Art Show Summer Schedule and New Work!

Okay - so this year I was really enthusiastic when it came time to send in applications for the summer art shows.. the result is that I'm doing a lot of shows in the next 4 weeks! It's a lot to keep track of, so I've made this handy list for you :)

And in case your next question is: "what's new for this year?" - I have an answer for that too! I've been working really hard on a couple of new collections - I'll be unveiling my Ireland Collection at the Riverdale Artwalk June 7-8, including some super-cute little limited edition sets that you may have heard about! (you haven't heard? Follow us on facebook and twitter already, so you won't be out of the loop next time!) Here's one of my favourite images from this Collection:

These images from Ireland were taken over a few trips, one of which was our wedding trip and honeymoon road trip :) There's a lovely story to go along with this collection, and as soon as I have a minute to write that blog, I'll post a link to it here!

I'm also going to be participating in a group show during World Pride at the Artscape Youngplace, with a theme of "Pride in Canada".. this was a great challenge for me, as it's the first time I've been given an "assignment" in terms of what I'm creating. I'm really happy with the results - 7 images that combine animal characters with vintage details and some playful text. Here's one of my favourite images from this set, "The Fortune-Teller":

And since I know that not all of you are in Toronto or available on weekends, there are also two new places where you can find perfect happy art gifts (either for others or yourself!): the first is my shiny new Etsy shop here, and the second is my awesome Society6 shop where you can get everything from tote bags to cushions, wall clocks, or even a shower curtain! As a bonus, Society6 has free shipping this weekend if you use this link!

Alright, art-lovers - it's time for me to get some sleep before my art show marathon begins tomorrow morning! Hope to see you in an art-filled park very soon!

xo Jessica

Getting ready for The Artist Project!

It's now less than 3 weeks away - my very first indoor show - so I'm busybusybusy finishing up some new pieces and designing my booth. This would be pretty exciting no matter what, but The Artist Project holds a bit of a special place in my heart and here's why..

Two years ago, my friend Carolyn and I heard about this art exhibition at the CNE called The Artist Project. We decided to meet up and spend an hour or two checking it out. We spent six hours there - eyes lit up and imaginations set on fire. We're both creative people, but at the time neither one of us would have dared to consider ourselves "artists". Since then, we've both set up studio spaces and started devoting time to explore creatively. To make pretty things for the sake of making pretty things.

One of the most touching moments in my life was at my first show (the Queen West Art Crawl), when Carolyn walked into my booth and started crying - because she was there when the seed was planted. When I realized that it was not only possible, but really important to me, to create and show (and hopefully sell!) personal work, it literally changed my life. Don't get me wrong - I love photographing weddings, and tiny babies, and kids being kids, and locally designed fashion, art, and craft - but all those things are other people's creations. And I wanted to make something that was just mine. To ask for advise and opinions and be able to completely ignore them if I wanted. To take the love and joy I have for colour and texture and line, and make it into something that someone else can love too. To take the thousands of images that I have from years of travelling, and turn them into pieces that capture the way it felt to be on those trips.

So - here we are - two years later. I applied for The Artist Project months ago, and held my breath. I feel so honoured and fortunate to have been selected to hang my work among a crowd of such talented artists. I feel excited. I feel terrified. And it's all awesome.

And to honour the occasion, I've been working on some new pieces - collections of sets of 3 small pieces that go together - which I'm totally in love with :) They are the cutest and most colourful pieces yet, and I predict that they'll be crowd pleasers. Each and every one of the "birch panel" pieces that I've made are one of a kind (because I hate how reproducible photography sometimes is), so if you love any of them be sure to grab them before they're gone!

 

Bonus: I have two pairs of tickets to The Artist Project show in Toronto February 21st-23rd - if you're interested, just mention this on facebook or twitter and be sure to tag me so that I know to enter you in the draw (here I am on facebook, and here's me on twitter) - like my facebook page and follow me on twitter to get 4 bonus entries!!

Thanks a million for all the support and hope to see you at the show!

xo Jessica

Fine Art Pieces - The France Collection

I love travelling. There are few things I enjoy more than the adventure of exploring somewhere new - the unfamiliar sights and sounds, the musical rhythms of each new language, the way the flavours you taste seem somehow connected to the colours around you..

