Pheleon's Workspace

It's about time that I show pictures of my space! Originally, all of the magic is supposed to happen here, but because of reasons beyond my control *cough*psychoroomate*cough*, I had to move a lot of my shit back at home to concoct the rest of the commissioned plushies. Meanwhile, I was also busy making Adrian, so now that he's done as well, I finally had the time to clean and re-organize stuff.

Nuit Blanche Recap & Medusa Hoodie

And so, my failtastic skills at documenting strike again: I did not take a single picture at Nuit Blanche last weekend!! o_0 EPIC FAIL.  But in my defense, just about everyone else had huge ass cameras and snapped away crazily, so maybe one day, I will stumble upon documentation of the night.

It went really well!  No drama... well, there was a little in the beginning, but nothing that involved me personally.  I got there about 2 hours before the event, and we essentially had to bomb the remaining flyers in the Place-des-arts area where the main festivities were going on.  We got back a little late, and then I stayed by Adrian more or less the whole night.  Lots of socializing and hipsterish stuff.  When the DJ started at midnight, we had already sold all of our beer, so it was surprisingly more dead.  Apparently, the attendance was like 2900 people! Which is AWESOME! And Adrian really was the star of the show. :D

But among the other things I wanted to do for the event... we had to dress to impress cuz it's Nuit Blanche and a graffiti gallery is the pinnacle of trendy hipster crap. I bought this awesome green-ish leopard (which I thought was snakish/crocodilish) printed fabric...and I wanted to make it into a tunic, but decided agaisnt it when I spent the previous days freezing my ass off in the gallery during set-up.  So change of plans: I rushed to the store and picked up some wool to make myself a jacket!!

I didn't have much time, so I went for a simple design.  My main criteria was a huge hood and that it would be fitted nicely.

The cuffs didn't end up happening. Nor the trimming.

The Making of Adrian (Part 2)

Laurence working on Adrian (WIP)

Completed Adrian!

Okay~ So I haven't updated this in a long while, but Adrian is complete and is now living in the gallery.  My goodness, set-up was CRAZY.  I should have taken pictures but I didn't have my camera, and my friend was a little embarassed by the way we were packing (she said it was so amateur, but it did the job).  And then hauling it over to the loading dock, getting it in the truck, and moving it to the gallery. What a day!

The Making of Adrian (Part 1)

Eek. Haven't blogged in quite some time! I've been busy...figuring out my life, and tackling plushie commissions. I've also been writing fanfiction, very strangely enough. o_0 But I'll save that rant for another day.

And admidst it all, I've also been making a 9-foot gorilla out of cardboard that we've christened 'Adrian'. It's also going to have the Sydney Opera house on its back.

http://laurencevallieres.com/

Sounds kind of random, but there's method to the madness... well, not really, but sort-of.  LOL. Basically, my buddy Laurence is organising an event for Nuit Blanche, and she managed to book a space at the Freshpaint Gallery~ its known for graffiti and street art stuff. So anyways, she asked me if I wanted to collaborate with her, so while we were at the Yes!Montreal Art Expo, in the car after the first day, it somehow clicked to me and I said to her: "lets make your monkey with the sydney opera house out of cardboard!".. I've always liked the drawing she had made a while back, and I would have liked to see it in sculpture.. and in HUGE.

Auguries of the Winter Solstice

A dear friend of mine's birthday falls on the winter solstice.  Every year, I usually send him a text message with something witty or poetic, but this year, he went down south with his gf, so his phone's probably not functional over there. I instead decided to send him an email, and I ended up writing a poem! I had fun with it, so I figure it would be a waste if I didn't share it with others too.

It recounts the day I had on the 21st-- it was supposed to be an evening of 'break' from all the plushie-madness I've been going through... but in the end, it was so friggin' stressful and I felt completely awful!  But writing about it seemed to cheer me up a little bit, so here it goes:

YES Montreal Art Expo 2011

So last thursday and friday, I assisted my friend Laurence Vallieres at an art expo organised by YES montreal.  It was held at the lovely Marché Bonsecours, in the old port of Montreal.  Very scenic, but cobblestone streets are definitely a bitch to drive on, especially with a carload of ceramic sculptures, lol!  But Laurence of course packed everything very neatly, and the unloading went really smooth.

Japan Round 3

I can't believe I've been back for nearly 5 days, and have not written a proper report until now. o_0 Actually, I've been terribly jetlagged and SICK. Gah~ I was actually sick during the latter half of my trip, but whatwith the adrenaline rush, I managed to ignore it. So now that I'm at home, it all came crashing down on me.

All in all, it was a very good trip! I managed to do lots of stuff (but there was a lot more that I didn't do, lol).

The flight there was rather excrutiating. I was flying out of Vancouver and somehow, it took forever.  I honestly don't remember it being that long, but anyways, I managed to watch 3 movies before passing out.  One of which was Usagi Drop! ^_^ I was very pleasantly surprised because I've read the manga, but didn't know they made a live-action film. It was actually just so-so.

My first night was spent at my friend Hitomi's place.  Her parents were so welcoming; they didn't speak a word of english, but we somehow managed to communicate in the end, lol.  It was nice spending time in a Japanese household... it kind of reminded me of my homestay experience 2 years ago.

So the next day, we were quickly off on our trek to Tonosho, on Shodoshima Island, Kagawa Prefecture in Shikoku. Really, a random place in the countryside! LOL We took the Shinkansen to Okayama, which is further than Osaka but closer than Hiroshima.  From there, we took another train to Takamatsu (the mainland of Shikoku in Kagawa) and from there, we had to take a ferry to Tonosho.  Gosh, what a trip! I think it was like 10 hours of travel/transit time... Oh, one might wonder WHY I went to such a place: it was to visit my Calgarian friend Lori who is teaching english as a JET and was placed on that island. 

I was lucky to catch their aki-matsuri (autumn festival).