The In Situ arts festival in late October was an extraordinary experience for me as an artist and a fun one in general.

With two large scale pieces in the main space and an entire room installation (allowing plenty of space for dancers to perform in), it was wonderful to stretch out (mentally and physically) into so much space.

The intensity required to conceive and execute so much in so little time is not sustainable for long (by me at least) but has some benefits. As I was just describing to a friend, it kept the threads of my thoughts white-hot, so every hour of work built 100% onto the previous hours, days and weeks of work – since most other distractions had been put aside... even sleep!

As well, working with the festival's fabulous lighting designer Joe Pagnan and working with light in the drawers and other components of my room installation 'Containment', has forever changed my thinking around light.

The incredible support and enthusiasm of Heather Snell, director/artistic director of the festival, and her wonderful husband Ken, was fertile ground in which to grow (thank you both!).

While I had nothing like enough time to get ready (in fact I am still trying to recover from the 24/7 preparations) but the joyful, creative and expansive experience that this was, coupled with the new work I produced for it, means I am glad and grateful for the opportunity.

And I still love that gorgeous, decrepit building!

Thanks to all who visited! For any who could not, I hope these photos will go some way toward compensating.

It was a busy and fun weekend in Port Credit (Mississauga) on June 18 and 19 at Art-Spread where I was one of over a dozen artists/artisans showing and demonstrating what I do. 

Lots of people I know came to visit (only one had ever seen the scrolls live before), and if you were one of them, thank you.

Have you ever commissioned a portrait? If not of yourself or a family member, then maybe of a pet or even your house?

Most people haven’t. And I’m not surprised. It’s not because they’re expensive, they can be, but so can entertainment systems that become obsolete while the portrait remains just as valuable, just as meaningful, as ever. They can also be very affordable, depending on the artist, and bearing in mind that each portrait is a bespoke (custom-made) item, usually hand-made and often with tremendous skill as well.

But seriously, most people have either never thought of commissioning a portrait or ruled it out for some reason.

Now imagine that I show up in your Facebook newsfeed or your Twitter feed, asking you to tell me the name of one of your hero(ine)s, so that I can draw them. When I’m done, I’ll share it on social media, tagging you in the post and asking you to share it with your online friends (naming me as the artist) along with a little explanation of why you chose that person as your hero.

Doesn’t that sound and feel a little different?
Fun even?

That in a nutshell is my #dailyheroes online portraiture project, a way for me to create something positive on social media without sharing videos of cats I don’t have :-) 

While the portraits are far from daily, (I find I need to do them in bursts), they have become a key part of what I bring to my online life, because of what others have brought to it. 

First of all, others bring me names, and when they do some of them share why they chose that hero(ine). It’s like being given a double gift: I get to know my friend or contact a little better and I also get to know figures (past and present) whom I may never have heard of before, or I will learn more about in my research.

Secondly, others have brought me their enthusiasm, both when bringing names and when “receiving” the drawing, and sharing them, whether they were the original commissioner or not.

I love the conversation that’s resulted, and the nascent sense of community building around it, at least for me.

So, when the producer of Night Time (a late night Rogers TV talk show) approached me about appearing in their current season, I knew which project I wanted to talk about! The segment originally aired on Friday, December 4, and will repeat. I will see if I can get a recording of it to share online.

Meanwhile, if you have a hero(ine) you’d like to share, please do so in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter (those words are live links).

I am posting the results in an album on Flickr as well.

PS: The name #dailyheroes is what's called a hashtag. For anyone unfamiliar with how those work, you can search for them in the search bar on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for example, (you must include the "#" which is the hashtag proper) and if anyone has used the term you enter (it has to be all one word), you will be able to see the posts where they used it.

Recently, when my friend artist Patricia Singer generously suggested I teach a workshop at her studio, I didn't have to think about it for long. Looking at these photos I think you'll understand why I and this small group have been having a wonderful time working in her space and our great luck that the days – and our view of them – have been glorious!

We've been exploring contemporary mixed media, working with photos and other digitized imagery in a variety of ways and combined with all kinds of traditional media.

Collage, working into prints (by drawing, painting, cutting, sanding, peeling, piercing and even embroidering) and trying out numerous image transfer techniques has kept everyone very busy and the days seem to fly by! At the end of each day we take a look at what some other artists have been doing along the same lines to see what's possible and get fresh ideas.

Not everyone has a studio large enough for a group to work in, but if you do, it can be fun and convenient (you don't have to schlep all of your materials somewhere else!). Please get in touch if you'd like to discuss the possibility. Depending on the time of year, my availability can be quite limited.

Reading or watching the news can be a depressing business, which is why some smart people I know take breaks from it, as well as breaks from being online, breaks from having their phone on beeping at them all the time, and breaks from social media.

