Health and Art « Collage Your World

Fall 2014 Daily Ephemera Workshop

Artist Johanne Leveille incorporates her practice of Shodoo and passion for Japanese culture into the Daily Ephemera Workshop (fall, 2014)

This September I held a one-on-one daily ephemera workshop with student artist Johanne Leveille, a CYW list-member and friend. Johanne and I have kept in touch these past few years and finally found […]

A Stroll through My New Neighbourhood

“Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.” — Karle Wilson Baker

Today I thought I’d share some photos of my new neighbourhood with you, in particular, some views of the trails, walkways and beach I’ve discovered along the Ottawa River where I live. I’m fortunate to have a calm and inspiring view […]

Tapestries of Time: Refrigerator Door Art

While reviewing photos of our old house this month, my heart warmed at the sight of our old kitchen refrigerator door covered with paper paraphernalia. Perhaps you have a similar ritual of posting things to your refrigerator door. In meditating its collage-like surface which offered brief glimpses of my life, I felt it resembled a […]

Tales from the Observer: Make the Mall Your Living Studio!

Spirograph by Lupsiberg

For a decade now I’ve been frequenting a number of shopping malls in our city. While I enjoy the solitude of working in my studio, I often feel the urge to get out and be amongst people. It might seem strange, but I’ve found I get more writing and reading […]

Art: Like a Prayer

“Praying for a Harvest Moon”, 2010 (pictured here) was my first attempt at making a visual prayer. It invoked my fervent desire to attain my creative goals as I approached the mid-point of my life.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental […]

Awakening the Secret Garden within Part II

Michelle Casey's finished Secret Garden page. Faber-Castell Art Grip colour pencils were used to colour this.

Today I thought I’d share my first coloured page in Johanna Basford’s Secret Garden with you along with imparting some more reflections on colouring. Recently, I was compelled to buy the book because I hoped it would […]

Significant Contributions: An Origami Project Unfolding

A selection of my origami magazine papers…

For years, I’ve longed to make origami but haven’t been successful. You see, It’s embarrassing to say, but I’ve never been able to follow the written or diagram instructions on how to make it. I remember once trying to fold a simple boat, and no matter […]

Awakening the Secret Garden within

My two-hours' worth of colouring in progress in Johanna Basford's "Secret Garden"

… I told the interviewer, I believed stories are found things, like fossils in the ground, he said that he didn’t believe me. I replied that this was fine, as long as he believed that I believe it. And I do. […]

CYW: February 2014 Bits & Bytes

Due to my big move and settling into the new place (still), I noted I hadn’t made any time for one of my favourite pastimes: reading! In December I began noticing a whole slew of books I’d like to read and bought a few to start. Thought I’d share some reflections about them with you…

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Part II: The Fabric & Patterns of Everyday Life

November/December 2013 issue, Selvege. A favourite fabric-related magazine of mine… see link at end of this article

Developing a Secret Code…

In Part I of this blog article, you learned of my fascination for fabric pattern prints and textures found in fashion magazines and my childhood home. While I noted, I used […]