiF

I was in Vancouver from Sept. 29 to Oct.3 for the Vancouver International Improv Festival, hosted by Instant Theatre (a.k.a. Alistair Cook). Alistair invited me to the festival to make and sell improv art and also allowed me to sell Go Eat Some Poison merchandise. The art making was a little trickier this time than in Edmonton because I needed to bring all my supplies with me. Planning and improv aren't best friends. However I was able to take twice as much time to make the art during the shows and so overall I was much happier with the quality of my work.

I also designed the ViiF t-shirts, which I will post photos of later with some other recent t-shirt designs. The first photo here is from the first day of the festival, before the board filled-up and it was taken by Alistair. The second photo was taken later in the festival once my studio space had become messy, it was taken by Stefana Fratila.

Improv Camp earns title of “Best Camp Ever” for its eighth consecutive year!

This August Improv Camp moved from our home of seven years in Regina to the scenic and lush Gambier Island, a short ferry ride away from Vancouver. I think the new environment was responsible for surging extra energy into staff and campers alike. It seems dull to bring up the weather, but really it is noteworthy. It was beautiful for the eight days, which makes all the difference when most of your programming revolves around outdoor activities. There were so many highs for the week that I’m flummoxed as where to start. Swimming in the Pacific Ocean, eating the most delicious food and being able to ramble on about improv history without boring people all made it a great experience. I really enjoyed the ensemble I worked with, the Boal ensemble (named after the late, great, Augusto Boal). My teaching muscles were still warm from camp in Australia so I found it really easy to bond with my ensemble. I was especially proud of their evening performances and got lots of great feedback as to their skills from other staff. The staff are a whole other jar of rainbows. Most of the counsellor & trainer teams included friends that I made at Improv Camp in 2003, my first year there. I look forward to seeing them every year and hold them dear to my heart. As usual, there were new staff members too, these are people that I’ve added on to my list of “new lifelong friends”. I may sound like I’m gushing all over the place here, but really, it’s the best camp ever.