tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81666459320827149072011-11-27T18:21:35.005-05:00A visual artist, textile designer, writer and opinionated belletrist shares insights, observations and art with an anonymous public.Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.comBlogger131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-60618474686677914022010-07-28T16:02:00.028-04:002010-07-29T20:49:31.404-04:00

It sounds awful to say it, but I’m glad Gary Cooper is dead.  And I’m glad he died before the 60’s, and never had to survive modern Hollywood.  How could a Man like Gary Cooper live in the same universe as apes like Kevin Federline or the aptly named Spencer Pratt?  Coop was the epitome of class and masculine grace; humble, laconic, private, he did his job better than anyone in his league but

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-58026823839526597272010-06-09T13:30:00.001-04:002010-06-09T13:32:45.450-04:00

When I was 24, I read a book that changed my life.  It was called Nothing Special: Living Zen, by Charlotte Joko Beck, an American who became a Zen teacher in her 40's.  It taught me that we put all kinds of desperate importance on things that are ultimately meaningless, we perpetuate our own turmoil by clinging self-righteously to our emotions, and that we are equally responsible for any bad

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-4523295627795111622010-06-03T15:15:00.001-04:002010-06-03T15:41:10.184-04:00

Last night I saw one of my all-time favourite bands - Brian Jonestown Massacre - play live for the first time, and they truly blew my mind from top to bottom.  Not only did they play a super long set, ending well after most bands would have hustled back to the green room, they played a non-stop barrage of all my favourite songs, starting with the first song that got me hooked, Super Sonic.  

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-51946397010867982802010-03-27T12:31:00.002-04:002010-03-27T12:31:45.598-04:00

Lisbeth Zwerger inspired me today... equal parts Arthur Rackham and Marc Chagall...

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-47086478739909232802010-01-23T14:00:00.000-05:002010-01-23T14:00:48.682-05:00

I put my back out at a trade show in Germany last week. It was an enlightening experience, being constantly preoccupied with the state of my physical being in a place I couldn’t retreat from, to recover privately. The pain removed me from the here and now, while plunking me firmly in it, like a Zen koan. I was so focused on interactions with the present, aware of every movement, every step, every

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-81506627176621143492009-12-24T19:09:00.000-05:002010-01-01T01:20:28.960-05:00

I was at a show a few weeks ago, one of those ultra hipster things that only the 9 people who've heard the band on MySpace turn up at - the kind I always used to go to when I was thin and single and obsessed with music. As I looked around the room, all I could see were mini versions of myself from the good old days, all kicking like colts in their ultra hip outfits, getting drunk on a Tuesday

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-12517348608199165842009-12-07T19:38:00.000-05:002009-12-31T19:40:34.911-05:00

Current influences include death, and a photograph of Anton Newcombe playing guitar like a Pentacostal snake handler, with one half-open eye rolled back in his head....

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-28257109306204204542009-11-21T19:41:00.000-05:002009-12-31T21:42:51.831-05:00

A little psychedelic something for my old pal Chris....

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-13872735709381608872009-11-08T19:48:00.000-05:002009-12-31T20:17:21.925-05:00

Christopher Jordan Rogers, 1974 - 2009Last week I lost someone very important to me as an artist. My friend and influence, Chris Rogers, passed away unexpectedly at the too young age of 35. As a painter, his talent was unmatched, and his warmth, wonderful smile and joie de vivre I cherished. Even the briefest encounter with Chris left an indelible mark. His spark lit a flame in me as an artist

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-64806623880156399952009-10-17T19:05:00.000-04:002009-12-31T19:09:16.439-05:00

The older I get, and the more my friends have kids, the more the adage “it takes a village to raise a child” means to me. When I was eight or nine, I vowed I would never get married, because marriage meant divorce, pain and poverty. Most of my friends’ parents were divorced, and all the moms were struggling to raise children on their own, with little support from their ex husbands, while their ex

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-15714074307494716952009-05-10T18:22:00.000-04:002009-12-31T19:04:33.932-05:00

Hello all my ladies! As some of you are being smothered in flowers, brunches, handmade gifts and "Good For One Household Chore" coupons on the one day you get real recognition for all you do, I thought you might enjoy a little feminist prose poetry (leave it to me, right? ;)  along with photos of a few ladies whose lives are like embers under us all to be our best, uncompromisingly and

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-73720062963721855472009-03-22T18:18:00.000-04:002009-12-31T18:21:30.483-05:00

Lately I've been thinking a lot about black holes; imagine a thing with gravity so great, not even time can escape. They're made from stars billions of times bigger than the sun, which collapse in on themselves, sucking whole galaxies into their centres, pulling neighbouring galaxies into collision, and causing destruction we can't even begin to fathom the size of.Black holes are at the centre of

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8166645932082714907.post-33108187440550062932008-02-10T21:21:00.000-05:002009-12-31T20:08:27.617-05:00

I have been carrying them around for years, these letters. Not because they are necessarily meaningful, or that their contents are even true. It was a self-imposed writing project to get me out of a block, which turned into years of love letters, hand-typed on my peacock blue Smith Corona and folded neatly into small envelopes, stamped with the month and year they were written.They were all

Venus In Flaresnoreply@blogger.com0