The inability to properly illustrate the blog posts right now is driving me crazy…need a new camera asap!!
We had an awesome time at Handmade Market in Beamsville…hoping to be back in Wine Country September 21 (my birthday!) and 22 for another market…this time in St Catharine’s.Check out their website at http://www.handmademarket.ca/
We are super excited to be sharing a studio with the wonderful metal oddment artist k maclean at The Tremont! Still working on getting it set up, but loving being surrounded by the other great artists: Sue Miller, Peter Adams, Bonnie Dorgelo, Andrea Rinaldo, Kaz Jones, Joanna Alonzo, and Bryan Wall. Check it out http://www.thetremont.ca/
We are very grateful to be part of some absolutely amazing events this summer…check out our schedule.
And…Made by Hand @ GivingTree Eco B & B outside Collingwood is a new co joint between Rogue Goat and Andy and Chai at Givingtree…save July 14 and 15 to come out for handmade awesomeness, Dj Danger Bay , Arkham Records vinyl sale. Please email us at roguegoat@hotmail.ca if you are interested in participating.
Time for naked trampolining. That’s illustrative, right?
The Owen Sound Artist`s Co op embarked on a new venture last year supporting youth artists, one funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.It expanded the physical space of the Co – op by leasing adjoining space, now called the Legacy Gallery. Predominantly used to showcase youth projects, the gallery is also used by the Co op membership several times a year.
This month`s show commemorates Tom Thomson`s first trip to Algonquin 100 years ago, each member submitting a piece addressing the theme, some within their normal medium, some not.
This is our submission (sold!) (Please excuse the terrible photo)
Winter peeled back its blankets from the ground and it felt like a coat of lead paint got stripped from our souls…its all shining through now.Except for our continuing struggle with the internet. Dial up sucks.
We want to show you all our splendid wares, like a cat bringing home a bird, but our camera is pooched and the spinning wheel of upload death wins, wins, wins. Patience is not my virtue.Things I think about while the photo uploads:
The dog is pregnant again. BIGGGG pregnant. Teenage son ” How the hell did you guys forget to get the dog fixed?” Good point.
Women are tricksy.
A proper English upbringing has many merits including emotional distance, good vocabularies, a tendency to travel or emigrate resulting in living distances away from family, and marginal familial contact, often related to the former.
That I should write my father a letter.
How irritating people on Facebook are.
How irritating some very particular people on Facebook are.
Beets
What the hell the dog is doing now.
Trying to decipher what Josh is saying in his sleep.
Trying to stop the creeping feeling that something is watching me through the windows.
Accepting that now I and the family are about to be slaughtered and that I should finish this one post and then go wake Josh and gently tell him it was all worth it but now Trailerman is coming to get us.
That I will likely trip over my dog in the dark, stand on the pregnant one while getting into bed and then have to kick the small ugly one off my side.
That life is pretty awesome.
Here’s a few shots of our new Rogue Goat hip bags…
We are the house of sick. We rotate sick. We are a chorus of sniffles and whines. It is an angry, self pitying chorus at times, but surprisingly, we have all mostly been pretty positive. Pretty positive indeed considering that February has sucked in some fairly major ways.
We had to cancel on our first show ever because we were sick. We have a lot of erotic sock monkeys if you want to come over later.
The downside of being self employed and sick is there is no one to do your stuff for you, so sometimes it falls apart a bit.
The upside is that there is never really anything bad about being snuggled up together (and together may mean two, or sometimes with some kids, and usually all three dogs), drinking vats of tea, indulging all cravings and watching movies. No matter how sick.
In between snuggles we made our forays to the studio, Josh to the saw, me to the sewing machine.
I love our new bags…we now have a felted line, the tie bags, and the patchwork vintage wool tweeds.
Have I ever mentioned that my husband is AWESOME!!?!!! I so love that I can vaguely mention an idea to him, and he makes it happen.
