So I went to New Zealand a couple weeks back to speak at a conference with the creative director of Adbusters, Pedro and the senior editor, Darren. New Zealand is amazing.

Black sand beaches. You can't tell at all from this picture, but the sand has this blue glittery sheen, because there is iron or steel in the sand (and rumor has it that they are starting to mine it for this metal)

You'll be in these amazing places and be pretty much the only people there.

 Pedro and I went to the zoo.

 All the animals in there, I could have watched them all day. These turtles kept climbing over each other  and they could never make it work but they still kept doing it over and over.

I went to a place 3 hours away from Auckland called Rotorua. There is a lot of geothermal and volcanic activity, geysers, sulphur pools, all that kind of stuff there.

I went to go see this geyser and in the brochure it said, the geyser erupts daily at 10:15am. I was amazed and really curious as to how they could time the eruption of the geyser (especially to the minute). Turns out, they actually stick this biodegradable chemical thing down the rocks to make the geyser go (although the geyser does go off naturally on its own, just not when anyone is conveniently around).

I went to this other place called Waitomo, where there are a bunch of glowworm caves and caves with stalactites and stalagmites. And a population of 42 people. Most of which who work as tour guides for the caves. I really liked it there, you would see more wild turkeys running around in a place then people.

David Attenborough was in this very cave. Or so I am told. It was funny. The cave was like being in space mountain. Even funnier, because the cave is so small, you're on this raft, and they take you back and forth 5 times so that you have enough time to experience seeing the worms. It was weird. But nice.

Back in Auckland, there were these art installations going on. This thing was cool cause I felt like I was in Tron.

The funniest thing I saw in Auckland.

 The scariest/weirdest thing I saw in Auckland.

The most elongated siamese cat I've seen.

 Happy faces everywhere.

 

I liked this light shadow because it looked like the carpet was worn at this one spot. 

Indeed.

I don't really know how to explain how I felt about New Zealand. Being there, it was nice because you felt really separated from the world, but still part of it at the same time because of the time difference. The world's day begins and ends there. Things are a bit slower there, but at the same time there's all these things there that you have at home and that get you wanting to live and act like you do at home, but the experiences don't quite match up and there's weird disconnects - like that they have a Denny's there. There is something kind and well meaning about the place, something small and manageable, everyone is so nice, and at the same time there are these great expanses, ones to get lost in, to get sentimental in - and oh man I hope I get to go back there again.

Black Lodge Diner

Poster I made for a Twin Peaks themed pop up diner being put on by Ken Tsui and Genevieve Mateyko next Sunday night. Quite excited for it! They're transforming the space into the Black Lodge (the place gives me the creeps) and for $12 you get a slice of homemade cherry pie, a scoop of brown butter pecan ice cream by Sunday Morning Ice Cream and a mug of a specially made Twin Peaks roast from Panoramic Roasters. See you there?!

The poster is based off of this scene:

It was kind of tricky to figure out what to do for the poster. Twin Peaks has a variety of weird aesthetics going on, the creepy surreal one, the small town kitschiness, the oddball hokiness, and then the weird 90s cool. There are also so many memorable scenes, gestures, and characters in the show, making it tough to decide on who and what to show and how. But in the end it came down to this: Special Agent Dale Cooper is the best, loves a good cup of coffee, and he has a weird scene with it in the Black Lodge.  

So come on out! Let's hope we don't get stuck there. But that probably wouldn't be such a bad thing in this case.

And oh, and oh.

Sound is the color I know, and oh the sound will bring me home:

I've had this around for a long time. I couldn't really ever get it to work, to get it to a place that I was happy with. I kept revisiting it, tinkering with it, and always ended up just leaving it for another day. I never came out with something that looked like what I felt when I listened to the song, which is really frustrating because I felt so much and could see it, but just couldn't quite put it on the page. I'm still not entirely happy with this thing right now (I can't read some of the letters as much as I'd like) but I've let it linger for too long that it's become my excuse for not drawing other ideas in my head that I should really see through.

Mexico City

Hi, it's been awhile.

I just got back from Mexico City. It was so amazing and I felt so lucky and grateful to be there.

 I was there to speak at a conference with the Creative Director of Adbusters, Pedro. And I stayed a bit longer, because it's Mexico and who wouldn't?

It was funny, I knew that the conference would be putting us up in a hotel for the nights of the event and that it would be really nice and everything would be taken care of, and the nights that I stayed after, I'd have to figure out for myself. I knew I'd be going from that to something that could be the total opposite. And in a way it was, and in a way it wasn't because everything I did and got to experience was equally nice in different ways. But this was the place that I stayed at after the conference. It was really beautiful.

And so these are the things I saw:

So many beautiful, massive, great structures.

This was creepy and fascinating at the same time. All those circles are cds hand drawn with markers and they each have a mix where you play it on this cd player from the early 2000's in the middle of the room.

This was here. I rode in this boat with old couples from Ecuador and Colombia. The one man who could speak a bit of English had a lot of sunscreen on his face, so much that his skin didn't absorb it that well and there was this layer of white over his already very pale face. I kept wondering how long the sunscreen would take to absorb into his face.

They gave everyone a flower as a gift before you got on the boat.

The colors.  So vibrant and warm.

 We were walking along and all of the sudden Pedro stopped me and we watched this bird peck at all these little toys and do these tricks, including this one where he out a mini sombrero on this baby doll and then he picks out your fortune. I love fortunes!

Said fortune. Basically it said that I shouldn't spend any money and thank god I got this fortune because after I do everything it says in it (which includes praying to all these gods every day for 3 months and some other things), I will be immune to all consumerism. Ha, thank you, bird fortune.

Animals everywhere. Stray ones.

Sleeping ones.

 Beautiful plants and trees. Lush ones.

Dry ones.

Manicured ones.

This was one of the nicest moments for me in Mexico City. I had already been walking around for hours in the sun and had so much more to see, but I couldn't will my legs anymore and they felt like they were going to collapse under me. So I just slumped down in this park to rest for a second and I saw this tall pole with what looked like a man on top of it (but I wasn't quite sure because he was so still and almost looked like a statue) and there were these men in these costumes at the bottom of it just milling about. I wondered what they were doing and couldn't make sense of it. One by one they started going up the pole and sitting on the square at the top and doing something with the ropes, and then a song started playing and they were wheeling round and round and then all of the sudden they released and came twirling slowly down. Their faces were sleepy and serene, and I thought of when you're a kid on a tire swing or being flung around by someone bigger than you and the sensation, of air passing your face, of everything blurring around you, and how nice that is. And I was also kind of in awe that things like this exist in a chaotic city, something that is traditional, from a time past, and is still performed as a way to make a living. It was a sight for tired eyes.

I met so many nice people here as well. All so kind and strong. They deal with so much shit here and it makes living in Canada seem like biggest piece of cake in the world.

I loved you Mexico City and I hope you'll have me back sometime soon.