.the buck stops here

you can now find Shannon at http://wailingblend.livejournal.com/ ... Trust me, it's for the best. Better photo posts, sleeker layout, happier me, and therefore more frequent posts. I mean, check it, it's cool.

. I dreaded those locks.

I just spent 11 hours on a dude's dreads. The sad part is, they're not that fantabulous - our equipment/my experience prevented him from having a beautiful set of tight, maintenance simple dreads. I mean, he's not ruined, he can have good dreads, he'll just need to work hard. He also hasn't quite grasped that dreads = high maintenance hair. That will, as in all cases, either sink in very quickly or lead to some ugly locks.

Turns out being a hippie doesn't qualify me as a hairstylist.
Plan b: professional floral gunstuffer.

. my glass half-overflows.

A slight damper in the works of gallery shows, friends.

I had my first major meeting about the whole gladstone shebang- turns out that the group accountant is a raging pessimist. She spent most of the meeting solemn-faced, and insistently panicked about everything that could go wrong. I spent most of the meeting expressing my confidence in the quality of the group's work, my faith that all deadlines would be met, and that all pressing questions concerning the gallery and thematics surrounding the photographs would be answered in the fullness of time. I'm pretty sure she didn't believe me, much as I tried to get her to be happy about the whole thing.

Since I'm kind of ( eep) slipping into a leadership role, I refuse to be one of those miserable planners that drenches every step with worry. Not I! Who's kidding who? Every adventure is but one mis-step from disaster. Acknowledge it, put your faith in Jesus, get over yourself, and move on.

So there. Ima stoically stick to my optimistic guns.

.It's like we're real artists or something

So, Background: Contact is Canada's largest photography festival. Every May, close to a million people descend on Toronto to visit the 200 formal and informal venues that display the work of over 500 artists, ranging from the super famous to obscure emerging artists. Though the venues can be as small as tiny street corner booths, there are twenty five "hubs" - major exhibitions by key artists in key locations, heavily visited by art dealers, tourists, and professionals.
Most galleries in Toronto are booked for it eleven months in advance, and the hubs are for people like Edward Burtynsky, Nan Goldin, and retrospectives on artists like Avedon.
But my friends and I decided to give it a try. One of the "hubs" had a juried call for exhibitors. Long shot at best. And kind of compounded by the fact that I wrote up our proposal about a half hour before the deadline. It was the first formal proposal I had ever written. The group kind of forgot about it - we were against dozens of established artists and collectives with a lot more experience. We've been dejectedly looking for plan Bs, and had almost given up on CONTACT, since all the galleries are booked solid.

We got it. A full month in the Gladstone Hotel, with our own gallery, promotions, crazy assed opening, in one of the best locations in Toronto.

Holy CRAP.

*note to Chris: this pic of you was one of the 4 images that got us in - thanks for being in front of my lens. You rock.

.Eleanor Winters was a babe

Some good news to brighten up cold days:
1) I was given a lightly used, rather high quality mp3 tape recorder. I mean, it has a wee built-in mic and it doesn't even have to plug into the wall. I'm going to stuff it down my shirt and record strangers on the Tee-Tee-Cee.
2) Positive meeting with a fiery prof of mine today. She said lots of good things - and my ego needed the boost. Then she bought me a doughnut.
3) Best of all, I've been granted a solo show in the Eleanor Winters Art Gallery, February 11th to 16th. It's going to be expensive, and glorious. All stops will be pulled - and every Thom, Dick and Harry will be invited to the opening reception. There will be booze, glory, and art, sweet art. It's a small gallery, but if I work the space, it'll be well received. Anyone want to help me do receipt rubber cementing over the break?

. Off work at five

hurrah! Tomorrow I go to my aunt terry's to be fed. Free food, watching the Colbert report, and talking with a human being who isn't stressed about exams. (I'm betting you don't qualify under that heading).

Sounds like a sunday to me!

.to drive one to drink

aw gee. work's not going so well at the Absinthe pub. I forgot to restock pitas and tortillas, and also to make extra garlic bread on saturday night.

I got called into my boss' office this morning, was told I was taking advantage of the place, was dicking around, talking to my friends too much, and was generally not up to par. I was told to clean up my act or else. I did the head nodding thing, and throughout the whole session felt gradually worse and worse physically.

I went into the kitchen afterward, my hands shaking like leaves. I got tunnel vision, thought, "oh. no," and promptly fainted. CRAP.