Thursday 3 May 2012

Have a Canadian Inspired Summer!

Summer is upon us! Although the weather may not be co-operating as much as we might like, the school semester is finally done and I find myself with a little more time on my hands. Art 4 Art has been seriously neglected and it's about time I did something about it. This is an open invitation to all you artists (no matter how experienced) to get inspired by Canadian music and to make a contribution to the blog. Contact me if you'd like to contribute (even if it's not your first time) and hopefully we can get this thing rolling again.
Much love,
Sarah

Friday 27 January 2012

Coeur de Pirate - Corbeau - Elisabeth Perron

I first heard Coeur de Pirate last summer at the Calgary Folk Festival 2011 and fell in love with her style and voice (her tattoos are pretty amazing too). I'm particularly excited about this Art 4 Art project as it is our first bilingual post and I encourage more bilingual content, whether in the form of music as inspiration or as artistic outcome. My good friend Elisabeth has taken Coeur de Pirate's song "Corbeau" as inspiration and written a short story. Although Liz has given a brief explanation of "Corbeau" in English, the beautiful thing about Coeur de Pirate's music is that you can still connect with it, regardless of language. It is truly wonderful.

Here is Liz to take you away...

* * *

I fell in love with Coeur de Pirate when her first song "Comme des Enfants"became a YouTube sensation because one famous francophone journalist had used it as a soundtrack to his son playing with his toys (don't ask). As soon as I stepped foot in Quebec, I ran to buy her CD and listened to it the first time around without stopping until the end. I died a little. She is basically everything I could possible ask from an artist, wrapped up in a fantastic Quebecoise-French bow. 

I picked the song "Corbeau" for three reasons. First, I obviously had to pick a French song to stand out a little! Second, I read an interview with Coeur de Pirate in which someone asks her the meaning of the song, or at least the title (which literally translates as "Raven"). Her answer was so vague and mysterious, it made me want to analyze more for myself. Finally, I picked it because it's a lesser known song from her first album, but I love it so much I just want everyone to know it!

Essentially, the song is about a couple at the end of their relationship. One of them has remained very free and unattached, which the other has really "become" the relationship, so to speak. The song takes the perspective of the second person, explaining how difficult it is to break free, to start over, to let go. 



Wilted Soul

She sat on the edge of the bed, unsure whether to lie down or stand up. Next to her, he slept, unaware that she was awake. She looked at him and found herself thinking about the first time they'd met.

She was seduced from the moment he introduced himself. It wasn't love at first sight; that seemed like a silly concept in comparison to what she had felt. With him, she was home, she was reuniting with an old friend, she was curled up on a couch with her favourite blanket. That's the best way she could describe it with words. It had been one of those nights where, in retrospect, nothing grand really happened. But in the moment, it had been perfect. Two of her friends had been present too, but that was kind of a blur. It was all about him.

Four years. She was very fond of those four years. They had spent them apart, reunited, apart, reunited...but never really together. Yet they had grown closer. She had told him her dreams, her hopes, her fears. Her everything.

After four years, she had felt like it was meant to be. A modern fairytale. But it wasn't. It was her golden cage.

The truth is, she had placed her soul in his hands. It was no longer hers to control, to share. That would all have been more than okay with her, had she given her soul in return for his. At the time, she had been so focused on opening up and letting him in, she hadn't realized that he wasn't doing the same. He was free, because he was the only one who truly knew who he was.

So now there she was, unsure whether to leave or stay. Without him, she wasn't herself anymore. She was a paler, more toned down version. She didn't laugh as loudly, she didn't seem as bubbly, she didn't argue for what she believed in. Because she didn't really know what she believed in anymore.

No one would understand her like he did. No one would know how vibrant and bold she once had been. Her ambitions, once boundless and all-consuming, had been watered down to the simple will to get by. She had completely lost herself in him, and he had let her.

Slowly, she got up. She tiptoed out of the room. She opened the front door, stepped outside, and closed it quietly. Outside, the rain felt like ice against her skin. She was leaving what she knew, her comfort zone. But sometimes, it's the end and all that's left to do is make a dramatically quiet exit and start over. It kinda felt like one of those times.

* * *

Elisabeth Perron is kinda close to graduating with a degree in chemical engineering, which she plans to never use again. She wears white socks unapologetically, is constantly getting dirty looks for laughing too loudly in quiet places, and always carries an umbrella just in case. You can check out her ditz (and occasional wit) over at Liz on Life

See more of our contributors and other Art 4 Art projects on the contributors page.