We use old windows and doors for display all the time…and keep refining our displays. I had the idea that I wanted to make a display case for Southampton Art Gallery out of old doors, with industrial hardware. Actually, I wanted a bed headboard and a stool first, but business first.
Josh’s mum found some solid old doors down the road, and the rest Josh cobbled together from bits and pieces we had lying around. Not one purposefully bought component in the whole thing ( we did have all the screws and hardware on hand. Two old doors, some scrap pine, a very cool old barn board, a junky handmade rack from the garage and a crappy piece of chipboard from an old wall unit…plus some twigs.
I so loved the patina on the old doors, but as it was for the gallery , where a lot of competing aesthetics have to get along, plus likely to be a slight disapproval of the flaking, likely lead based paint, we decided to white wash in my favourite white.
I love, love, love it.
A final word, on this final day of a bitch of a February…
” I like being bored. It means you get to go around hating everything.” Raiden, Age 7 ( home on a snow day today after almost two weeks off school being sick, and a very cogent explanation of why he has been so goodnatured about it.)
YES! We got accepted to this awesome show, sponsored by Toronto’s best sex shop/co op…Come as You Are.
The show is FREE and held at the Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ON on February 11 from noon until 9, followed by a cabaret from 9 -12.
What does Rogue Goat have to do with erotic? You obviously don’t know us well.:)
We will have the full sperm and ova motif line of belt buckles, pendants, earrings, cuffs and bags at the show…as well as the Suck Monkeys.
The what? The Suck Monkey’s were our first creative co joint…the traditional sock monkey exposed (so to speak)…for the wholesome hedonist.;) You’ll see.
Some shots from our backyard blizzard photo spree for the sperm and ova line, featuring my favourite piece of meat.
We’ve been fulfilling one of the most important things about living productively and creatively…doing nothing at all for a space of time to recharge. Well, not exactly “nothing”.Talking to the chickens.Imagining sitting in very tall trees in the back yard. Re reading sordid mystery novels. Staring at the wall. Making soup. Getting a pug. Pondering the ludicrousness of pre teens and the dangerous passion of grade school love interests.
And thinking…both forward and backward (and about the abuse of the … in colloquial writing.)
We have learned so much since May when we started. We learned from each other , from the business, from some amazing artisans who took the time to help us, great people at co-ops and shows…and some good strong lessons from some shittier experiences that gave us a good road map of what we will try not to repeat. That’s important too.
So…a look at some of the things we are working and some observations and lessons we learned.
These are the new leather cuffs we will be using for 2012..so soft and supple. While I enjoyed the astounding mess I made hand dyeing the cuffs we used in 2011, they never, no matter how much I worked them in, felt as good on my wrist as they looked, and the precut straps we used were just a bit too narrow for my perfect cuff. These are being made for us by the awesome Luis, which frees up my time to concentrate on the textile line which I am LOVING. Lesson – Love your suppliers! We worked with the fiesty and hilarious Fawn Le Clair (hand spun wool through Wikketwacky Yarn) and the stunningly talented Rebecca Warren at 3rd Life this year, and will continue to do so.
Speaking of suppliers…I strongly believe if you are living the handmade life, you should have the utmost fidelity to materials. Use the best for your art form, don’t cut corners that shouldn’t be, and pay attention to the details. Our first batch of earrings back in May used silver plate wires we got from Micheal’s…we were testing the idea, working out the engineering, and didn’t want to commit large scale. But as soon as we knew this was going to work, we switched to the best quality we could find, and keep doing so. Pay attention to details…see those little clear chunks? They are earring stoppers…they will save an earring from pulling out of your ear, something you will really appreciate if you paid good dollar for it. Doesn’t cost very much to add (always pay attention to your bottom line though) and makes a difference to your customer.