Every time we go away, people ask if it's for "work" or for a "holiday". If you've ever travelled with a photographer (and I don't really recommend it!) then you know there's no distinction between the two most of the time. Being immersed in a different culture - even just being pulled out of my everyday routines - frees my mind up to see things in new and fantastic ways. I roam city streets and countrysides with my camera never far from my face, greedily gathering new images. 

For years now I've been gathering images, storing them and backing them up. And nobody ever saw them. I hadn't decided what they were meant to "be" yet, and I didn't want to force a purpose on them. 

Then a couple of years ago, I started to go through my thousands of images. Not just the travel ones, but dozens of images taken in my kitchen while preparing dinner, images of words from signs with great fonts, all the images I've taken over the years with no clear purpose other than the fact that something about the subject matter spoke to me. And I started to see new images. Scenes that existed nowhere outside of my imagination - yet. I created a series of scenes that used colours and graphic patterns to turn regular places into fantasy worlds.

I make giclee prints of my finished images on watercolour paper, and then hand tear or sand the edges to give them a soft, organic look. These archival prints are mounted onto boards that have been softened at the edges with more sanding, and then painted or stained to suit the image. Some have stencils along the edges. The final step is multiple coats of satin finish, resulting in a piece that is pleasing to the touch and UV protected.

My first exhibition of these finished pieces was at the 2012 Queen West Art Crawl, and I was really touched by the amazingly supportive response they received. For a peek at some of the smaller pieces, check out this post. To see the full collection in person, please come check out my booth at one or more of these upcoming shows in Toronto:

Cabbagetown Art and Craft Festival - September 6-8, 2013

Danforth East Art Fair - Sept. 14-15, 2013

Queen West Art Crawl - Sept. 21-22, 2013 - booth M36 

Hope to see you soon!

xo
Jessica

Fine Art - smaller pieces available from The France Collection

As many of you know, last year I began creating my first collection of photo-based fine art pieces using images from my trip to France a few years back. I had a great time selecting the images to print and an even better time preparing the printed images for my first outdoor show last fall (the Queen West Art Crawl in Trinity Bellwoods park). 

I had giclee prints made on watercolour paper, and then hand sanded or tore the edges to give them a softer feel. I mounted them onto boards that had also been sanded to soften their sharp edges, and painted or stained to match the images. I gave all of them a few coats with a satin sealer to protect them, and added ribbon embellishments  or stencils to a lucky few.

The larger pieces have many images layered together to create surreal scenes - check out this post to see some of my favourite examples :)

The smaller ones are mostly images that are so close up that they become abstract gems of colour and pattern..

My favourite part about these smaller pieces is that because of the 1 1/2" depth of the boards, I was able to wrap the image around to two or more sides on many of the pieces.

They range in size, but most are either 4x4" or 6x8" (with a few 6x6") and they are perfect either as part of a set of 2 or 3, or just on their own to brighten up a smaller spot on your wall :)

These pieces are all one-of-a-kind, so once you fall in love with one you'd better grab it before someone else does! I'm happy to announce that you can come by and see them in person and hear their stories at the following upcoming shows:

Cabbagetown Art and Craft Festival - September 6-8, 2013

Danforth East Art Fair - Sept. 14-15, 2013

Queen West Art Crawl - Sept. 21-22, 2013 - booth M36 

To get all the lastest information about upcoming shows as dates are added, be sure to Like my Facebook page and Follow me on Twitter :) And if you have any inquiries, please feel free to email me!

Thanks and see you soon!

xo

Jessica

Some of my Favourite Images from our Trip to Japan

As many of you already know, back in October I finally got around to living one of my biggest - and longest put-off - dreams: going to Japan :) We spent an amazing three weeks travelling and photographing this fascinating culture and the lovely people who live in it. 

We went to Tokyo, Mt. Fuji (although not UP Mt. Fuji), Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, and spent an amazing week living and working on a farm in the mountains in Gifu. We spoke broken Japanese, broken English, and some barely-remembered high school French. We ate things with names like "octopus balls" (and enjoyed them!). We learned how to make sushi from a woman who was deemed an expert due to her 30+ years as a Japanese housewife. We braved multiple onsen (hot springs) and were not shunned for our tattoos. We saw a few real Geisha and many young women dressed up as Geisha for the day. We stood in a cage to feed wild monkeys who live outside of the cage. We were enthusiastically greeted by teams of employees at every restaurant, shop, and museum. We heard automated greetings and/or warnings from escalators, elevators, and subway entrances. We learned the difference between saki and shochu (the hard way). We stood shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of people crammed into the narrow streets of a tiny village while men paraded with huge fiery torches.

