Personal

Back in 1983 when I just a year old my parents made probably one of the smartest decisions and purchased and lil lake front cabin at Loon Lake.  Last year we decided it was time to tear it down and built a new cabin on the same lot.  It was sad to see it go as it was our summer home for the past 29 years, it was starting to fall apart (I mean it was built in the 60's and orginally didn't even had a washroom) and as much as love my younger brother sharing a room with bunkbeds had outlived it's time.

Welcome to my next installment of my dolls series.  My first was Welcome to Dollhouse over a year ago and this time I decided to transport my portrayal of human dolls to the woods where they are having a quaint little tea party.  My inspiration came to me when I went to a contemporary dance show and here were some beautiful dancers with balloons attached to them and from there the vision of three dolls having a tea party came to me.

 Oh where do I begin... I realize it has been far too long since my last blog post and although I had good intentions of posting throughout the summer before I knew it the summer was over and alas no posts!  So consider this a quick recap of my summer and all that I have been up to :)

About a month ago I was in Vancouver for a girls weekend and it just so happened to be the same weekend my mom and aunt were in town to help my great uncle Bennie clean out his house and have a garage sale as his house is sold and he has downsized to a senior's complex. I think the fact that he had to move was pretty hard as change is never easy and neither is knowing the new owners are demolishing the house to build a larger newer one.

This year I attended my second WPPI convention in Vegas and once again it was such a great experience. I actually think I might have even enjoyed it more this time as I was more prepared for it and had a better idea of all that went on. I love WPPI it such a great way to connect with other photographers, see amazing speakers, attend crazy parties, and explore one of the largest trade shows I've ever been to!

As mentioned in a previous post I was fortunate enough to get to do a workshop with the fabulous Jennifer Hudson just outside Boston. Since I had never been to Boston before I knew I had to plan a couple extra days to tour this city, as I had heard so many amazing things about it. Well it definitely lived up to the hype!

A couple weeks ago the day I had been waiting for months for had finally arrived: the first day of Jennifer Hudson's workshop. I first fell in love with Jennifer's work when I took her and Arthur Rainville's course at Image Explorations a few years back, and became so excited when I saw she was holding a workshop of her own in Sudbury, MA. I had been feeling lost with myself as an artist and was in need of inspiration which was exactly what I got.

This blog post stems from a conversation I had with a close friend about how much I admire those who are able to put themselves out there in a sense in their blogs. What I mean is how they choose to open up to their readers who they are, their opinions, how they feel, etc. It's something I've always wanted to be able to do but totally scared about it, as by opening up more about myself I open myself up to also be judged, which let's not lie is very frightening! Well I'm trying to turn over a new leaf personally, what this means is I'm opening myself up to do things that totally scare me.

Recently my baba, (Ukrainian for grandma in case you were wondering ;)), celebrated a huge milestone; her 90th birthday! Of course we could not let this event pass without a small celebration. So with my aunt and uncle in town from BC we thought we would try to get some other family together for small dinner and of course cake at a local restaurant. It was such a great time, great to visit and see some familiar faces that I don't see often.

Once again this year the Lloydminster Region Health Foundation (LRHF) inquired if I would be interested in donating my time to photograph some amazing local individuals for their annual report. Of course I jumped at the opportunity, these people do so much for the community yet they often go unrecognized and I loved that the LRHF would be doing stories about them and their generosity. Instead of trying to regurgitate their stories I posted the articles that were published so that you guys can read all about these amazing people.