Making things is an evolving process, one where you refine your techniques, incorporate new ideas, explore new areas, refine and adapt. It is not static. Everything you make will not be awesome. There is no room in art for sentimental attachments. If you over invested in inventory and have stuff you made from two years ago, or it didn’t go over well, or you switched mediums…don’t pull it all out anytime you have a sales opportunity. Kill it in whatever satisfying manner you want…break it , (we can burn it), rip it, reutilize it, whatever. There is nothing worse than seeing someone set up at a show with six different mediums they work in, with work going back five years. Painters, photographers can show work with a longer time span (although I ‘d still argue you shouldn’t be showing work that is older the two years, unless you are having a retrospective) and you may have designs that you continually replicate…thats ok.If you make things in different mediums that are not connected somehow (other than just through you) separate them publicly by different “identities”. Your high school/college portfolio is not show material unless you ARE in high school or college, and neither are projects made in classes. On the left…yummy new designs out of the shop last week. On the right, burn pile if Raiden’s class can’t use them for a craft.
This is a new line for Rogue Goat in development stage…onyx and jasper inserts.We vaguely had this idea in the early summer, then when Josh came up with the sperm motif it really coalesced. But we were in the middle of Christmas season and didn’t have the time to pursue. Its important to challenge your self and keep growing artistically, but it’s also important to focus on the tasks in front of you. and prioritize. Christmas show season is not the time to throw yourself into creating a new line.It took me a long time to learn that sort of pacing. There is a cycle to the handmade life, especially for those who do pop up shops. Summer and Christmas you are in show mode, on the road, talking to people. Fall and late winter/spring you are creating, organizing your year, applying for shows (More on this later this month. We are so excited about this year..we began Rogue Goat after all the major juried show deadlines had passed..this year we have them all ready and the money in the bank for a whole year of fees as well. Crazy!)
In addition to show fees, we have our summer season of supply needs paid up…some of the fabrics for the messenger bag line above. We began on a shoestring budget and had some tight times of flow, ensuring we had enough work before the cash flowed in at shows. But we got through it without borrowing for the business, or leaning on credit cards and were able to end the year debt free, with healthy owner’s draws, and a considerable portion of 2012′s expenses accounted for. This feels really f-ing good. The cycle thing is funny…I had stocked up on all my winter weight fabrics…wool sweaters and blankets and then realized I needed to be making some summer bags now. The pacing thing too…I intend on switching to (mostly) all organic cotton and wool fibres that are hand dyed with natural blends…but I need time to perfect the recipes and ideally, cook it up in the back yard in the summer. So it will likely only appear in the fall winter shows of 2012…and be in place by 2013. Who the hell am I that I plan things two years ahead now?
This is the balance. Being together we are more capable than ever, while still being who we always have been. Rogue Goat is both of us equally, as much as it is equally inseparable from our day to day life. We are happy. I still throw temper tantrums (and irons) because a bag strap isn’t lying properly. Josh still screams at the saw because his first try at a new design isn’t perfect. But those moments last ten or fifteen minutes and are balanced by laughing every, every day. By feeling lucky every minute to be together and to be doing something we love. So lucky that we make these very sentimental public declarations just so Tom Davenport can make fun of us.
And even though sometimes I feel like the video below…we are still Cobras. And that’s bad ass.
To wish you and yours the best of the season, we thought there was no possibly better device then that of a photo documentary, providing you with snapshot glimpses into the everyday exceptionality of our life.
By conferring on you this great intimacy , you will at once feel humbled by our graceful lifestyle and yet closer to us, welcomed into the very bosom of the Rogue Goat, thus arousing the most valued of holiday emotions…avarice.
First…
This photo says many things. It pulls you aside and says “This is evidence of great domestic prowess signified by a remarkable taste in kitchen appliance” and infers that we are remarkably adept in the kitchen, whipping up batches of scrumptious baked goods with rarefied ingredients whisked from nowhere, anytime you should drop by unannounced. This photo frowns slightly at your dirty dishes, feeling a warm breeze of condescending pity for your slovenly ways yet smiling gently as you struggle to perfectly fold your fitted sheets. Such troubles never exist in the world, our world, to which this photo belongs, a world in which mothers are never reduced to tears by the lack of matching socks for their progeny, for they are suffused with a breathless humour and casual joy in life denoted by the whimsical , retro, slightly shabby , Formica counter.