Coeur de Pirate is a singer-songwriter from Quebec. More of her beautiful music can be found at her website, Coeur de Pirate. Check it out. You won't regret it. 

Monday 23 January 2012

Two Hours Traffic - Heroes of the Sidewalk - Tara Abel

This post could not come at a more opportune moment: just after that really cold spell of January, just as mornings, still pitch black, are harder to wake up to, just as the ice becomes slush and our world becomes a dull kaleidoscope of grey. It is during late January that we actively seek out signs of Spring and yearn for the days of Summer. Tara's project provides an escape from the dreary days of Winter and throws us into a Summer not too long past. Celebratory while simultaneously downhearted, Tara captures perfectly the "clumsiness of youth," our susceptibility to the future and reconciles with the paths that separate us, inevitably so.

Tara draws her inspiration from the track "Heroes of the Sidewalk" by Two Hours Traffic. Two Hours Traffic is from Charlottetown, PEI and formed in 2000. I encourage you to listen to the track below before diving into Tara's poem. If you like what you hear, visit Two Hour Traffic's website. Now, I leave you to Tara and her beautiful project.

* * *

I hadn't listened to "Heroes of the Sidewalk" in quite a while but I suddenly found myself playing it on repeat. I realized that the song will forever remind me of Summer and a certain camping trip that I went on with my close friends a few years back. In the car, I remember hearing it play over and over, and I was hooked. That camping trip was one of the last big events that I recall spending with (some of the members of) that group of friends, before most of use started to really go our own ways. There isn't really a non-cheesy way to say it, so I'll just say that "Heroes of the Sidewalk" had me missing old times, and dear friends. This poem is the result of a nostalgic Tuesday afternoon.



setting out
into the last of the summer's heat
rattling down the highway
stopping far too often
hearts too elated to be bothered
by all the time that was escaping them

quiet dusty towns on yet another flat stretch
roads starting to disappear
hidden by a great depth of trees
this was it

with stars as the only thing
puncturing the black
they shrank close together
trying to defend one another from the cold
falling, laughing

they conquered the mountain
side by side, they stood at the top
letting the hues of pink and orange enchant them
they tried to hold it captive
still after still
they didn't know

quirks they had grown to
hold so dear
adventure they had dreamed of together
would render them apart
over and down the hills
watching the dust settle in their wake

now
only a fiercely loyal few return
when they're together
sometimes there's an air
reminiscent of the warmth of their summertime
stumbling nights
crossing over fences
running through fields hidden by darkness
not knowing where their feet would land
the clumsiness of their youth

they didn't know
when was the instance
that they'd moved on

* * *
This is Tara Abel's second contribution to Art 4 Art. You can find her first project inspired by Samantha Savage Smith here. For more on Tara and her other work, visit the contributors page  or her blog Maybe, Matilda

Sunday 22 January 2012

Chic Gamine - Butterfly Woman - Chelsea Kelba

I promised a second A4A post this week and here it is, me following through on my promise (although my own second project hasn't exactly materialized). I have been blown away by the creativity and resourcefulness of recent contributions and like Steph's re-shaping of duct tape into white roses, Chelsea has taken musical scores and fashioned stunning origami. Predominantly a literal interpretation of Chic Gamine's track "Butterfly Woman", Chelsea also incorporates a layered effect in her mobile, as well as using multiple shades of colour, capturing the many overlapping blankets of Chic Gamine's sweet sound.

Chic Gamine is a Canadian band founded back in 2007 and originating from a number of provinces before finally become a collective in Montreal. They identify themselves as having a Roots/Soul sound and if you like what you hear in the clip below, be sure to check out their myspace page here.

* * *

I first heard Chic Gamine at the opening gala for Calgary Folk Festival 2011. There were a handful of artists doing live performances, most of whom I'd never heard of. We were standing there, watching, when four women and a man stood up and took the mic. What happened next was magical. This incredibly talented group sang several of their beautiful acapella songs and I was hooked. I picked up their two albums the next day at the Fest. What strikes me most is their versatility - they can jump between acapella, instrumental accompaniment, English, and Quebecois French with ease; sometimes within the same song.

