Progress: 21/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

In my adult life, I've not been much of a film viewer. Having only determined one or two films worth the time, I was never independently sure what was good for me -- and I'd rather not waste the time it takes to find out.

I'd been without cable from age 19 to only recently, at 32 -- a capitulation rather than an independent thought of my own. It's been okay, though. I like watching Power and Politics on the CBC.

In any case, I've always filled more of my downtime with reading and crafts.

Our 3U course has an assignment where students read texts in small groups and then compare them, individually, to their subsequent movie versions. 

I have really enjoyed cultivating lists of novels and memoirs I love with film versions, watching those film versions - largely in disappointment - and then reading very validating essays about how the film version of Silver Linings Playbook was an offensive depiction of mental health in comparison to the beautiful sensitivity of the novel version, for instance.

However, I get bored easily. It's why I'm the oddball teacher to request three preps, and it's why I teach myself new skills constantly. Life is too fascinating to just coast comfortably until I die.

Ergo, I need new book choices for this assignment. I decided to do something different here - instead of my usual route of having read the book and THEN watching the film, I did the opposite. I picked a film I somehow enjoyed previously (despite the presence of Hugh Grant) and read the book.

The film I encountered because a former colleague years back used it as a pairing to discuss the topic of bullying in a novel our classes were reading.

As a general rule that I can say with confidence now having done this narrative reversal of film before text: owing to narration, depth, directorial choices and cut scenes, the text is always better.

[Original goal list posted here.]

Completed: #4. use my Wacom art tablet

I actually have two Wacom tablets. The first is a Bamboo Splash, which I asked for years back as a Christmas present, and which has sat in its box from that day forward.

The second was passed along by my little sister and looked way less daunting, so I started there.

The next I'll try when I have the laptop to support the storage usage (which will likely be soon, as my browser has finally seized up entirely.)

This is meant as a follow up to my residency: the four sacred medicines with directional colours and scientific nomenclature, to accompany my writing about the deer.

They are made with a Wacom CTE-440, using Adobe Photoshop CS3.

[Original goal list posted here.]

Completed: #23. study Mi'kmaq language

Out of all the vlogs, websites, and Facebook groups, this app has been my favourite Mi'kmaq language learning tool yet.

My nephew is only 20 months and it has encouraged him to respond to my sister saying "I love you" with "kesalul", which is pretty amazing.

[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: 18/30, 19/30, 20/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

I discovered Richard Wagamese at a time I really needed his writing.

I rediscovered Richard Wagamese through trying to find a poem about a medicine wheel - and, as a result, ordered the anthology Runaway Dreams. I read slowly because I didn't want it to end.

As is often the case, macro level funding is now supporting micro level initiatives that we tried to raise some three or four years ago. Better now than never.

As a result, every high school in my region has ended up with a curated box of multicultural texts, which I was invited to peruse.

I borrowed the non-fiction One Story, One Song, which I finished quickly and easily, rivaling my longstanding love of Keeper'n Me. I would like to use an essay or two with my 4Us next year.

I bought Medicine Walk at a garage sale, which is nothing but harrowing and heartbreaking past page 175 or so. I want to construct an Enhanced-recommended ISU list for 2D, and this would be one of those listed.

I am disheartened that Wagamese is no longer of the living, to write. However, I am glad that he has left such a written legacy and I want to read it all.

                     Original goal list posted here.

Completed: #5. Participate in an art residency / retreat

"Trust is the spiritual by-product of innocence. My people say that more than lack of knowledge and experience, it's learning to look at the world with wonder. when we do that, we look in a learning way.

Trust, the ability to open yourself to teachings is the gateway for each of us to becoming who we were created to be. 

All things bear teachings. Teachings are hidden in every leaf and rock. But only when we look at the world with wonder do the teachings reveal themselves, and trust is also the ability to put those teachings to work in our lives. 

Trust is, in fact, our first act of faith and our first step towards the principle of courage that will guide us."

-Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song

___

I am grateful for that which ceaselessly brings me so much fear and anxiety because it is that which also brings me endless curiosity and a need to know.

___

[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: #5. participate in an art residency / retreat

This will be a summer of satisfying some of the larger goals on this list. For the first, I leave in 1.5 days on a Greyhound to Ottawa (where I will stay for a day, before being relocated to a cottage-style house for an artist residency in Gatineau).