Ah, here…here you are sidled up to and a warm voice whispers in your ear “These people are preternaturally swayed by beauty, by the sweetest of simplicities, by the perfect pairing of a chartreuse leaning to lemon Crispin apple tumbled into a slab rolled porcelain colander, imprinted with antique laces.” It tells you that we are special, that our life is one long, sweet song of perfect moments savoured and never forgotten. It shudders at such people who may purchase Crispin apples not for their colour but for their name, synchronous with Crispin Glover and his lovely song about a rat and demented books, and then of course it would serve them right that the apples were actually quite shitty and granular for buying apples based on name alone, and it would further serve these people right if children squirreled away desiccated apple cores all throughout their house. This photo shudders at the vulgar use of the word shitty, and these terrible imaginary people, and turns back to us, who are obviously not like those people at all.
This photo is transfixed with its own wholesomeness, so much so that it has no time to tell you anything. What we do know however, is that this photo does not contain anywhere the idea of pornography, no , not even in the top drawer of the dresser on the right could that exist on this photo. The vintage lamp wearing a rabbit headdress and the vintage bed draped in casual and sophisticated neutrals know that, while the bedroom is where most people have sex most the time, this photo is free of the hint of say, harnesses or of the suggestion that transsexual chickens might be striding about outside the window. It cannot possibly have a framed photograph of a man doing lines off a woman’s ass, gifted by a popular Collingwood DJ. It is so free of these things, that it can also not even fathom that in some worlds there would be at times a pile of dirty laundry almost three feet tall under the window, a pile that might even be moved to the van when company comes over because there is no other place to put it. This photo, as are we, is speechless at that thought.
These are eggs. The dainty ones are rooster eggs.
And finally, a rustic snapshot of our front door, welcoming you to the perfectness of the way of life known as The Way of the Rogue Goat. The natural arrangements were not gathered by human hand , but delivered unseen by beneficent woodland creatures awed by our complete lack of dog puking incidents, iron throwing temper tantrums, our full and spotless soap dishes and that not one of the three boys and one man who live here ever, ever misses the toilet.
We hope that you have gleaned our gentle holiday message from our artful array of absolutely unstaged photographs. That is…slow down, enjoy the great friends and family around you, kiss somebody really, really hard and eat until it hurts so, so good. Oh and listen to some metal. We love you.
(Also Emmett Otter is the best Christmas show EVER).
This is our mailbox. We watch it fervently. Delightful packages and letters come to it from all around the globe. There is something amazing , slightly romantic, antiquated, yet serviceful, pragmatic about the Post, and by extension…about the almost lost art of letter writing.
This came to our mailbox. If you should scrutinize the image carefully, you could read for yourself an address, and should you take it upon yourself to go there, you would meet a man named Mike.(Please don’t do this)
Mike is an exceptional human being. If Roald Dahl was to create a character that was at once witty, clever, smart, funny, kind, handsome with reliably good, yet sophisticatedly eclectic musical tastes, and should this character have a vintage couch with pheasants on it, and should this character be possessed of a great musical talent he abashedly deflects comment from, and this character was not a friendly giant( although apt to falling at concerts), nor a chocolate factory owner (although a very good cook and a dashing wearer of scarves), nor a giant peach (but actually, still quite fuzzy) , but , in fact a Mike…well…the real Mike would still be better.
Last year Mike sent out a Christmas card. It featured his lush Movember mustache, his appalling Christmas sweater, and barely disguised hilarity.
When Josh first met Mike, he was offered a wallet size photo of Mike taken from the card, which he faithfully kept in the car visor, until it landed on our fridge, where it still sits. Mike also made Josh and I dinner, chicken and mushrooms, apologetically, even though we had really just dropped by. It was perfect.