I picked "Butterfly Woman" because it was one of the first songs I'd heard from them, and it is still one of my favourites. To be totally honest, I also picked it because I knew it'd be easy to make art from. Origami is a hobby of mine - no, for real. I usually make flower bouquets and give them away as gifts (between all my other material crafts, I hardly have room to keep any). This was my first foray into making a mobile, and the first time I used butterflies in a project. The song is also evocative of change and transformation, which butterflies exemplify through their metamorphosis. I hope you feel as inspired and liberated as I did when first hearing the song.











* * *

Chelsea Kelba is soon to be finished a degree in Health Sciences, a program she would not recommend to anyone. In her spare time she volunteers on a crisis line, and dreams of being a social worker. Most of her crafting activities are those that don't translate well to digital media, such as knitting, knit art, wax stamp carving, pumpkin carving, and origami. She is probably one of the last people that does not have a blog.

For more A4A projects and contributors, see the contributors page


Tuesday 17 January 2012

Feist - A Commotion - Stephanie Kincaid

I know, I know, I know. I promised more Art 4 Art for 2012 and it's already January 17th. New Year's Resolution FAIL. I've had a few friends badgering me to get more projects online so, in an attempt to stop those nagging voices (you know who you are), I hope to post a couple of A4A projects this week, as well as work on a second project of my own.

This next project is absolutely wonderful and so very different. When Steph first emailed me back in November, my mind was blown. First of all, Steph wasn't a friend or acquaintance who had heard my constant ramblings about this blog and consequently gotten involved; Steph heard about A4A through the grapevine. Secondly, Steph lives in Revelstoke. Mind blown, again. How A4A has left Calgary, let alone Alberta, astounds me. Finally, once Steph and I got to talking about possible projects and her talents as an artist, she told me that she likes to work with duct tape (not going to lie, I was a little worried about this). But still. Mind blown x 3.

Anyway, Steph has taken Feist's track "A Commotion" from her album Metals and created a mixed medium painting, incorporating her magical skills with duct tape. Prepare to have your own mind blown.

* * *
I loved Feist from the moment "Mushaboom" was played through my speakers. To this day I still get butterflies when it comes on. Naturally, when I stumbled across Art 4 Art, Feist was a definite go to. Her new album Metals is everything she is. Amazing. 

Leslie's voice has been one of those things I've always gone back to over the years. If I need a mellow moment I can find bliss within her lyrics and rhythms. She so easily brings me back to zero. To be honest, I could probably pick any number of songs off that album and say they inspired me to do this project, but "A Commotion" was the song playing when this idea had come into my head. 

The sense of urgency in the chorus pushed my idea out and onto paper. All I could see was a rose bush and it needed to be dark. Yet balanced. Once I actually started this painting it went in a much more abstract direction then intended, but I loved it more. From there I decided to use my duct tape skills and instead of actually painting the roses, which I'm not sure I would have been good enough to do, I crafted them. I chose the white tape as apposed to other colours in my artillery for the subtle contrast against the twilight purple. Just enough to keep the roses strong, yet feminine.

* * *

* * *










Stephanie Kincaid has grown up in the small town of Revelstoke B.C. She lives in a small, not so sound proof apartment, with her boyfriend and three snakes. Working as a grocery store bakery slave, you can usually find her slinging dough and flexing muscles. Unfortunately for everyone else, she's got a sick sense of humour and loves expressing herself artistically. Painting, assorted crafts and film are her usual go to cures for boredom, however, duct tape has been her favourite go to medium for the past 10 years. Check out Steph's lomography here and follow her blog that she says is updated less than regularly. See the contributor's page for more info. 


Friday 30 December 2011

Metric - The Police and the Private - Kristy Kalin

Art 4 Art has been neglected for the past two weeks, but do not fear, A4A is here to wish you a Happy New Year and to follow you all into a new year filled with new ambitions, new loves, new passions, new dreams but more importantly, for the purposes of this blog, a new year filled with new music, inspiration and art.

You may recall reading short stories by Alastair Pollock and Marina McNeil inspired by Metric's track "The Police and the Private" or reading my rambling gibberish about the fab five, the group that inspired this project. Here is the third of five interpretations of Metric's song, this one by good friend Kristy Kalin. Here is what she has to say:

My writing process for Lord, Listen, Love was somewhat akin to banging one’s hand on a typewriter until a half decent sentence comes out. I was inspired by the seemingly disconnected feel of the lines ‘got to get to you, the orphanage is closing in an hour’, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how that would relate to the song. So the only way to explain that line was to make everything else random as well. I dealt with the idea of selling memories, and in particular – what happens when you lose your marbles (ha ha – oh god help me).