It was AMAZING. 

I have the distinct feeling that I'm still unaware of how much this trip changed my life, which is a pretty awesome feeling :) 

Being photographers, we of course took many photographs while we were there. We also made 80 short digital videos, and shot 4 rolls of super 8 movie film. Needless to say, there's a lot of really amazing material to work through now that we're back. The best of these images will be included in future art shows and exhibitions (stay tuned for details), and I'm going to work on piecing together the video and film footage to create a short piece in motion. And (as with past travel images) I will be selecting a handful to use in the creation of my photo-based multi media art pieces, which I am SO looking forward to making :) I've already started one, which you can see below..

I can't wait to show you more of these images from our awesome trip, and tell the stories that go with them! I'm currently knee-deep in application and submission forms, so stay in touch to get the latest news on where we'll be :)

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Thanks to everyone for your much-appreciated on-going support! You guys are the best!

xo
Jessica + Norman

Sneak Peek of our Awesome Japan trip (October 2012)

As some of you already know, this October we went to Japan - a trip I had been dreaming about for over a decade, and which my lovely husband not only agreed to but actually set in motion. I had been putting it off for ages, at first because of how expensive I assumed it would be, and later because secretly I was afraid that there was no way Japan could live up to the expectations I had steadily been building up. I will admit - I had the entire country and culture on a pedestal. In my mind, it was a fantasy land where the distant (and very romantic) past happily coexisted with a sort of science fiction future, where everything was not only steeped in meaning but also aesthetically stunning. Long before I ever went to Spain, France, Ireland or Mexico it was the only trip I ever wanted to take - and yet it was the trip I continued to not take. 

So last January when Norman and I were discussing possible places to visit,  I mentioned always having wanted to go to Japan. In that way that people who are not you have of making very obvious and simple observations about things that you have made very complicated in your own head, he said "so let's go". And that was it.

We ended up going for just over 3 weeks in October. We took one DSLR, one point-and-shoot, and one Super 8 camera. There are now over 2300 images, 80 short videos, and four rolls of Super 8 film, along with a journal that is so far three books long. Needless to say - it's going to take a while to edit through all this and process and absorb the whole experience, but so many people have asked to see pictures from our trip that I thought I would share a few snippets :) I will also share the two major things I learned as we were in Japan - 1. it doesn't have to be nearly as expensive as I thought it would be, and 2. it is even more awesome than I could have imagined :)

Here are a handful of my favourite images.. some are from the farm we stayed on in Gifu, and others are from Kyoto and Hiroshima (I promise - stories to follow at a later date!) - enjoy!

This last image is a piece I put together by collaging different elements of images from Tokyo, Kyoto, Miyajima, and the airport in Taipei (seriously!) - it's my plan to do a collection of collaged pieces as I've done with my France images (if you missed those at the Queen West Art Crawl this fall, stay tuned for information about upcoming shows..)

Have a great weekend!

xo 

Jessica

Shinsedai Cinema Festival - countdown to Japan trip!

As you may or may not already know, I've wanted to go to Japan for over a decade now. I can't entirely explain why, I just love Japan in my mind and it's been a dream of mine to one day go there. When Norman and I were talking about this 6 months ago, he said "let's go then" - and somehow something that I'd been putting off for years was something I was booking flights for as I dusted off my Japanese language CDs. {At this point I should admit that my whole life I thought I was a romantic-dreamer sort of person.. and then I met my lovely husband, for whom the notion of "can't" doesn't seem to exist. He makes me look like a pessimist. I guess that's what happens when you grow up in the land of Lepprechauns and Fairies :) }

Anyways - we've booked our flights, have so far learned how to introduce ourselves, count to 10 and discuss our hobbies. I've been devouring books about Japan, both memoirs by other foreigners who've visited and translations of Japanese literature (currently reading "Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan" - awesome!). We've been trying to talk to everyone we know who's ever been there. So even though I know that the Shinsedai Cinema Festival showcasing Japanese films wasn't planned especially for us, the timing was perfect :)

It was a four-day festival at the Revue Cinema and included 12 main films and a selection of shorts that were shown before the main ones. (Three of the "main films" where actually collections of shorter pieces as well, and one was a double-bill of two hour-long "Pink Films"). I'm sure there will be loads of proper film critics out there writing about these films, so I'm just going to mention what were my personal favourite moments from the weekend..

