welcome to puddle press
editor: lindsay zier-vogel
*An amazing short film of the opening night of Sitting Room Stories by David Tse*
* Canadian Medical Association Journal features "Lifeworks: Physicians as patients: a narrative patchwork", a collaborative quilt-medical science project between Lindsay Zier-Vogel and Dr. Suzanne Watters
The Vancouver Sun has also featured this project here and here *
*KID ICARUS is carrying Puddle Press treats: 75 Nassau Street in Kensington Market, Toronto*
*The Regional Assembly of Text now has Puddle Press creations in the lower case gallery: 3934 Main St.,Vancouver*
*All archived entries can be found here*
*New Love Lettering*
May 3, 2008 (...almost May the FOURTH!)
That's right folks, it's Puddle Press's favourite day of the year: May the Fourth be with you! Time to bike some baking all over the city, spreading the goodness 'round.
And in exciting Puddle-y news: my collaborative medical-quilt project was featured in the Vancouver Sun: here and here
I have a spring project a-brewing, but for now, I am off to Halifax for some Atlantic adventures.
I shall leave you with a small taste...
~
I love that you sing first thing in the morning,
before my eyes have even thought of opening,
and that I have to prop my window open
against the dusk
to hear your evening song.
I love that you are
three letters long,
a single syllable I can carry on
naked fingertips
(awake, asleep).
April 27, 2008
I wake up just before World Report,
narrow green numbers that are five minutes fast
and no longer trick me,
and CBC calls eight o'clock –
in bells or maybe a trumpet,
the instruments don't really matter,
they just draw the line
between an interview with a high school basketball team
and an update on the price of gas, oil, the most recent US primary.
The same call used to mean late
late late late
with Mom in the driveway yelling, Lock up! Do you have your lunch?
And inside the front seat,
Judy Madrin’s voice like the creamed honey we ate for breakfast,
opaque and thick above the toast,
softening the crusts we had to finish.
April 14, 2008
Happy poetry month!
a delectable rainy brunch at saving grace :: sunshining wedding invites for my favourite sailing pair
~
She sings of spring,
that thin pale light that pulls green from the snow-soaked dirt
the small square she left
when she left the house with the cherry tree.
And ever since, she has wanted to live
on a street named after a long ago lady –
Beverley, Beatrice, Grace,
but gets stuck, crocus-less on streets named after old guys
colonels probably, or generals
Dundas, Dovercourt, Manning,
tulips stuck in mason jars
instead of thawing
underneath a window.
April 11, 2008
Puddle Press goes medical this spring with "Physicians as patients: a narrative patchwork", an article about a collaborative quilt-medical science project
in this week's Canadian Medical Association Journal
Curl on up with a pot of tea...
(and if you're really into the notion of art and science collaborative thought, check out SEED magazine - brilliant I tell you!)
March 28, 2008
A piece I wrote about my Nana Ruth has been published in the Globe and Mail's Lives Lived column...
"Nana Ruth was no typical granny. She had all four grandchildren reading betting forms at the racetrack by the time they were three, making up new rules for Scrabble by 6 and, on rainy afternoons, helping her set up the couch as a net in the middle of the cottage in Haliburton Ont., for an intense Nana-initiated indoor tennis tournament..."
...read the full article here.
(and yup, those are her shades*)
ps: my artwork is featured in Toronto at The Theatre Centre this week as a part of Ava/Chroma
March 19, 2008
My cornmeal muffins got a shout out from Owen Sound Public Library's poet of the month: Rhya Tamasauskas
(and oh, check out the Legends from Bobby May poems at the bottom of the site - pure brilliance!)
the world’s most delectable cornbread (or corn meal muffins…)
1 C flour ~ 1 tbsp baking powder ~ ½ tsp salt ~ ½ C white sugar (or brown)
1 C cornmeal ~ ½ C butter ~ 1 egg ~ ¾ C milk
Preheat oven to 375. Mix all dry ingredients. Beat egg, add in all wet.
