"to be flying is not to be in it"

This is one of the women who spoke about flying and what it meant in her life. "To be flying is not to be in it". So simple and strong. For her to act as if flying was transformative and placed her "not in it".
I am so excited by this work, and so happy when I go to visit and make art. Art becomes this wonderful circle, where, at times, the actual making occurs between us, through conversation.... And then I think of all of the wonderful feminist, conceptual artists...

Yesterday was a day of comic errors. I had baked muffins but did not have the key (turns out it was in my possession)... Showed up with the idea that we could at least eat muffins, if nothing else. We tracked down a worker who was kind enough to open a cupboard and the kitchen - so we had tea with our snack. And some beads. But this gave us also an extended period of time in which we could really begin to explore the banner production.

This is a sneak preview of the banner again! We will show snippets over the next weeks. Thanks!

someday is not any day of the week

We are working on a group of flying women! the women have been so amazing - taking poses with their arms in the air - getting ready for flight! And then I do a bit of digital magic so that we can eventually place them on a banner. Stay tuned to this space as we get ready to produce our first banner with this community of women.

Visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario

I don't have a photograph to represent our trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Perhaps the image would be of the muffins I baked in advance of the trip. Or the beautiful blue sky. Or sitting on the corner waiting for the bus. Perhaps a collage would work.... as we encountered the work of Kenyan born artist Wengechi Mutu. One of the women who came on the trip was Kenyan! So it was a moment of sheer delight. Big thanks to the AGO for a delightful afternoon of immersion in colour, shape, feeling.

Instead I put up one of the banner mockups - a work in progress collage made up of some of the work done. These are not the kind of colours I often work in but they resonate with what we are doing down in the interior of an anonymous building.... Not so anonymous once these get placed outside!

Here is one of our works in progress,

affectionately known as the "crazy quilt." the saying goes "every stitch tells a story." This quilt will keep growing, and in the meantime we are figuring out the technical details of mounting it....

Our art supplies recycling program is successful by leaps and bounds! Thanks to Karyn from the Workroom (a great fabric arts shop at 1340 Queen St.) for beautiful fabric scraps, Emily for paints, and Michelle also for fabric and other items...we are going to get started on some quilting at Mainstay today....

Happy International Women's Day

Yeah! Another year of waiting is over and it's here! IWD!!!! Happy day to all of you. We have been working hard - and just finished writing our grants for production. We are hoping to be able to continue this work beyond the next few months. And the above rose is a thank you to all of our supporters... more flowers in the making!

In our grant writing we noted that we were privileged to write from places we can call home. Having a place called home means so much - it is a refuge, where we can think, write, imagine. One of the hardest things is to have no such place. To be in places where your thinking is disrupted, where there is no privacy, no sense of justice. There are consequences to a culture that does not provide for all of her citizens. We live these consequences, many of us on an unconscious level....

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more gratitude

Yes, we received so much! It was a bounteous day at Evangeline.... Bags of wool, boxes of paint and all that has been previously mentioned! A huge thank you to the community who is supporting us. It was a great day to receive these donations as we could not get into the cupboard that contains the materials.... luckily the donations meant that we could continue into another afternoon. And one of the community members brought us Olympic donuts to eat!

We will be taking a trip soon to the art gallery. they have a wonderful program which supports community visits!

Here is the flyer we made to get more supplies. Yesterday we got a beautiful sewing machine, some drawing stuff and books, as well as boxes and boxes of paints. The sewing machine works perfectly and we are excited to use it....Kim

finding shelter

this day has been one of lovely conversation and knitting, crocheting, learning and teaching. i returned home to read some articles in order to prepare for class tomorrow. The article writes about Canadian policy and attitudes toward disability - and the fact is: we know very little. We do not understand how poverty and disability intersect; how poverty is persistent for some persons no matter what individual choices are made. it is particularly problematic and troubling if the person also lives with a disability or difference. 

Person residing in shelters often experience impairment and disability. Everyday is another day of not quite having enough. Not enough to buy a toothbrush, a new pair of shoes, underwear, socks. The stress is exhausting, it becomes a tangles of knots...

So what you see below is an intial design for a banner - made with the folks at one of Toronto's shelters.... gorgeous isn't it? There is untapped beauty in these old buildings.... let us know what you think!

thinking

it is a cold day today - extreme weather alert. So the chances of living and staying healthy on the streets is diminishing.

what you see above is our "pot" of wool! it is this that feeds us. we received some community donations of wool, needles, fabric, and more... so an enormous thank you to donors! we appreciate the attention - it really means much more than the wool, the needles. it means that people are actively thinking about this community. and by doing so, thinking, they begin to imply relationship.