Here is Kristy's short story "Lord, Listen, Love":

Lord, Listen, Love

Hands slide over the ticket gate – hundreds perhaps. I try not to shudder as my own hand presses to the cold metal and the gate recognises my print pass.

Once through I push my way towards a sanitizer. A dull beeping accompanies the movement, the routine ingrained. The cold air eats up my breath, make my lungs ache. I try to not think about the Memories weighing me down, heavy in my pocket and muffled in cloth in my bag. I watch people instead; study the sharp contours of their noses, the fleshy arms wrapped in winter clothes. A couple exchanges body heat at the end of the platform.

I once overheard Immi tell a girl “Don’t take love out of context.”

She’d said the same thing to me, although context wasn’t a part of the situation. “Don’t take love” she whispered, fingers carding through my hair as I, heartsick and bleeding with it, retched tears.

But Immi’s older. There’s a tremble I’ve seen in a thousand other hands whilst grasping, pulling, shifting, offering –palsy-struck, love-struck, all stuck.

My first Memory goes something like this: My boyfriend and I sit on a bench, his leg pressed close to mine. I don’t like the feel of his leg. Summer has come and he’s sweatin something fierce, but I keep quiet because he’s smiling at me goofy and open, and so damned pleased.

“What?” I ask, but he just shakes his head, and reaches into his pocket, pulling a small glass marble from his jeans.

I know what it is, even if I’ve never had one. After my best-friend broke her arm, they’d slipped her a Memory to keep her quiet and to dull the pain. She’d talked about a bright light for a week after, but I couldn’t understand.

“Wanna try?” He asks, and I nod, and so we slip the small globe between our clasped hands.

And we’re staring up at the moon from a broken down porch, a million moths seem to circle us and when the Memory ends, I find myself brushing away the dust of their wings even though there’s no trace.

We broke up not too soon after that, but I kept the Memory, and moths, and the moon.



I’d sat on the train once for three hours. Watched everyone slip past me even as they slid past themselves - I counted the nametags they’d forgotten to take off.

I counted phone calls they refused to hang up. Tears they refused to shed, laughs they refused, and I counted.

I sat counting.

And none of it counted.

I close my eyes and try to map out my travels – myself a blinking beacon on an old fashioned train map. A dash trailing behind as the glow flashed to the end of the line.



Sometimes I disappear. When I was younger I’d felt the future press down on me, demanding a decision. I’d felt the cloth of my family trade press against my mouth, my mother’s eyes blinding me, my father’s height crippling me-

But I have the Memory for that. I have a Memory for everything.

Blinding sun on the snow. And she’s seven.



“Take that guy for instance,” Stells says, jerking her head towards a harried and bespectacled man in a long brown coat.

“He’d probably take a night, maybe two.”

I scoff. She raises a brow and saunters towards him. Her hips sway, and I wondered how she’d managed to look seductive whilst tramping through snow.

Stells stops close beside him, her hands fisted in her puffy jacket, breath coming out in slow clouds.

She keeps her eyes on the track, but I can see her talking. The man dashes a glance back at me, then to her, before a quick sweep around. Drawing her hand from her jacket, Stellss presses a glass globe into his hand and his eyes shutter for an instant before clearing. He peels folded bills from his wallet shoves them into her palm – the exchange had taken seconds.

I occupy myself with studying the train map until she reaches my side.

“I told you, easy.”

“I need you to go to Centre Street.” I tell her, frown pressing in the corners of my mouth. “A man in a green tie will ask you about the quality of the food vendor. You’ll need to tell him not to eat it. Tell him you have a better place to go. He wants the full three hours so take him to our Blue house in Mar de Loop.”

Stells grimaces. “Come on, Ri – I just got us a bit of extra money, that’s all.”

I sigh before turning to her. “I know. You’ve just got to be careful. It’s better if they come to us first.”



Sunlit and seven, her gap-toothed smile beckons me forward. I swing her up in my arms, feel her weight. My arms tremble as we spin.



