This year I was super excited to have a group of photos selected for the Queer Arts Festival. This was a project conceived by Christina Cooke (also pictured) and called ‘Butch’.
I was really proud of these photos because I pulled together a studio set up in my kitchen and we worked through for 8 hours. Our talented make up artist on the shoot was Justin Saint.
Always my favorite band to photograph…Sontag.
On a recent trip to my hometown of Sudbury, my family and I headed out on a Saturday morning for porketta bingo at the Beef n’ Bird.
Porketta bingo is one of Sudbury’s best kept secrets. As someone who spent their finest drinking years in that city, I had never been to the Beef n’ Bird before going there for bingo.
It’s a neighbourhood bar, opened by a local former NHL hockey player in the 70’s name Jerry Toppazzini. There’s a table reserved for the regulars because on a Saturday during bingo season, the Beef n’ Bird is taken over mostly by Laurentian university students. They pay $12 each per bingo card and fill up on porketta throughout the afternoon.
The meat bingo doesn’t actually start till 2:30 pm but you have to get there early to get a seat. When we arrived at noon, all of the seats were taken mostly by students, who I am told, all get on a bus to go to bingo every weekend. One of our friends arrived early than us and managed to save us a few bar stools in a tiny corner of the bar.
All of the money raised during bingo is donated to a local hockey association. Ron, who calls out the numbers on a mic by flipping over a card, told me that the money raised allows kids, mostly those in poverty from the neighbourhood, to be able to have the chance to play hockey.
The meat that you win is actually delicious and the energy in the packed bar is electric. If you call “porketta” and haven’t actually won, the bar will start to chant that you are a “fu#$ up”. And there’s also a chant for new players – “He/She’s a virgin”.
Over the course of the fall of 2013 I worked with the David Suzuki Foundation to capture some of the province’s sustainable fisheries. These small scale fisheries and aquaculture operations are changing the landscape of what we think of when it comes to sustainable fisheries.
The end result is a magazine, “Delicacies of a Delicate Sea”.
This project was extremely special to me- I was able to learn so much about the importance of small scale fisheries and aquaculture operations.
Here are the four fisheries I visited:
Underwater Harvesters Association- Geoducks
Sts’ailes and Scowlitz First Nation, Harrison Salmon Producers – Pink Salmon
Northern Divine Caviar, Target Marine Hatcheries – Sturgeon
K’omoks First Nation, Pentlatch Seafoods’ – Oysters and manila clams
In December 2013, Idle No More celebrated it’s one year anniversary.
My photos of a rally at Metrotown appeared in the Georgia Straight online: http://www.straight.com/blogra/554856/photos-idle-no-more-marks-first-anniversary-metrotown-flash-mob
That same week I also had a photo of author and activist Harsha Walia included in the print edition of the paper. The article reviewed her new book ‘Undoing Imperialism’.
This is from one of my recent walks to the park with my friend Clara.
This year I brought my mom to the Eastside Culture Crawl. What a great way to spend the weekend.
This was Sonya and Suzanne making a hanging terrarium at the Terminal City glass co op:
Caitlin Ffrench on her loom at the Culture Crawl:
In October, I photographed the Pacific Aids Network fall conference and AGM in Richmond.
PAN is a member-based coalition organization that supports important groups doing work around HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and related communicable diseases. The conference covered many important topics, including the stigma and criminalization people living with HIV/AIDS face.
The keynote speaker Carla Rieger (above) spoke to the power of laughter and the importance of asking people the question- What’s good? Carla has a wealth of knowledge around what makes for a healthy workplace and group dynamics.
Here are the lovely staff that call PAN home:
Rosie and Loren are the couple that I’ve photographed the most to date. It’s always a pleasure to hang out with these two (and their little dog too!)
