Houses, with decorative elements, from Chris' childhood street.

I almost forgot to mention that tomorrow night is Nuit Blanche here in Montreal. The Belgo will be nuts, all the big museums are open till 2am or later, the underground tunnels are full of art! and Women With Kitchen Appliances will be performing at the CCA. Should be awesome!

Houses on the street Chris grew up on, in Moncton, NB.

Chris in front of his parents' house (also his childhood home), in Moncton, NB

Some objects that passed through my kitchen and landed on the red counter recently.

Recently I've been marking many papers on Native Canadian artists, specifically discussing the work of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Kent Monkman, Brian Jungen and Rebecca Belmore. All great artists that you may be interested in looking at if you don't already know their work. Yuxweluptun's work is particularly relevant given BC native land claim issues recent highlighted due to the presence of the Olympics and the influx of Canadian government money this event has seen.

Different views from the window at the cottage.

I feel like this is a potential series that I will be working on for many years. Probably inspired by my old teacher Thaddeus Holownia's amazing Jolicure Pond series which is much more consistent in its use of very similar framing, in these images of the pond in his back yard, taken over many years. It is definitely a series worth checking out.

More from the rink.

If you are in Montreal and interested in seeing some photography it is well worth visiting the Belgo Building (372 St Catherine West) these days. On the fifth floor is Gabor Szilasi at Optica (closing this weekend), and Yuula Benivolski (Concordia MFA photo thesis show) at Les Territoires, then on the fourth floor there is Yann Pocreau at Lilian Rodriguez, and finally on the second floor there is Lynne Cohen at Art 45, and a group show at Projex Mtl (opening this weekend).

In other news I am excited that a live feed of my blog can be found on Rachel Hulin's (with Kate Steciw and Danielle Swift) newest endeavour, The Photography Post. This website has links to all of my favourite photo blogs and is a great resource and perhaps even a replacement for my blog roll. Now all your favourite photo blogs can be found in the one spot!

Chris and the cottage hockey rink.

With the Olympics on my mind I had to show you something related to athletics.

Chris making a cutout.

Sorry for the lack of posting. I'm going to go back to the usual daily life imagery and away from the constructed interventions for now. But I will leave you with this amazing artist who I recently learned about through Feature Shoot. His name is Kevin Van Aelst and his clever still life constructions are fun to look at!

Compacts in Westmount Square.

Westmount Square is a Mies van der Rohe building and as such it is an imposing and cold modernist structure that is also a symbol of wealth in Montreal (it is an expensive place to live). I wanted to show this little collection of mirrors surrounded by marble with the idea that it's not the kind of place you go without checking yourself in the mirror a few times, a place where image is everything. I don't know if it really worked out, it's a bit flat, and not so dynamic an image in the end, but I'm glad I made it.

Eyeshadow and Lipstick. The most formal of this series thus far. Exploring the decorative nature of makeup.

Swimsuits, from the Feminine Interventions series

The two print sale/auctions that I am part of are finishing soon:

First there is the Daniel Cooney Fine Art auction in which I have a print from my Domestic Interventions series and that ends this Thursday, Feb 4th, so go visit and bid often!

Then there is the print sale that is raising money for Haitian Relief (specifically for Doctors Without Borders, who will get 100% of the profits), this sale will end Feb 10th and there are still many great prints available. In this sale we have raised just under $10 000! Quite amazing, and I am so proud to be a part of it!

Bobby pins

This one really needs to be seen in person (30x30 inch print). It doesn't translate so well in small jpg.

Heels

After making the Nylons image a peer of mine turned me on to the work of the Brasilian artist Ernesto Neto. His installations are amazing!

Nylons

At the end of the summer my intervention work started to take a new turn and that all began with this image. I became interested in materials associated with femininity, beauty and how women use so many products for the purpose of beauty enhancement. And so I started working with these kinds of materials in order to reexamine and understand them. My constructions remained formal in composition and this decorative element made sense to me since I was dealing with the largest industry of decoration. I'll share more images from the "Feminine Interventions" series this week.

For today: Derick Melander's use of belts.

So back to the Domestic Interventions. The top two were my first attempts at using clothespins and J cloths in the series. I wasn't really satisfied with either image and that brought me to a new stage of combining disparate elements. In the bottom image I used J cloths and clothespins as well as pie plates. The beautiful floating circles that seem reminiscent of mythical suns transcend the materials and will hopefully bring me to other stranger combinations.

More outtakes from the Walrus Magazine shoot.

In the fall I got a call from Walrus Magazine. They commissioned me to photograph a diner breakfast and I was more than happy to do so. I visited a few diners in Montreal and you can see three outtakes above. I chose my red kitchen counter for the last shoot, where I recreated the exact breakfast in the short story that my image was to accompany. It was a great assignment and a lot of fun, especially because with Walrus I always feel comfortable doing things in my style and that always gives the best results. You can read the story and see the printed image in this month's magazine (Jan/Feb issue).

Knitting for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul

Another auction but this time for the greater good. Rafael Soldi came up with a plan, took the initiative, and made it happen. He has rounded up some great photographers all of whom have donated prints in order to raise money for Yele Haiti, a relief organization committed to helping Haitians in this difficult time. The prints can be bought at the auction site here. Prints are 8x10 inches in size, in an edition of 10, and are only $50 each. I chose to contribute the above image of my grandmother doing her bit of charity work. So now you can do your bit and get a great print out of it too.

Bread ties

This was one that I had a hard time with. I collected bread ties for a few months (with the help of many people) and photographed them over and over again. The things on their own are just so amazing that I couldn't seem to do them justice. This image was the last one I did and definitely the most successful. Backlit and through the mesh of a tennis court fence seemed to bring them to another level, beyond the simple plastic beauty of the individual objects.

Today's inspirational artist is Katie Baum whose series Chasing Memory is really wonderful, especially the donut shot.

Also if you are in Montreal be sure to check out Raymonde April's shows. In fact she is having three shows this month, Equivalences 1 at Galerie Donald Browne, and Equivalence 2 at Les Territoires, both of which just opened last night and are located across the hall from each other on the 5th floor of the Belgo Building, and then Equivalences 3+4 which will open at Occurrence on the 30th of January. It's beautiful work full of surprising images, and unexpected sequencing.

Plates

Today is the beginning of another Daniel Cooney Fine Art Emerging Artists' Auction, and the above image is in it. So be sure to visit the iGavel auction site and bid often! The bidding is open until Feb 4th. Here is the link to bid for my image.

And the inspirational artist for today is Tara Donovan; whose use of everyday materials is astounding and exquisite. I would really love to see her work in person.