Very happy with how these images are turning out, with, of course, quite a bit of work in Photoshop. These are from two different cameras and the images were done circa 2011. From now until next year, I will be Photoshopping! Certain I will make my end-of-year deadline with my publisher. ::Sighs with relief::
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Without sun for a month, I have not been able to take the drawings for my forthcoming book of poetry with Guernica Editions outside for a proper photo shoot in real live full spectrum sunlight. Here is my alternate set-up. Hardly know what I am doing. End of year deadline. Down to the proverbial wire.

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Probably my tenth message to Google's Help desk:

This spam site keeps opening when I open Chrome. It is not in my Preferences and I have never given it permission to invade the browser I use. I've sent a number of help messages to Google. I tried a website blocker, which, as you can see, has made the problem worse. If this keeps up, I will have to make Safari my default browser. If "devunity.org" continues to hijack my Chrome browser, I will be changing to Safari permanently. Chrome is neither private nor secure when a third party takes control of a user's opening pages.
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However you celebrate, together or alone, as a day of feasting or simply a holiday, enjoy!

My day is spent cooking both turkey and tofurky and multiple accompanying dishes for my extended family, and I love it.

For the first Christmas, since getting my adorable cat, Aria, in 2012, I have been able to hang ornaments. I only found one on the floor one morning - she's very good now. It was nice to get out my Balinese hand-made ornaments that I bought at a long-gone store in Toronto, Frida, one Boxing Day. It is only now that I truly appreciate their workmanship, the hands who made and painted them. Lamia is my favourite, followed by what has to be a shaman/trickster figure. They are all quite haunting in their own way.

                                                       

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Sun Stands Still

Solstice, a brief moment, the earth at its outer spin. Nothing stands still in the reversal. The warmth begins its journey back while the coldest months are yet to come. The shifting rotation offers paradox while the seasons glide along, glide along.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful, generous, gift-giving Solstice and brilliant New Year filled with love, health, success, warmth and enjoyment.

In the spirit of the rebirth of the sun:
light your sabre!

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Photo from Split Mask, a videopoem I am again working on.
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Small detail of a piece that I continued to work on after taking this photo. Mixed media, 2015. Really, just a doodle drawing, testing things.
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We had a wonderful poetry and music gathering at Markham House in Mirvish Village on November 29th.

Many thanks to our features - Jeannine Pitas (Janina La Papita) and Amoeba Starfish (Jeff Howard and Phil Ogison Aegidiussen) - thoroughly enjoyed every word and note of music (including dancing! Jeannine, Sharon Goodier, Norman Bethune Allan and Ariel Balevi - dancers all!)!

And beautiful open mics - wow! - Ariel Balevi (who is a well-known and beloved storyteller and shared a poem for the first time publicly), Anatol Oberhand Balaban (who wrote a terrific impromptu poem about Mirvish Village), Daniela Oana (first time sharing her poetry publicly), Sharon Goodier (who shared some of her ekphrastic poetry), Elizabeth Pollack (first time sharing her poetry publicly), Jeff Cottrill (who had us laughing with a great TTC poem) and Norman Allan (who read while Amoeba Starfish were playing).

And, of course, much gratitude and kudos to those who helped at Markham House, Deb and Joe for chairs, coffee, mineral water, and Aliya who was my kind liaison organizing the event.

Our Soirée wound into the evening hours in a beautiful space. Intimate, supportive, friendly, warm, my favourite kinds of hours. Thanks to you all! xoxo

See the Music and Poetry Soirées Picasa album for names and location.

                                                                                    

Video of entire Soirée below

The first 35sec, which is like a Shakespearean Prologue (been doing this the last couple of salon videos and not sure anyone's noticed - John Oughton did the theme music), you get the whole soirée in stop motion, is still blue - too much work to re-do it - but the rest is now in natural tones. I started this video at 11am on Sunday morning and it is now posted here, in my blog, finally. There is a blue version floating around but I don't feel the colouration worked and am keeping that private. :-}


direct link: Nov Poetry and Music Soirée

In order of appearance:

2:14 Ariel Balevi

13:26 Anatol Oberhand Balaban

15:50 Daniela Oana

18:55 Jeannine Pitas (Janina La Papita)

43:13 Elizabeth Pollack

46:42 Sharon Goodier

53:48 Jeff Cottrill

Norman Bethune Allan is somewhere in Amoeba Starfishes' set

1:01:03 Amoeba Starfish (Jeff Howard and Phil Ogison Aegidiussen)

Our November poetry and music gathering was hosted by moi, Brenda Clews, and I also took photographs, and shot and edited the video. http://brendaclews.com
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Another photo of this drawing taken outside while spraying it with a fine art fixative. While not quite the full-spectrum-total-sunlight that I prefer, it was snapped in wan sunlight that appeared momentarily in a grey, overcast day. The colour and detail are better than the night shot I posted a few days ago.

Awaiting a Title, 2015, 13" x 24", mixed media, Canson montval 140lb cold press archival watercolor paper. I thought to call this Climate Change, but that was early in the drawing. After, I began to see many different things in it and am not sure what to call it anymore.

It needs an image or a line from a surreal poem or fantasy literature, or maybe its own poem from which a title can be drawn.

It's just a little experiment and will likely be a Christmas gift this year if the person I am thinking of likes it.
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It's very blue, but that's because the effects that worked in the other locations were too grungy-looking in this one and pushing the colouring into the reds created an anemic green vignette with yellows that I couldn't abide. I began at 11am and a few versions later it is finally rendering, 17 hours later. Note: I did manage to get 5 hours of sleep. This is the last one I am doing - the videos have been a place to experiment and to learn and a teaching tool for the poets and musicians who come to my monthly salons. No-one likes stark realistic video and so the overlays, colourings, flickers, borders that still have to leave my beautiful participants this side of recognisable. Dealing with low light has been very challenging. How to make my camera-person's work, Tripod is his name, his style is very static, somewhat visually interesting has been challenging. Choosing my features, composing the flyer, creating the event page, doing all the promo, hosting the wonderful hours while also taking 200+ photos *and* video (which gives me a ton of work after the salon and can take days to do) is a bit silly and I forthwith announce that the video which may be up tonight or tomorrow will be my last full poetry and music salon video. Only photos from now on!
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Quick sketch of a woman, 2015, 14" x 12", willow and white charcoal on Strathmore drawing paper.

I actually did this October 12th, but only got it photographed today in wan sunlight, really a cloudy, overcast sky. Putting this in a frame on my wall, so no more attempts at photographing it.
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