I got the Deluxe Festival Pass, and went to everything. Norman had a 5-film pass. Here's what we saw:

Ringing in Their Ears - this was Norman's favourite. It was half documentary about a Japanese indie band about to break out into major lable stardom, and half imagined stories about a handful of fictional fans of the band. It was preceded by one of the best shorts of the festival, Back. This followed two kids in reverse as they walked through the streets, with all sorts of excitement around them.

Enter the Cosmos: Takashi Makino Special - This was a collection of three shorter pieces of "experimental filmaking". I'm going to be honest, I'm not THAT arty. I did fall asleep in part of the middle and last films, which were incredibly abstract and a bit psychedelic. I - more than once - wondered "how much longer?". But here's the crazy thing: watching something that isn't actually demanding anything from your brain as far as paying attention goes, allows your mind to sort of float around. At first it was my never-ending "to-do" list very vividly presenting itself. And then my mind wandered in a way that I don't normally have time to let it do. By the end of the movies I was a bit bored and a bit relieved to be going home - but after leaving, I felt really awake creatively.. it was sort of like exfoliation for whatever part of the mind is in charge of "possibilities" and "ideas", the part that gathers dust as we worry about paying bills and meeting deadlines. So these three films were not something I would say I enjoyed as films, but I would say I enjoyed the experience they gave me - which was a very unexpected and great one.

Ghost Cat & The Mysterious Shamisen - this was cool because it was an old (1938) black & white horror film, with all the women running around in kimonos.

Zero Man vs. The Half Virgin - really funny, loved the foreigner speaking bad Japanese (that will be us!) and a great ending. It was preceded by a short called Dark on Dark about a very busty woman going around placing her breast on men's heads to cheer them up - a good pairing :)

The Naked Summer - a documentary about butoh dancing. It follows a group of around 40 people at a butoh dance retreat, leading up to an awesome final performance where everyone wore not much more than gold paint and danced by torchlight. This was beautiful and was one of my favourites.

{in between these films I met my awesome friend Amanda for ice cream and a walk down Roncesvalles - this strip has changed a lot since I lived near it 7 years ago, and has some fantastic little shops and places for ice cream!}

From the Great White North: Yubari Fanta Special - this included three shorter films: Hole and Pole, The Student Wrestler, and Mrs. Akko and Her Husband. All were really good; I especially loved the humour of the first one (where highschool students are taught to overcome their enemies by out-pleasuring them), and the second one was also really funny (a documentary about the lives of student wrestlers and their lack of girlfriends).

End of the Night - I didn't really like this one as much as many of the others, although it ended up getting an honourable mention as the film that very nearly won the audience award, so obviously other people must have really liked it..

Battle Girls & Bondage: a Pink Film Double bill - both these movies were entertaining (the first one had a great low-budget mid-80's hilarity factor), but for me the highlight by far was the live performance right before the films. A dancer in a sexy-tized kimono wielded two gauze-wrapped fans in such a way that it literally looked as if she was dancing with jelly fish. It was so beautiful. There was also a short documentary about the history and making of Pink Films, which was really interesting and funny.

Hiroshima Nagasaki Download - this was awesome. It was a documentary about the survivors of the atomic bombs who are now living in North America, and also ended up being about the emotional and psychological journey that the filmmakers experienced while travelling around and interviewing their subjects. We both really loved this film, and it won the audience award. It was preceded by one of the best shorts, called On This Side, about an elderly couple struggling with illness. I don't think a single word was spoken from either character, but the visuals and the music beautifully showed a heartbreaking story. I cried. And then after the feature documentary there was an interview on stage with a Hiroshima survivor which was also nothing short of amazing.

Good For Nothing - also not one of my favourites..

Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits - this was a collection of animated pieces curated by festival co-director Jasper Sharp to showcase the vast variety of non-Anime animation being created in Japan.. a lot of it was a bit dark in theme, most of it was very good. Also due to the lack of subtitles it was another time during the weekend when I felt my mind was free to just absorb and enjoy.

