Day One - Demolished Corporate Ladder. Kicked Back at Summit.

So the big new news around these parts is that today was my first official day as my own full-time boss/employee!

Boo. Ya.

From here on in it's art and writing, writing and art, a lot of crossed fingers and a lot, lot, lot of work, but I'm in for it.

On paper, this all works out awesomely. In practice, I guess I'll have to wait and see. You can too by checking in here, where I plan to post daily news and updates.

Please comment often, as the new co-workers at the new office are kind of quiet and don't laugh at my jokes.

Upside is they're soft, chill and always down with some heavy petting...

More X-mas Goodies

Don't tell the CBC, but I snagged one of their old-school logos and silk-screened it on to a shirt for Sean. Sorry CBC - I love you, but I don't have $40 to drop on a T-shirt. What I have is more like $6 and 40 minutes.

Below that are three little guys I made for my Mom. I had the fleeting idea that I would tool the twelve days of Christmas, but that would have been either twelve massive baubles, or 78 pieces of leather. I think a trio of birds is a nice middle ground.

Bake it Easy

In addition to leather goods, everyone got bread this year! A straight week of baking (and 40 cupos of flour - this is some serious stuff) yielded these dense, delicious bundles.

I can call this bread a work of art and not sound like a cocky douche because all I did was follow the recipe from Earth to Table - a beautiful cookbook recently put out by a pair of chefs from the Ancaster Old Mill.

I will, however, take credit for subbing blackstrap where the recipe called for mild molasses. I mean, do you like molasses or do you like molasses?

Installment Number One

A present for my niece - who is at the age where all things faerie/princess/pink/purple/ballerina-related are to die for.

No Sight for Sore Eyes

I know this page is boring as hell because there hasn't been anything to look at lately, but I promise, promise, promise there will be so much to see so soon you will be sick with oversight!

Pictures and further explanations in the coming days...

In the meantime, might I suggest reading up on some of CBC's Canada Reads selections? This is an annual event that has, for me, turned winter from a thing to buckle down and bear, into a thing to anticipate.

I already have a couple of these books, but hadn't read them since I was in high school. I was curious to see whether Generation X would be as awesome as I thought it was when I was 16, particularly since a friend of mine recently read it and found it fell flat. I say he falls flat, because I re-read it and this book is still excellent.

I had barely started Fall on Your Knees (which I first read when I was 18) last week when I got Nikolski for Christmas and couldn't resist the lure of its matte, fish-flocked cover, so it has absorbed the late-night waking hours I should spend sleeping.

Pick at least one up and tune into the great debates in March!

Closer...

Busy with Christmas presents I will post pictures of once they have all been given to their rightful owners!

Sigh...

I am by no means a camera nerd. I know nothing about the art of photography and, in fact, would probably take all photos on an angle if Sean wasn't around to remind me how hack the result always is.

That said, I can see the difference between my latest snapshots and the sharp, clear images of a month ago - the ones taken with my since-stolen camera.

Maybe I will start saving up to make my first-ever purchase of a brand new piece of technology. A shiny digital camera with SLR(ish) capabilities. Though, of course, I will have to learn what/how exactly SLR means/does/is/works...

Front Page Fodder

This little lovely was featured on the front page of Etsy over the weekend!

Thanks to Jane of White Elephant for bringing it to my attention!

Workshop

I've been busy, busy, busy tooling custom orders - mostly guitar straps.

Not sure how much I'll have to post in the coming weeks. Not only is the crazy of Christmas going to overwhelm us all, I just spent an hour ripping the godawful 70's tile (not good-70's. And not awful/good-70's. Just plain eye-searingly ug 70's) from the walls of my bathroom. As a result, there are some holes and a whole lot of glue-covered plaster. While that alone is an improvement over what was there an hour ago, it's not going to cut it long-term.

It's certainly not going to cut it for the guests I have arriving for a two-month stay starting January 1, so I'm going to have to bust ass on nothing but the bathroom until then.

Starting in January, regular leather and painting updates will resume. In the interim, you have thrilling weeks of bathroom renos to look forward to!

Timeraiser Part Two

My Pigott painting (Tall Buildings in a Single Bound, located below, is going to be auctioned off at Hamilton's second annual Timeraiser.

Same deal as last year, only in a new location. Brand new - the McMaster Innovation Park on Longwood. If you're looking for a good volunteer gig and some stellar art as a bonus, Timeraiser has tonnes of each.

The quick and dirty description of the event is that you wine, snack (the food last year was soooooo tasty), visit with people from different organizations, check out some art, then bid volunteer hours instead of cash on the paintings you like best. If you bid the most hours, when you complete those hours, not only are you civic-ly fulfilled, you get your painting.

I am fulfilled (and filled - with two months worth of groceries) much sooner, as I get paid when I hand the painting over this winter.

Art Crawl

Cripplingly cold and the art crawl was dead. It was one of the first bitterly cold nights of winter, so perhaps people have yet to become fed up with the season and just brave it.