My recent break from all of that was during a recent camping trip. Wonderful! Great weather, lots of wild turkeys (and their babies) around, lots of reading and campfires, and characteristic of the Canadian shield: rock, water and white pines.

Sometimes I link to videos or other people's stories, sometimes I make my own meme with a quote, like the one above, but everyday I want to put something "out there" that focuses on kindness. 

If you find yourself feeling similarly to me, I hope you'll add your voice in spreading #KindnessMatters, whether it's once or once in a while or once a day. We all need reminders of what matters cutting through the noise of all that other stuff "out there".

Things have been busy here! Kal and I have virtually given up having a living/dining room, for the sake of art of course.

My wall tests and chemistry experiments continue. I think the "chemistry" aspect is soon just a matter of trying one more real variation and then fine-tuning, which is good as I'll re-coat the wall with my preferred mixture and then get drawing madly on it.

The fabric panels (part of a sculpture installation) are being made with the help of a group of generous artist-student-friend volunteers. 

Mira Martinez did the sewing, Pam Bell (pictured below) has put in a lot of hours, Darlene Kulig, Lauretta Santarossa, Helen Jones and Kal Honey have all made contributions (names in black are hotlinks).

Almost four of six panels have their white layer now with the black layer still to go, so if you would like to volunteer to come to Brampton to contribute a few hours, please contact me!

I am also doing prep work on the metal sculpture installation pieces before I paint them.

Though I used to imagine myself as the culturally stereotypical solitary artist toiling (probably painting) in my studio, it hasn't quite worked out that way. It seems my work benefits from community, almost as much as I do!

Pinch me. Yes, that's me on the front page of The Brampton Guardian. The adjacent photo shows the article on page 11, based mostly on an interview with me.

Most people who know me know I do what I can to get the word out about shows, talks, workshops and other events. My philosophy is simple: if I don't invest time and energy in doing that, how will anyone know? Why would I do or offer any of those things if I don't want anyone to know about them?

A lot of artists shy away from promotion and publicity. I can understand why. 

The kind of person whose life ambition is to maximize the time they spend alone in their studio listening to their own train of thought may not gravitate naturally to putting themselves “out there”. As well, there is a set of skills and knowledge involved. 

In my first career as a designer/art director, I worked a lot in both promotion and direct mail. Those are not necessarily considered the premium areas to specialize in, and not because of budgets (some mailings numbered in the millions!). I believe one reason is that the results were so incredibly and immediately measurable. They were both very much a numbers game.

Every promotion and mailing had specific, tangible goals such as how many orders were placed? How many entered the contest? What kind of traffic numbers visited the booth? And so on.

Everything about the visuals, the writing, and the offers (price, free gift, contest, that kind of thing) was geared toward getting a measurable response while being consistent with the brand (which I always thought of as the "voice").

This is not the kind of thing that gets most artists excited, and while of course the work is the most important thing, if that work is meant to be seen in the world, never mind sold, we need to get first some skills in marketing and publicity, and secondly, just a little bit excited about coming up with a good turn of phrase, or an incentive or increasing our email list size.

Back to my photographs: This is my first front page for an exhibition. The only other time I made it onto a cover was when I wrote an article for The Root my alumni magazine (you can check it out by clicking here, the article is on page 17).

More than a little luck was involved in making it onto this front page: first the curator had to invite me to be in the show; then she had to give other spotlights to the other two artists so that I became the press focus; the show needed to be at a high profile venue like the Living Arts Centre; an editor had to decide that maybe the photograph would be a nice addition to the front page, or the content would improve the mix of stories.

Luck tends to find you more if you're putting yourself “out there” of course. So don't be a wallflower :-)

Both my husband Kal Honey and I are artists and art instructors. In our previous careers we worked together as designers and art directors, including running our own little design studio for many years.

Our friendship began many years ago at a publishing company where we began to collaborate regularly on design (marketing and editorial) projects. It worked. Our differences made for interesting results. We discussed our way through points of disagreement. Project by project, the process became increasingly organic (including the inevitable bumps in the road!).

Since switching our focus from design to visual art, we have always consulted each other, discussed problems and ideas, physically assisted in each other's projects. What we had not done was actually collaborate. 

Until now.

We're part of a small group of artists that meets several times a year. Our group connected up with another group and decided to do a responsive collage exchange. What that meant was one person made a collage then mailed it to a 

member of the other group, who then made one to the same size that responded in some way to the first collage. That person in turn mailed theirs to a third person (in the first group) who responded to the second collage, and so on.

Working responsively like that is a great way to give yourself a starting point and maybe discover something fresh in your own work. Collaboration is another whole layer of challenge. I'm not positive, but I think we were the only participants who did collaborate.

Collaboration is good strong medicine for control freaks! Mutual respect is key, as is loosening your grip (from controlling the work and from your own ego). Treating each other and what the other person