“People don’t get it,” Immi said. “It’s so much easier to pretend. It’s so much easier to live a lie.” She was hunched on the ground, chalk circles covered the cement. She was playing marbles with Memories, but when I reached to pick one up she batted my hand away.

“These are mine,” she growled, sweeping them into her palm. I pulled back, surprised at her vehemence. Turning her eyes up to mine, she slumps. She held her hand cupped in front of her and began to poke through the marbles until she found what she was looking for.

She raised the globe in the air and said, “here, you can have this one.” Then she smiled.



She’s seven and there’s a gap in her teeth. When she laughs, she hiccups, and her eyes almost shut. She’s delighted.


I feel my feet burning, feel the snow melting, feel my hands turning wood to ash –

So I sit two seats away from Stells.

I get off at Kensington and stomp my way to a solicitor’s office on the main street, push his Memory into his hands.

But he wants to share the Memory and I have to stop myself from screaming.

We build a fort, made of bed sheets and pillows, proclaim ourselves kings. I smile at him when it’s over and we share our secret handshake, although I’ve never bent my fingers quite that way before. He doesn’t tell me that he pretends I’m his best friend from childhood, because I know. I remember, just as he does, and when we promise to meet again next week, neither of us are free.

The next two drop-offs are sex Memories, and I’m surprised to remember how flexible I am, and also, how domineering. They leer when I leave and I’m glad that the next three deliveries on my chart are solitary.


Her hair is brown and when it swings it cuts the air. I wish I could braid. In the Memory I can’t tell her how I’m saving up to get her back. But I hug her and each time I remember the hug is a bit longer, and that she nods because if she nods it means that everything is going to be alright, but that’s just a Memory of a Memory and I’m getting presumptive.


George thinks so, his weekly sea-faring Memory long since cooled in our palms.

“It’s just a Memory, Rial. You don’t even know if she’s still there.”

“She’s there, I called. I know she’s there.”

George pushes away from the table, “she’s a fantasy.”

“No,” I protest, “She’s a Memory.”

“You think they aren’t the same things?”

Just moments ago we’d been struggling against a storm, rain lashing our face, plastering our hair to our mouths. We’d spat salt water and fear, running the deck to keep the boat above the sea and not below.

Now he wheels himself to the door, arms muscular from necessity, not vanity.

“You’re running late, Ri. We’ll talk about this more next week.”



People like to share Memories. Perhaps it’s instinctual – a biological yearning. They want another presence there to ground them, to witness them.

I’ve remember being so many people that sometimes when I wake up I can’t remember myself. I want to scream my name and I’m so terrified that the one I shout will be the wrong one.

I’ve never created my own Memories. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone’s hands holding my life in theirs, pressing their faces onto my beloved’s face.

I’d rather peer though the lavender smoke of another person’s dim-lit past.



“Heard you’re obsessed with some Memory,” Stells says by way of greeting, a peace offering of coffee in her hand to ease the sting.

“I’m not obsessed,” I murmur over the rim of the cup. “I’m just invested.”

Stells leans back in a squashy arm-chair, eyebrows arched.

“I once had a man follow me for three days convinced I was Anette – his French poodle. Never mind he was allergic to dogs and hated the French. He was invested. You’re actually thinking about crossing the Memory threshold.”

I winced, jerking my head to the side as if to deflect the bitter accusation.

“It’s not that, I just...she’s important, Stells – I just know she is.”

“No, Ri, the life you have right now is important. She’s just a marble.” Stells reached into her pocket and shook her handful of Memories at me, the glass chinking together.

“She’s just another fix.”

But she’s not – and here’s why:

She wears coveralls. What poor child wears coveralls? But they’re corduroy – oh god do people even make that fabric any more- and she wears a bright red shirt beneath it and I can tell she’s a messy eater because there’s a stain on her shirt and there’s discolouration from where she’s rubbed her greasy hands on her clothes.

I’ve never wanted children, never thought I’d be a person that would. But she’s seven years old, and in all the Memories I’ve seen and shared, I haven’t seen her in any others. What if I’m the only person that remembers her – loves her?

Because she’s seven, and when Immi handed the Memory to me, it had felt like a promise.

So when Stells says she’s just a fix, I stop myself from kicking her out of her chair.

Instead I say, “You’re wrong.” I sit down on top of Immi’s desk, and wait for her to bring us our Memories and our delivery slips. And I wait.