I did a lot of research to find a residency that sounded best suited to me. The Ayatana Artists' Research Program was actually the only one to which I applied, as it was the only one that really piqued my interest. Fortunately, I was accepted to their "Germinate: Botany for Artists" program.

I'm madly excited to learn more about integrating science and nature into my practice. 

Here's the preliminary agenda that we received by email:

---

Tentative Germinate Schedule All activities are subject to change according to expert availability. *Asterisks mark meals that you will pay for yourself 

Day 1:12:00  Meet at the National Gallery of Canada cafeteria for *lunch and introduction
1:00  Gatineau park visitor center
3:00  Drive to Residency House
4:00  We invite you to give a private artist talk to share your work with the group.
7:30  Dinner at residency house 

Day 2:
10:00 Tour of the Museum of Natures Herbarium
2:00 Hike the Wild Garden to pick edible and medicinal plants.
5:00 Eco dying workshop  7:00 Dinner at residency house.

Day 3:  10:00 Guided tour of the Arboretum and experimental farm.
3:00 Meet with the Ottawa Society of Botanical Illustrators.
7:30 Dinner at residency house. 

Day 4:
11:00 Meet a krilian photographer for an artist talk and plant EEG demonstration. 3:00 Explore shore line plant life with a river keeper.
&:00 Dinner in Chelsea 

Day 5: 10:00 Visit the research green houses at Carleton University to learn about ethnobotany.
2:00 Hike the woods with an expert on invasive species. 7:30 Dinner at residency house. 

Day 6: 10:00 Visit the Ottawa Seed Library to learn about seed saving and sustainable food. 1:00 Meet with an arborist to learn about caring for and climbing trees.
7:30  Dinner at the residency house. 

July 11:
11:00 *Brunch in Wakefield
2:00 Drop off in Ottawa

[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: #43. make my own regalia

Here are some progress shots of the back of a vest I've been beading, using seed and bugle beads on vinyl. (I've actually either been gifted or traded for most of the materials, so it's a continual act of resourcefulness and embracing the accident, which is nice.) The iconography is based around my spirit name and medicine wheel symbolism. The eagle design is a variation derived from a jean jacket my mom once embroidered for my dad, which is now in my possession.

This will be familial and cultural and may take me another year to complete, but I'm okay with that.

The front left hand side will also feature traditional Métis flower beadwork.

I have to thank my 43things goals for inspiring me to take up beadwork in the first place, really. I think this may be the pinnacle of any beading I ever do -- save for if I ever have a child I want to make something, maybe.

I don't think I've ever been this contented with something I've been creating, but it's so incredibly time-consuming and there are so many other art projects just waiting to be tried. Life's sort of cool like that.

[Original goal list posted here.]

Completed: #29. learn to can my own food

Well, hello! It's been awhile. This has not been for lack of goal progress -- but, rather, the opposite. The semi-sad quiet listlessness of my life has faded and been replaced by little else but love, appreciation, and creation. It's a nice change of pace.

Post the first (prepare for many!) will bridge (1) my 43things-goal-inspired love of foraging, with (2) canning. 

For the former, well, the new yard of my new home is a forager's dream. I harvest cedar from the many trees around the yard to make smudge wands for myself, for gifts, and for trade. In spring, the large white spruce starts emerging with new tips and I pluck them like berries from the overgrown branches that need to be pruned. I made both spruce tip pickles and a simple spruce tip syrup:

For the latter, well, I didn't realize that hot water baths and mason jars constituted as "canning". This is something I've been doing as long as I've been making pickles. However, since these are new 'products', so to speak, I'll mark this as "complete".

I hope one day to do some metal canning, with crimpers, and thermometers, and high pressure cooking pots. However, it's going to take lots of reading and care to ensure good results and minimize risks of food poisoning.

In the meantime, the simple syrup is an unbelievably delicious marinade for tofu. I ended up keeping 3/4 jars for myself, because I like it so much. I also read it's good with fish, poultry, and mixed drinks.

The pickles I've tried both in a salad and in a stir fry with mushrooms. Next time I'd like to pluck some tips fresh to cook immediately, because the tang of pickles is a little much in cooked dishes, I think. It definitely keeps them awhile, though.

CANNING, YAY.

[Original goal list posted here.]