Bake in greased 8x8 pan (or 12 muffins) for 15-20 minutes.
Eat with your favourite writer/poet/monster-maker/inspirer extraordinaire.
~
and a poem to read while the muffins are baking...
The sound of Wednesday fills the room,
like a note on the far end of the piano,
the one in the living room
with the tulips, a week old and splayed open as her repeated arpeggios,
creatures of orange and yellow
their open mouths thirsty.
Her fingers pause above the keys,
and she forgets the notes printed in black on white,
thinking instead of her face held in a hand
that is as thick as her voice
when it is at its saddest.
Pollen scatters yellow above middle C
and she asks, asks,
and the tulips nod, yes, yes of course, yes.
March 17, 2008
Puddle Press went on a road trip this weekend to Ottawa to cheer Mike Muir (the highest jumper, in Globe and Mail photo below) and the Brock Badgers to victory at the CIS basketball championships - 100% fun!
Twas an epic underdog story and much fun to make witty signs and cheers and shake our sparkly pompoms!
And the very best cheer of the tournament: with the best cheer to be sung to the Western Mustangs with 3 minutes left in the fourth quarter:
"WARM UP THE BUS! WARM UP THE BUS!" - nothing short of brilliance, I tell you!
~
And for your non-sportsy pleasure:
PICKLEY! (my very favourite irreverent pickle)
Perfect words a la Lisa Congdon
My current fav read
Beautiful fingers singing a waltz for a lady named Debbie
MONSTER MADNESS at the One of a Kind Craft show in Toronto
~
ps: poems and a new installation a-coming later this week...keep those peepers peeled...*
March 2, 2008
It takes me three blinks to remember where the door is from this bed,
and two more blinks to figure out which way to turn when I get there.
I am glad I left a path through the scatter of stumbling boxes,
their edges tumbled soft by the kilometres
between west and east.
February 25, 2008
Oh sweet Vancouver, goodbye, farewell.
I will wave to the typewritered window and the Legion on Main Street from the shores of Lake Ontario.
I stuff books into boxes until they are too heavy to carry
and by the time I remember my wine,
a moth, the small confused kind that ignore lightbulbs
and fill the kitchen when I open the cupboard doors,
has drowned in my wine glass.
I did not even see it fight against the Argentinian malbec,
the one with the sword on the label,
and now, red leaches into its wings
and turns them Valentine's Day pink.
~
...Puddle Press is Toronto-bound...
February 20, 2008
The Regional Assembly of Text is carrying Puddle Press creations in "the lower case gallery"
(you can even read them from a l-o-v-e seat)
February 14, 2008
HAPPY V-DAY!! Love letters for all!
:: Handmade Puddle Press Valentine's ::
and the next best thing to love notes...a glorious pile of thank you cards from my extraordinary students at Mt. Pleasant Public School
xox
February 4, 2008
This is a house where light bulbs do not always trust themselves
to stay steady against the ceiling,
doors held close by tangles of last August's blackberries
windows wishing for gills to open up against the pink.
~
And if you're in Vancouver, The Regional Assembly of Text now has Puddle Press creations in the lower case gallery
Tis such an inspiring space: a cute reading room with artists books and the world's comfiest loveseat
January 28, 2008
They sit on a bench,
and wait for their clothes to spin themselves done.
Peeling slats interrupt spines,
and a handful of sparrows,
line up against the rain,
fingers as busy wings.
~
In the midst of some January fun:
I'm currently the artist-in-residence at Mt. Pleasant Public School through ArtStarts: poetry and dance and book-making wonders
drift-walking with Julie Lebel
LOVING this movie (and dreaming up a sequel entitled "Garamond")
rockin' out to Christa Couture and C. R. Avery
loving this book...still after months of setting it down
trying my hand at pizza dough and enjoying this deliciousness in consolation
and...finishing up the first draft of my newest project: eyes and colour blindness and a funny 10 year old named Charlotte
January 3, 2008
Welcome 2008! It's so wonderful to have you here!