{I actually went for a short walk after this screening and took some amazing photos in the neighbourhood :) Three of these images ended up being part of my 7-image submission to my first ever photography competition that was completed on Monday.. here's one of them:

Plus, I somehow had time to find the best kid's book ever (called "Go the F##k to Sleep") in a great bookstore on Roncesvalles, which I brought home with me because everyone should have a copy of this book.}

Tentsuki - I had a couple of moments when I wondered what the heck was going on in this film, and did it matter, and was I enjoying it even if it didn't make much sense..? There were some really beautiful shots though, so I enjoyed the watching of it (if that makes sense). And at the very end, I suddenly thought of Kafka. And how in the end none of his work really went anywhere or made any sense, but you somehow loved him in spite of it. That's how I felt about this film :)

Phew! It was a marathon that involved much planning ahead with snacks and meals, much stretching between screenings, much adding and subtracting of clothing layers due to the extreme heat outside and air conditioning inside, and much smiling :) I can't thank co-programmers Chris MaGee and Jasper Sharp enough for a fantastic experience and a great launch into the planning of our trip! If you missed the festival this year and have any interest in Japan or independant films, make sure to catch it next year!

Norman & Jessica's Destination Wedding + Photography Adventure (Part 8)

Alright - I'm slightly embarrassed at how long it's taken me to blog the story of our overseas wedding + honeymoon that happened a year ago (!) SO I'm going to step it up a bit and aim to complete the story by the end of July. It's been so nice re-living all of the amazing memories and there's a big part of me that never wants it to end, but I realize that you, the reader, may eventually want to get to the end ;) If you are new to the story and would like to start at the beginning, here it is :) If you just want to refresh your memory of what happened last, here's Part 7 - Cork to Killarney.

So without further ado..

Part 8 - Killarney to Galway


Taking the advice of the Lonely Planet guide book, we decided we need to see Eyeries as it's meant to be one of the most picturesque little towns ever in the world. It was, as this quicky little video shows..

We drove the north side of the Ring of Beara, and the whole drive was really beautiful. The biggest problem is that you want to stop every 5 minutes to take pictures (which is why we didn't actually make it all the way around the Ring!)

This is just right around the corner from Eyeries - more beautiful scenery, more beautiful light (I love Ireland!) Norman took this one of me (below, left) while I was setting up for the one of the two of us (immediately below).. there was a fair amount of chaos running back and forth and taking that jumper off and on between shots (it was freezing!), so I was always really excited to end up with an image like this one that we were both really happy with :)

Hopped out at the side of the road for this one - seemed only fair since I had my "New Bride Street" photo back in Dublin..

 And this - drumroll please - was I think my favourite view in all of Ireland :) It was called Ladies View lookout and it was simply magical..

 After such an amazing day and with my mind full of all the sights we'd seen, I had trouble sleeping that night at Paddy's Palace.. I had this panicky feeling that somehow we were going to "miss" great shooting opportunities, and that we couldn't possibly have time to really get the most of our trip. The problem is that I think once you start thinking of your trip (and especially your honeymoon!) as a list of goals of places to see and photos to take, you run the risk of not enjoying any of it. Norman and I have very different styles of approaching projects and lists (as we learned with our renovations..), so there was the added problem that we were disagreeing and that caused a lot of stress and tension on top of it all! So while I was sitting up in the middle of the night having a slight freak-out about all this, I started to do what came naturally - I made a shot list. It's funny because with other couples' weddings I make up the shot list weeks in advance, and with our own pictures here I was a few days into shooting before I actually started to sketch some ideas and list specific things I wanted to make sure we got. And even though this sounds like maybe going the wrong way about getting more relaxed, it soothed me to have a "big picture" that I could refer to. I'm so used to doing it for other people, and I think I've underestimated all this time how comforting it is to have someone take charge. So in a way I had to learn to separate myself in my mind into "the Bride" and "the Photographer" so that the professional side of me could be prepared and organized, and the personal side of me could be happy and smiling and in love. And still speaking to her Groom ;)

The next day we drove to Brigid's Garden which was fantastic. The garden is divided into four "seasons" and planted to represent the annual cycles of nature as well as the overall cycle of life - I love that they had such a beautiful concept and they did a really great job of it. This pond was full of tiny newts, which I'd never seen before, so we watched them swim around for a while before heading over to write a wish for the wish tree..

