Jessica Brannen.
Halifax, Nova Scotia.
https://twitter.com/lavieim

Lately: A new year and sort of peeking at it, trying to get acquainted with it slowly. Hello January. You have the same name as last year, but you're different.

Playing in the snow. Reading. Writing. The time of year I start buying fresh flowers. Wanting to paint, sew, bake. More time for writing projects and long walks.

Listening to: Southern Shores, The Radio Dept., New Order, LCD Soundsystem, The Drums, Max Richter, Four Tet, John Maus

Reading: Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, Virginia Woolf, Tove Jansson, Alain de Botton- Essays in Love, Mary Oliver

Watching: Pippi Longstocking

Scotch tape, play doh, book pages and freshly cut grass on top ranking smells list.

Persnickety yet easy-going?
And no more naturally austere than you are naturally vicious. (Charlotte Brontë)

Middle child.

You can make me a Mexican feast and bring me tulips or cosmos.

Bookish, journal-writin' type.

Husband from Scandinavia and 2 kidlets.

Grew up in Chezzetcook on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, playing on the beach and in the woods. Still spend a lot of time there. You can hear roosters.

Lived in Sweden for many years and speak Swedish. Love Sweden and Finland. Visit every year.

Hollyhocks and delphiniums.

Studied art, photo, film and textiles. Have a love of all things arts and crafty. Also gardening, sewing, and writing.

Remember rolling down the hill?

Remember picking Fool's Gold out of the road with butter knives?

Remember that time we sneaked into that white abandoned house and saw a wedding dress in the closet?

Let's go swimming in the ocean.

And go thriftin'.

I can peel carrots really fast.
I'm left handed.
I wish to find secret letters or notes hidden in old walls.
I love good old-fashioned letters.
I love quilts.
I love scraps.
I make a mean pancake.
Collective nouns are funny.

Over and out.

Posts tagged with abstract art

Meredith Pardue
Terrain XXII and Terrain XI
2012

3 notes, Comments

art frenzy!

This trip to the country had the perfect balance of nature time and art time. Both outside and inside, we played, painted and made art.

Which is so much fun with kids because they just go at it. No hesitations, no over-thinking, no over-planning, or worrying about final products. Just the joy of messing with colour, marks, textures, glue! The happiness of making a big mess. (The “blue gloves” hands- I didn’t exactly allow this- it happened while my back was turned…and was he ever pleased with himself.)

We went out collecting rocks and flowers and the like in the morning, so A. got an idea for a collage she wanted to make with what she found.

My sister Eva helped her put it together with the magic of the glue gun.

These awesome houses got drawn by A.

And I love this EA. abstract. (When asked, most drawings are “the moon” or “a boat”, or occasionally a soccer or basketball.)

Even Mama got to play around for awhile. Must have another Art Frenzy day soon.

4 notes, Comments

Art show all welcome

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Eyes

I knew it was going to be fun to see what kind of art my kids would make, but whoa, this is just beyond.

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Get from here to there

I’ve been finding a lot of scribbled and scrawled sort of abstract looking drawings around the house lately. A. has been using them in made-up games, taping them to walls and talking to herself about who is following the map or using the drawing to complete some task.

I can’t really remember what was going on with these ones, but there was a whole elaborate story and there were all these rules and tasks to be completed in order, at different locations, by different characters.

I’ve always liked the idea of drawing maps. Not accurate or literal maps, but maps of thoughts, maps of made-up places, maps of days or everyday events, maps on how to escape, or how to find treasure. This is how you get from here to there; if you can read it. If you can make sense of it. If you don’t lose it or let it get wet or let it fly away in the wind.

I also used to collect old game boards, and for awhile drew silly labyrinths for fun. Maybe this is an idea to come back to, an idea I’d like to mess around with.

In a world with GPS and virtual maps of everywhere, I like the clunky, awkward idea of a hand-drawn map on paper.

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Abstract

I can love and hate abstract art. But when it comes to art kids make, I most often love it. They don’t even know what the word abstract means. They just make stuff. And okay, sometimes it’ll actually look like a dog or a house or a boat or, I dunno, say, ” a pig in a storm”.

And then sometimes it’ll look like this. When I asked what these were she just replied, “I just glued a bunch of craft supplies together. And some have eyes.”

2 notes, Comments