Janine Vangool is an amazing designer. Her uppercase magazine is the most anticipated magazine in my studio. She also publishes a book of illustrators called “work/Life”, but it’s not your usual source book—it has personality and soul. It’s an interesting book– that’s a novel approach when so many source books are just huge books full of illustrators who have the cash to join in.
Janine’s book is launching Thursday, April 7 from 5-9 pm at UPPERCASE BOOKS, upper level of Art Central, in Calgary. If you’re in town and want to meet one of Canada’s best designers and a bunch of great illustrators, you gotta go.
I got a piece in the book (below) and am honoured to be included in such an unforgettable book.

I was looking for a place to source paper screws in town. Some company I’ll leave un-named  is one of the companies I came across. When I was in college, one of my instructors–Ken Samuelson–designed the Calgary Transit logo. Now I am pretty sure Ken’s logo is over 25 years old, and I can see in the logo, the consideration the designer gave to the mark, implied speed, progress, moving forward—you get the idea. In the other one, the cross-bar of the F, doesn’t seem to line up well. The other logo is for a company that sells fasteners, don’t you totally see that!

Elizabeth Taylor is part of a new club, people are dying to get into. When I was a kid, she ruled Hollywood. She could have gotten a part in any movie she wanted back in the seventies, and she died in her seventies (coincidence, maybe). They say that part of her beauty came from a genetic mutation that gave her an extra set of eyelashes.

Last Thursday, an artist I knew died. George Mihalcheon, a successful artist and my second-year painting instructor. He was a kind and generous man and I’ll miss him. I have a great story—how George came upon the style he was known for. He told me that he painted a landscape one day, and hated it so much, he took out a knife and cut the canvas to pieces. When he looked at the carnage, pieces of canvas lying on the floor, he noticed some interesting things as the pieces made kind of an energetic abstract on the floor, he got out some glue and made a new composition of the pieces. Creativty can come out of chaos, I’ve kept that story for twenty-five years as an inspiration to keep my head up to possibilities. We’ll miss you George.

I recently completed this for Dave Willicome at West magazine. Can you name the big stars?

I love sculpture, I actually thought of majoring in it in college. This fellow, Jason De Caires Taylor is an amazing sculptor, his underwater garden is haunting and unforgettable. It’s interesting to see the effects of time and nature on his work. You’ll be thinking of his sculpture for a long time after checking out his site.

This winter we’ve gone on loads of snowshoe trips, this past Sunday was our favourite. I mean—it wasn’t Castle mountain (16 k hike with a vertical rise of 700 metres—hoo-ha!), It was an easy 5 K hike. The enjoyable parts were the 100 metre vertical rise right at the beginning of the hike, and a good third of the hike was bushwhacking—not following a trail at all—deep snow trekking. This trail was the Black Prince trail, another trail close by was the Burstall pass.

WHY ASK WHY?
Why do you need a driver’s license to buy liquor when you can’t drink and drive?
Why isn’t phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?
Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?
Do you need a silencer if you are going to shoot a mime?
Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?
If a cow laughed. would milk come out her nose?
If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON. how do they make TEFLON stick to the pan?
If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, what would happen?
If you’re in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?
You know how most packages say “Open here”. What is the protocol if the package says, “Open somewhere else”?
Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Why is it that when you transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship, it’s called cargo?
You know that little indestructible black box that is used on planes, why can’t they make the whole plane out of the same substance?
Why is it that when you’re driving and looking for an address. you turn down the volume on the radio?

This originated in The Netherlands. Elaine Cheslow, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Bethesda, MO