Immi’s office is a shabby-chic, beat up furniture straight from some grandma’s house, mixed with expensive light fixtures. Making and selling Memories turn a tidy profit- and hell, we’re good at what we do, legitimate or not.

Most times the police don’t even care if they catch us. Memories are Memories – and most of them are considered legal. It’s the seedier side of the Memories we sell that get us in to trouble, and that’s when they take up their troubles with Immi because, Honestly, Sir or Madame, we just deliver what we’re given- we don’t know what the Memories are.

Except when we do. Which is why we have a complex system of divvying up who deals with what Memories.

“Rock”

“Paper”

“Scissors”

“Come on, really? I hate the feather guy – I totally had him last time,” Stells complains.

“Yeah, and you lost last time too.”

“Connect Four next time.”

Most times I can deliver the Memories all in the span of a regular work-day, don’t want to give off the impression that we aren’t professionals, even if we aren’t. There are times though, when the sun has long since left behind our fragile bones that I find myself driving.

The back roads of Springbank pull me onwards to some strange unknown. I wonder about my parents. Not dead, just distant – gone to a warm horizon. They call twice a week to keep up their appearance. I answer to keep up mine. What would they think of her. Would they call her a fix, or would they understand?

But when they call, I talk to them about the small sales department I’m in, and how I find it hard to get along with my colleague, and they tell me of their golf-games and how they saw some-one or other’s grandson.

A.M. Lengreen. Born in Edmonton, made her way down to Calgary. Given up for adoption at age eight, one year after that Memory. I could, but I don’t ask around. I’ve worked for people who’d know where to look but that means sharing the Memory – her.

Not that I’m possessive, but I’m possessive.

“What if she doesn’t like you?” Stells asks

“She won’t thank you,” Immi says.

“I’m partial to vegetarian food myself,” Walter mentions.

And it’s not that I haven’t thought it out before – that I haven’t had those same conversations – barring the vegetarian one – with myself.

But she’s seven, and I remember her.

And so I’m driving. I shouldn’t be out with the ‘company car’, a hideous little Kia that Immi’s brother-in-law sold to her for a song.

Immi once told me, “don’t take love,” but does it count if that love belongs to someone else?

The snow is blinding, and she’s seven, gap-toothed, laughing.

And the orphanage closes in an hour.

Sunday 11 December 2011

Oscar Peterson - Night Train - Bailey Copithorne

Bailey's project could not have come at a better time. Waking up this morning to a winter wonderland and heading down to Market Collective, with the snow dusting my black winter coat and lacing the branches of trees (forget about the dirty brown slush) certainly put me in the Christmas mood. The day could only get better if I were to cuddle up close to a log fire, sip hot chocolate, and listen to jazz for hours (but alas it is December and projects consume me). Bailey shares these sentiments in her contribution to Art 4 Art, a project that brings much needed colour to this grey and white snow globe we find ourselves shaken up in. Here's Bailey and her project inspired by Oscar Peterson's "Night Train".

***

Oscar Peterson's "Night Train":



I listened to Oscar Peterson's "Night Train". Listening to jazz music in general always reminds me of snow and Christmas time. Oscar Peterson specifically holds an impact on my creativity as I have been listening to him for years and never get tired of every hit on those piano key. Every time I listen, I hear something new, and it creates a refreshed image in my mind of space, time and feelings associated with a moment. 

When I listen to "Night Train", I imagine myself lost in the snow, and in oblivion. It is not a macabre feeling however, because sometimes the unknown can be just as exciting as what is planned. I imagine myself, somewhere. I let the weather and instinct take me, and I give in to whiteness. There are pops of colour, though, so I stay sane in what I cannot understand, but the feeling is amazing. I will only feel this way in December. 

***

Bailey's project "Night Train" is a mixed media piece, combining pencil, ink brush, acrylic and digital.



Bailey Copithorne is an image maker out of Calgary, Alberta. She is currently in her fourth year at the Alberta College of Art + Design, and will soon receive her Bachelor of Visual Communications Design, majoring in illustration. In her "spare" time, you may find her in the comic store or scoping the vintage shops around Calgary. She is obsessed with tin robots. You can follow Bailey's blog on tumblr. For more on Bailey and A4A's other contributors, take a look at the contributor's page.

Oscar Peterson passed away in 2007, but remains one of the most well known and influential jazz musicians and composers to come out of Canada. I encourage you to listen to more of his work which you can find on his website.