Here are a few shots...

Sellin' Like Hotcakes!

Oh me oh my oh! My flasks are flying off the Etsy shelves! I have sold six in the last 48 hours! Time to make a special trip for more supplies - that's exciting.

I suspected these would do well at Christmas. At shows, everyone loves the flasks. People rarely buy them for themselves because...perhaps they're worried about what it means if they're the type of person who needs to have six ounces of hard liquor on them at all times (besides that they are most certainly wild parties rah rah ole)?

However, eeeeeeeveryone knows someone a flask would be perfect for as a gift. And thank god for that because earlier this week, I was actually searching the cushions and cupboards for change with which to buy grocieres. Thanks to alcohol, I should make it through to the New Year.

Newbie Pieces

Phew!

Tooling must not be breaking my backbones yet because over the weekend, someone commented that I "have amazing posture."

Try to argue with this! I'm tooooootally just relaxing here.

And the Winner is...

...me! Because no one played. I guess four was a gross overestimation of my readership.

Ah well, I'll console myself with the fact that Shoot From the Hip was just accepted as a vendor at Hillside Inside this February. I'm so excited I barely have room to feel daunted by the amount of work ahead of me!

Pictures of a couple custom orders and new projects to come - I'm in the middle of a last-minute writing assignment that needs to be done for Monday.

Well...

I look like a loser. Someone please post a recipe.

In the meantime, I am preparing leatherworks for a show at Bike Hounds this Friday night. Please come visit. I've got a few new feather cuffs, a couple seatbags and a pair of Pigott Building wallets on the go.

I am also plotting and designing a pretty intense belt that looks amazing in my head. If it translates to the real world, I hope to post it here by Christmas.

The Prize

The prize for the (as yet woefully underplayed) contest. Don't make this guy an orphan. Play the game.

Spirit of the Season!

I'm feeling giving, but I'm also feeling hungry, so here's the deal...

I am trying to buy groceries in a fiscally responsible way by "planning ahead." That is, picking recipes and only shopping for the ingredients within, thereby eliminating the issue of not getting around to using things before they go bad/being in a perpetual state of missing two or three ingredients for dinner and running out to the (expensive) corner store because it's closer than No Frills.

So. I am going to give away one of my hand-tooled swallow necklaces (no pictures at present - see post below - but I hope to borrow a camera and have some up tomorrow) to the person who gives me the best recipe.

If you're interested in taking part in this gastronomic battle royale, please leave your A-1/favourite/most impressive/surefire hit/go-to-potluck-contribution recipe in the comments.

As long as I'm not underestimating my readership (which I peg at somewhere between four and six) I will choose by making and taste-testing all of the entrants. If I have more than a week's worth of meals, I'll pick the top five best-sounding recipes and have a week-long dinner-off with them. The reader with the most delicious dish wins!

No rules, but you should know that I love cheap ingredients (I'm practicing fiscal responsibility here remember. I don't want to buy a half a pound of truffle-infused cheese, or a ton of pine nuts, or my weight in saffron) and I hate recipes that contain ingredients that you have to refer to an additional recipe in order to make, IE: a recipe for a stew that calls for dumplings, then directs me, via footnote, to a second recipe for dumplings.

Contest closes this Friday (Dec 11) at 4pm EST. Game on!

Art Crawl

The lack of posts is due mostly to my lack of camera. Someone stole it. Probably assuming that I was the type of richie-rich who can afford things like cameras. Truth is I have never been able to afford a camera. I used the Kodak Star 275 I got (as a gift) in the sixth grade until well after university. Until well after a sly spider made his way into the viewfinder, spun a web, lived his life and died there.

The fancy digital in question was a hand-me-down I was lucky enough to get for free after more than a decade of point-and-shoot. So thanks thief. Because the Star 275, while a righteous model, is not compatible with my computer. And I can't afford a digital.

In terms of positive news, I am going to be having a leather show and sale at Downtown Bike Hounds this Friday night during the James North Art Crawl. The Makers Market was a success, but I have leftovers, so things will be on sale, sale, sale! I'm hoping to get together a couple of Hamilton-centric wallets featuring tooled versions of some of my paintings of local architecture.

Decemberist

Sorry for the lack of posting - back to work, sick, after a week off and I am slow-moving.

I'm working on a couple custom guitar straps, this time for the first time with luxe leather linings stitched to the back instead of just leaving the raw leather. It makes it easier to price them affordably when I leave the raw backing, but I think it looks messy. The only way around that is a clean, hand-stitched strip of horse hide. Unfortunately, with five stitches to an inch on a 36-inch strap, that's a whole lotta extra time, so they are priced accordingly.
I'm also trying to bust off a few more ornaments and feather cuffs for the market this weekend.

Remember! December 5th at the Cathedral on James North.

Also, please cross your fingers for me as I'm currently gathering my things to apply for Hillside Inside this winter.