It was a really lovely day and felt a lot more like a trip and honeymoon than like a crazy assignment we'd given ourselves, which I think was exactly what we needed :)

That night after checking in to our B&B in Galway, we drove out through Salthill to Spiddal to see the coral beach (instead of sand, it's literally all tiny broken up pieces of coral!). The light was stunning for the entire drive, and disappeared just before we got there. In my new-found state of photo-zen, I tried to just appreciate the beauty we'd seen and not be disappointed in the fact that we had "nothing to show for it". I think this was the only part of our trip that was specifically a Gaeltacht area, which means they don't speak English. Other than stopping for directions once at a shop, we didn't see anyone else while we were there. 

After the beach we headed back to Spiddal town to go to Tigh Hughes pub which is famous for having Irish music and a great atmosphere. We were two of six people there that night, and were somewhat confused by the lack of liveliness until one of the men came over to talk to us. He explained that a young man in the town had been killed on the road a few days back, and out of respect for him there would be no music. We ended up talking to this man for over an hour, and he told us stories of building a hospital in the Black Forest with three guys from Belfast who showed up to work with a banjo and a guitar - it was an unexpectedly great evening. In my journal, I noted that we "managed to get back to B&B in spite of drunk navigator" ;)

Stay tuned for next time, when we visit Knock and the gorgeous seaside town of Westport!

xo

Jessica + Norman


Dress: Cabaret Vintage
Headband: Oh Dina!

Recalculating...

So - the big news is that after 7 years of saying "someday",  I just moved into a new studio space :) The story behind the big news goes like this..

Lately, with the help of the awesome Selina Maitreya as a coach and guide, I have been taking some time to look at the big picture of my business and life and really being conscious about considering where I would like to go with both. Selina has been a consultant to photographers for something like 30 years, and I've been doing her program (The Photographers Path) for a number of months now. The point of it - which sounds deceptively simple - is to figure out or remember what it is you truly love to shoot, and then build your business on a much narrower niche than you probably have in the past so that you are shooting what you love. Since you're lucky enough to love what you do, you'll be passionate in your execution of the work and it will show in your fantastic portfolio and very happy clients. There's a certain amount of faith involved - a bit of an "if you build it, they will come" kind of mentality - but it's been one of the most amazing processes I've ever been through.

I believe in Fate. I met my husband in the South of France a few years ago when our separate vacations to Nice overlapped by a few days - if that's not Fate, I don't know what is. It gives you this dizzy auto-pilot sort of feeling, when you're just doing what you're doing even though it may seem totally crazy to those around you - because you "know" it's what you're meant to be doing. Well, my friends, this was similar.

Back in March there was a show called The Artist Project down at the CNE in Toronto. A couple of months before that, a fabulously talented artist named Tanya Kirouac hired me to photograph her new work for the show. I don't know if you've ever been at a small-scale commercial photo shoot, but it's really just the two or three of you working very closely together all day - and you talk. Tanya and I talked about Art. And we talked about her show coming up, which she very kindly gave me a ticket to. Seeds had been planted in my imagination, although I'm not sure I realized it yet.

About a week before the show I got an email from my lovely friend Carolyn. We hadn't seen each other in quite a while, and in her email she mentioned that she wanted to get back into painting and making art again - even though that might sound "crazy" - and I thought it would be perfect if we went to check out this show together. We went with the intention of spending a couple of hours, and before we knew it 6 hours had flown by. It was awesome. We had such a great time, and I felt like I was floating on a cloud of inspiration over the following days and weeks :) Those unknown seeds were starting to sprout...

The only problem was this: being an "artist" was REALLY far from my current business model (haha) and something I hadn't even really dared to dream about since high school. I struggled (and I think so did Norman) with trying to imagine such a huge shift in what I use my photography for.

A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting with another amazing artist to discuss cataloguing her portfolio. Christine Kim told me a quick story about the point when she realized she wanted to be doing her art full-time. She said "you know when you go off-course and the GPS lady says "recalculating"? That's what it felt like. I spent about a week recalculating." This was exactly it. I needed some time to get my head around how this would fit into my life. In marketing terms, it's "repositioning". No matter what you call it, it's the most terrifying and exhilarating point my business has ever been at.

