Stitching up the house

A while back, before Halloween, I talked about a project I was participating in at the end of this post.  I just remembered that I haven't shared photos of what that project was!

A friend offered up her family home as a kind of living installation/performance space for the Halloween weekend.  I knew I wanted to participate, as I have participated in one of these house-projects before and deeply enjoyed it.  After visiting the house and location initially, I was in awe of its history.  The house showed its age well, and so I thought it was fitting to sew up the cracks that appeared in the walls- exposing a pure truth that the house and surrounding landscape had- the location used to be a lake and was filled in by the city ages ago.  Many of the cracks had been plastered over, only to re-crack anyways, so I thought why try and hide them.

The weekend turned out to be a pretty fun and interesting event- there was body mapping, dance performances, artwork, a "confession booth", and other installations. 

Adieu Alberta April!

Just like spring time in Alberta
Warm sunny days endless skies of blue
Then without a warning
Another winter storm comes raging through
And the mercury's fallin'
I'm left all alone
Just like spring time in Alberta
Chills me to the bone
-Ian Tyson

April 2009 has not been kind to us Albertans- from sunshine and sunburns to freezing rain and snow, we definately are a hardy bunch! Luckily, I've been keeping busy & warm with my new line of knits, spinning up new bundles of fibery goodness, and my good 'ol standby, crochet. Meanwhile, hubby has been keeping busy with seed starting, home-brewing, and digging up a new garden space (there used to be a tree there!):

Every Spring, we celebrate May Day. We have a public march in the streets of Edmonton coming up tommorow, part of the May Week Labour Arts Festival- a celebration of the successes that workers have gained, including the 8 hour workday and more:

May Day is celebrated and recognized as the International Workers’ day, chosen over 100 years ago to commemorate the struggles and gains of workers and the labour movement. Most notable reasons to celebrate are the 8-hour day, Saturday as part of the weekend, improved working conditions and child labor laws. But these gains were not attained without the solidarity of workers. As workers, we must recognize and commemorate May Day not only for its historical significance, but also as a time to organize and speak out around issues that are impacting working-class people today. Through the many artistic disciplines of the festival, May Week provides people with the information, education and inspiration to make positive changes in our local and global communities.

I'm hoping for beautiful sunshine for our march in the streets tommorow!!! Though I'm not too active in the festival this year, in the past I coordinated a sweatshop-free fashion show & art market, as well as submitted one of my drawings to the Workers Art Show:

In this drawing, I wanted to convey the idea that a lot of labour (often the work of women) often goes unrecognized or taken for granted. The image is sourced from a World War II advertisement. If all the unpaid and underpaid workers went on strike for just one day, can you imagine what would happen?

Hope you will find a way to celebrate May Day & Spring; I think I need to go and make myself a sign, perhaps it will be something along these lines (this is one of the cross stitch pieces I did for a feminisms conference). This is for all you moms out there: