One Year of Mail Art - March + April

Since last June, I've been sending monthly mail art to the same four participants. Each month has a theme, includes two puzzle pieces and a few letters on the back of each envelope, which will spell out a message with all twelve months and the arrangement key.

March's theme was Trompe L'Oeil and included mirror tricks and anagrams. This was a tricky one to put together as I was preparing to move.

April's theme was Ponies and Pansies, inspired by flowers and horses. It included two collages and a recipe for dandelion cookies on pressed dandelion paper.

Improv Shirt Design

A few weeks ago I wrote an article, The Role of  Improv Apparel for The Way of Improvisation, a new online resource for the improv community. I've designed over two dozen shirts for improv companies and festivals and gradually learned what makes a good design and how important that is to improvisors. 

One point I make in the article is that the shirts we wear sorta act as our resumes, letting people know where we've performed, studied, taught, etc. They're also important as keepsakes for festivals and markers in our improv careers. 

My friend and Atlanta improvisor, Rene Dellefont, has taken this to another level. In the last couple years he's got two tattoos designed around imagery and concepts from shirt designs I did, both for Improv Camp. Here are the originals and Rene's tattoos (click images for info about the tattoo shop and artist.)

Something I didn't include in the article, is how cool it feels to see people wear the designs I made! I've made two shirt designs for the Canadian Improv Games National Festivals, for 2011 and 2013. It's so neat to think that hundreds of students from across Canada have a piece of my art in their dresser drawer.

A couple times now, once in Toronto and once in Montreal, I saw somebody walking down the street in one of my designs. The world is so wonderfully tiny.

Illustrations for She Does the City

For the last few weeks I've been doing illustrations for She Does the City, an online magazine based out of Toronto about women's issues and urban lifestyle. The assignments for SDTC and their second website SDTC Teen, have been challenging but also rewarding. 

This first assignment was about rape culture and the issues and aftermath surrounding the author's rape. The article can be read here.  

The next piece was for She Does the City Teen, the article was written in response to the death of Rehtaeh Parsons about the effects of victim blaming and of cyber bullying, the article is here. 

Most recently, I made this piece for a book review of Drunk Mom: A Memoir by Jowita Bydlowska. The book is her account of her first year of parenting as an alcoholic, which was triggered after three years of sobriety by one glass of champagne after her son's birth. SDTC's review is captivating as it's authored by a recovering alcoholic, it can be read here.

As always, you can follow my illustrations by liking my facebook page, Two Hands Two Crowns.

A Royal Birthday

Last Friday was my birthday and I was happy to celebrate it in Montreal. My sister hosted a really lovely brunch for me and I got spoiled with a few antique gifts that I thought I'd share here.

Firstly, I asked for this Air Mail envelope back in October and was delighted to receive it from my grandma. I haven't done much research on it, but it's the only black striped Air Mail I've ever seen. It's definitely from Austria but has American imagery on it.

For the Winter Solstice, I got this tin from my Aunty Annette, it's a very detailed and rare tin of George V and Queen Mary (Victoria's grandson and Elizabeth's grandparents). At the time it was the oldest in my collection. It spurred my interest a couple weeks ago to look for others from the same period.

After a not-so-subtle hint to my mother, she 'surprised' me with this little delight. It's from the Coronation of Edward VII and  Queen Alexandra in 1902 and originally held chocolates. (Edward was Victoria's son and the father of George V). Perhaps mostly strikingly, teal was a very uncommon colour on British monarch tins and the reds have held up well.

Next, I bought this one of George V and Mary for myself. I hadn't planned on it but an unknowing seller on eBay listed it for only $8 (in antique stores, this would go for about $75.) It's from 1911 and is incredible condition.

And lastly my grandmother got me this little gem (also an eBay steal) of again the Coronation of Edward VII and Alexandra.  It's so tiny and precious and is my favourite of the bunch.

In between Prince William and King Edward VII, I have tins from six generations of the royal family. The only British monarch that I don't have a tin of is Queen Victoria (they're aren't any that pre-date her reign.) I was researching her  and searching for deals online when I decided to take a little break from this collection and save that last piece of the puzzle for next year. It will be something to look forward to.

You can see some of my other tins from this collection here.

Moved and Settled

I'm finally moved and settled! Seven days ago I arrived in Montreal and moved into my sister's place, which seriously reduced the amount of usual moving stress and worry. She already has everything! 

I'm living on a busy street, conveniently very close to a Metro station, which conveniently has a photobooth! YES, I'M LESS THAN A ONE MINUTE WALK FROM A PHOTOBOOTH. This will significantly improve the quality of life.

Here's a photo taken from the balcony, that bump on the horizon is Mont Royal.

My schedule has been quite upside down for two weeks now, so I'm really looking forward to getting back into a routine. It took me a full week to sort, pack and store all my belongings at my parents' house. I thoroughly went through all my possessions, made an inventory list and thoughtfully packed the things that I'm keeping but don't immediately need.

I gave away, threw out and recycled 25 large garbage bags worth of stuff! Who knew I had that much non-essential stuff?

While going through my belongings, I found so many funny, accidental collections. It seems that I've been gathering little things over the years, not knowing how many of them I actually had until taking this big inventory. For example, I apparently really liked wood grain MacTac for collages, as I had about 6 different "wood finishes." I also had a lot of vintage wallpaper samples, here are just the gold coloured ones. I didn't keep these things, but I did keep this accidental collection of vintage Canadian buttons. 

I have seriously slimmed down my life's possessions and feel much lighter and freer. And for the time being, I also feel repelled from amassing too many more things... we'll see how long this lasts for.

Fonts and Type

Things are in flux! I'm moving to Montreal in just nine days and have been a busy bee getting ready. Presently, I'm in Edmonton, packing up my childhood bedroom and cataloging all my personal belongings, which is no small feat!

On my list of things to do before the move was to take some self-portraits and pictures of my studio space for Uppercase's Work/Life 3 book, which will be out in August. Here's a little peek into those, these two won't likely be in the book.

 

LaCuna Trailer

Here's the trailer for LaCuna, which I've submitted to some film festivals and hopefully it will be screened a few times this summer and fall. The music is by Jason Michael MacIsaac of the Heavy Blinkers.

TRAILER - LaCuna from Meags Fitzgerald on Vimeo.

Desk Aerobics

I've been busy juggling three separate artistic endeavours lately, they are as follows:

1. LaCuna: My stop motion animation made of photobooth pictures is FINALLY FINISHED! I have officially applied to my first Film Festivals, it will be a few months until I know if my submissions were successful or not. To maintain exclusivity rights for festivals, I won't be sharing the animation online until next year, in the mean time I'm working on a trailer and I've made these two posters. I owe a mountain-sized thank you to Jason Michael MacIsaac of the Heavy Blinkers who composed LaCuna's original soundtrack.

2. Editorial Illustration and Promotion: It seems that trying to book illustration jobs is a full time job in itself. I've worked hard to revamp my portfolio and have been regularly sending it out to art departments. And I've had some success! Though that work is many months away from being share-able. I've also for the first time applied to illustration competitions. The objective is to be included in an awards annual or illustrator directory that is then distributed and used by art directors and other creative professionals. It will be a while still until I hear back about any of those, but my fingers are crossed.

3. Photobooth, A Biography: I'm working on my graphic novel around the clock, and I've finally got into a nice rhythm with it. Of all the things on my to-do list, its the one I'm most excited about. I've been sharing work with two friends, one who gives me feedback on the writing and another who critiques the artwork, but I won't be sharing any of it publicly, everyone will just have to wait a year for it to come out.

I know what you're thinking after reading that:

She must sit at a desk a lot.

You're right, I do! But fortunately for me I found a set of  light aerobics videos. They're keeping my joints alive. 

Given that I'm working hard on three things that I can't really share, my blog may be a little dry for material.  So! I'm going to switch up the content here a little; posting more old work that I haven't shared before, more photos of my collections and lists of my favourite people/things.