One of the other artists I spoke to at the show was a photographer/painter named Suzanne Ernst, whom we had met at the One of a Kind show a few months earlier. I was talking to her about the experience of doing shows, and she told me that applications for the Queen West Art Crawl in September were due at the end of the month. "Just apply" was what she said, and something in the simplicity of how she said it made it seem easy. So I did. Haven't heard back yet, so we'll see what happens.. {*update!* I've been accepted into the show, so now I'm in a state of blissful urgency getting ready for it!}

All this is sort of to explain what I've been going through in my head over the past months. And also to explain why I'm a photographer who just moved into a studio space that isn't really a shooting space. It's  a making space. I plan to be making beautiful pieces there, though I don't quite know what they'll look like yet!

When I look back at goals that I've set personally and for my business over the past few years, TRAVEL is the biggest consistent. I thought (and still think) "isn't it great that I have a job that allows me time to travel?" Now I'm starting to think - what if all the amazing experiences and things that I love about travelling could be made into works of art that would be a "real world" version of what it feels like inside my heart to be in these places and see these things?? I think it just might be awesome :)

Will I still be shooting commercial work? YES - only now I've really narrowed down who I want to work with. The people who have always been my favourite commercial clients: the Makers. Fashion designers. Jewellers. Ceramic artists. Glass artists. Painters. Multi-media artists. Interior designers. I love working with the awesome clients I currently have (here are some of them), and I love meeting and chatting with potential new clients.

Will I still be shooting weddings and babies? YES - I love LOVE. I love the emotions, the moments, and the beautiful details of these amazing parts of people's lives. I love building these relationships until I'm practically part of the family. I love designing gorgeous albums for my couples. I'm really looking forward to doing more of the awesome custom collages we just started offering.

Sheep, Northern Ireland

So what's going to change? Those thousands (and I'm not exaggerating!) of images I have stored on various hard drives in folders called "personal", all my travel images and other stuff that I shoot for pure joy, will finally see the light of day :) Norman has been gently pushing for two years now for me to print up and show my pictures of Northern Ireland, and I also have some beautiful images from Mexico, Paris, the south of France, Amsterdam, and Spain. This fall we are going to Japan, which is a trip I've been dreaming about for over a decade (!) and I can't wait to see the images that come from it :)

Palais-Royale, Paris (Man Sitting)

Also, I'll be the happiest me I can be :) Right now I've got that feeling of knowing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's this awesome glowy giddy feeling..

Yellow Wall, Mexico

Thanks so much to everyone mentioned for all the guidance, inspiration, and chats. Thanks to Erin Tracy, Jenny Greco, Melanie LeBlanc, Dawn Pearcey especially for YEARS worth of "figuring it all out" conversations during shoots and over tea :) Thanks always to my Mommies, who have shown by example that there are no impossible dreams :) And the biggest thanks to my Lovely Husband, Norman, for supporting what he doesn't always agree with, and for trying so hard to understand the way I see the world. It means everything to me :)

Locks, South of France

I'll keep you posted on my progress ;)

xo
Jessica

{p.s. - do me a huge favour and please scroll back up to the top of this page and click on the "love it" heart at the top right - thanks so much! And if you don't already, follow us on facebook and twitter!}

Romance and Adventure :)

I realise I've been totally neglecting this blog, but I have a really good excuse! Norman and I got married in Belfast May 5th, and have been doing a road trip around Ireland and a quick visit to Spain as well - the best part (from a photography point of view) is that we've brought my dress and all the camera equipment with us everywhere, and have been taking our own wedding photographs as we go on all these adventures :) I know this is a bit of a tease, since I don't actually have any images to show you yet, but I figured it was bad enough to spend half my honeymoon taking pictures, to spend the other half editing and posting them would be next to unforgivable ;)
Anyways, we are back in Canada next week, so stay tuned and we will have great things to show you from our romantic adventure...

xox

Winter Mini-Vacay :)

So, this week we spent a few days up in the always lovely Algonquin Park - no, not camping as many people asked with shrill voices and raised eyebrows, but at a great hostel just outside the west gates of the park. We saw the most amazing frozen-edged waterfall...

went for a walk around a frozen and snow-covered lake...

and spent about half an hour captivated by the details of the snowflakes falling on our scarves :)