It is not every man, who is comfortable giving another, newly met man, a wallet size picture of themself. But then, other men are not Mike.
The next time we saw Mike, he told me he knew Josh was `the one`, because Josh had rinsed his plate after the aforementioned dinner. It is quite charming when men like Mike say `the one`, and then hug you too tight, and then put on Billy Ocean records.
This year`s card I won`t post, for fear of ruining the surprise for one of Mike`s many friends.
We have been waiting for it. It was worth it. Much love to Mike. And funny…but Post…is almost Prost.
Raidens’ school concert was Wednesday night and it was, hands down, my favourite of all Christmas concerts I have ever attended in my whole life.
As a tradition, kids holiday productions have a lot going for them. Terrible acting, awful singing, options for ridicule, heartwarming cuteness, school gyms, bake sales, cliches, whimsy, goodness, simplicity.
Every parent in the crowd thinks their child is the most endearing, most sparkling…and beams at them from the gym floor, taking a bazillion photos, nudging grandparents in excited whispers. Their child will either wave excitedly from the stage, ignoring all performance cues and seemingly ignorant of the fact every other parent can see them, or, stare into the sea of faces like a little festive serial killer in the rough.
Every parent will find something funny about somebody else’s kid…the kid three times bigger than everyone else, the hipster kid, the indeterminate gender kid, the overly animated kid, the kid committing some act of physical indecency, usually nose picking, on stage.
There will also always be the big parent stuck in a small seat trying to act small (hi Friendly!), the parent with the inordinately long camera lens, the parents whispering their kids lines, the weirdo parents (it wasn’t us this year!) the parents who brought along their prostitute looking daughters, and at least eight parents trying to cajol babies in varying degrees of success.
Monotone, off tune singing, hackneyed song choices, bells, wincingly modern versions of old favourites, AV glitches with awkward pauses, blank zombie children, kids falling off stage, and that kid, always that one kid, who always has a solo, some genius violin or guitar or piano impresario…you know… “that” kid.
This year….a disco rendition of Good King Wenceslas by the Intermediate band, led by the amazing Mr. Charles Glasspool. Check out Charles’s own band, and his Friday night series of music at a little gem of a restaurant here in Eugenia, The Flying Chestnut.
Oh, so, so awesome.
Also awesome…Raiden thought Jesus was Santa’s son. This makes so much more sense of what Christmas is to most these days that I can only marvel at my genius progeny’s insight. Also , he’s been singing every Christmas carol on repeat loop (interspersed with Iron Man), but with “Joshy, Josh, Joshy , Josh” as the lyrics, which for some reason makes the dogs tear around the house, makes Josh giggle uncontrollably, and basically is the most annoying bit of wonderfulness.
This weekend we are at Movies and Makers at the Fox Theatre in the Beaches, Toronto. Last show of 2011…please come down and say hi. Great, indie vendors, amazing venue, last minute shopping. The first 100 people through the show also get a cool swag bag, so come out early if you can.
We will be at the Grey Roots Museum in Owen Sound tomorrow from 11-4. Come see us!
We also just got word that we have been accepted for the last full membership at the Owen Sound Artist Co op. We really enjoyed being a guest artist in October and are excited to set up next week and get involved.Big thanks to Hazel Lyder, Peggy Moore and Shelley Strong…with sure to be more great people to meet.:)
Nothing quite says Merry Christmas like sperm , right? RIGHT?
This is Josh’s favourite new design, debuted at First Light, and this particular beauty is already sold.We met interesting sperm loving people…one school teacher had sperm tattooed on his arm.Watching parents responses when their kids pointed at the buckles and yelled “Look mommie, fishies”, was awesome. The Christmas spirit is upon us and we feel “tadpoles of Christ” would be a lovely term.
We do have some more sperm buckles and pendants this weekend, and then at our last show of 2012, Movies and Makers in Toronto on December 17.
Obviously, at no point, does anything in either of our heads suggest that perhaps we should edit what we say here. Ever.
