Vancouver

Yes, Vancouver, as in Vancouver British Columbia. For those of you following this blog, you will remember that I was just in Thailand. I returned on January 12th and on the 15th I was back at the airport flying across the country to Vancouver for the conference, Design Practices and Principles. While I don’t recommend putting one’s body through this kind of travel, I’m glad I got to attend this conference and see Vancouver. I was there to present a workshop about the mantra cards I make at PRESS with my friend and colleague Alke Groppel-Wegener. You can read more about the workshop on the PRESS Blog. You can read a bit more about what she’s doing with mantras here.

I’ve wanted to go to Vancouver for over 10 years now, ever since I read Susan Vreeland’s book The Forest Lover, which is a fictionalized account of the artist Emily Carr’s life. Emily Carr went into the British Columbia wilderness, befriended the native people and painted their forests and their totem poles. She did this alone and at a time when women just didn’t do things like that. I loved the story and I love her paintings. They inspire me to research and write–comparing her work to the work of Georgia O’Keeffe. Look for that coming from me some day…

I’ll let the pictures tell the story.