I hereby declare that 2008 shall be the year of the novel -- read, written and published. Cross those fingers, Puddlers!
What better way to start the New Year than with my first Vancouver show!
B.C. Book Arts Guild Midwinter Show and Tell
Monday January 14th from 7:30-9pm
Vancouver Central Library: 350 West Georgia St., Peter Kaye Room, Lower Level
C'mon out for some Puddle Press wonders...
~
A wee poem to start off the year:
She finds the edge of the highway
with her palms
as a sound spins itself into throat –
a prairie prayer,
a prairie wind that blows her hair furious.
Back inside, a hat that was mistaken once for a halo,
hangs next to a long ago coat,
its bleached beaver fur shedding above the hardwood.
That night, she sleeps on her side,
facing the wall
so she can feel the cold radiating against her eyelids
(closed).
December 24, 2007
Happy Winter and a very merry Christmas to all!
Love,
Puddle Press (and Snowy)
December 12, 2007
Oh thank you to everyone who came out to support Puddle Press this December. Twas so wonderful to meet all of you and chat and wonder wide-eyed at all of the glorious hand-made crafts surrounding us. A special thank you to my kindred spirits who saved the City of Craft show...ladies and gent, you are gems!
And...if you are still jonesing for Puddle Press treats (journals and cards) and you're in Toronto...KID ICARUS is carrying Puddle Press treats! If you haven't been, oh go! It's such a fantastic shop: 75 Nassau Street in Kensington Market, Toronto (and then you're so close to iDEAL coffee, what a perfect afternoon!)
November 25, 2007
What a busy time ahead! Celebrate December with Puddle Press treats at the City of Craft (Dec. 1st) and the OCAD Book Arts Fair (Dec. 2nd),
then follow 'er up with a Puddle Press co-production...
Tuesday Dec. 4th at Bar Italia – 582 College St. (just west of Bathurst at Clinton)
doors at 7pm, performances begin at 8 ~ pwyc
readings by: rhya tamasauskas & lindsay zier-vogel | choreography by: jennifer dallas & susan kendal | musical performances by: lucy rupert & patrick perkins & michael owen liston
There'll also be a fantastic raffle including tickets to Ava|Chroma, papery Puddle Press treats, tickets to Jennifer Dallas’ show, between here and now, clothing from Puddle in My Pocket, a subscription to The Dance Current magazine, recording from folk-musician Christa Couture and much more…*
come and celebrate collaboration at its finest!
www.puddlepress.com ~ www.blueceilingdance.com
November 10, 2007
It's been a busy craft-ful fall here at Puddle Press. And I am happy to announce that all of these potential gifts (below and over here) are *now* available through Puddle Press, Toronto's City of Craft (Dec. 1st) and the OCAD Book Arts Fair (Dec. 2nd).
I have to say, these photos don't do these gems justice. I'm just tickled by how everything's turned out...
(especially the recipe books and the reclaimed journals!)
[clockwise]: Thank you cards ~ packages of five sweet-as-can-be cards and envelopes :: Reclaimed journals ~ journals with found paper and reclaimed covers :: Recipe books ~ with a start-you-off-recipe in each category :: Felted journals ~ one-of-a-kind, embroidered and silk-screened inspiration :: PRETTY PANTS ~ Keep your pants free from bike grease, a brilliant gift for the biker in your life :: hand-made cards ~ [clockwise]: winter trees :: scrabble-babble:: flowered-dress-on-a-line :: flyaway-plane :: pinned-french-dress :: delicious-cake.
October 27, 2007
Between the brilliant red leaves, the pumpkin scones, craft-making and this bit of Descant-poem-love, I can't help but l-o-v-e October.
Crafts abound. Keep your eyes peeled for hand-made cards, recipe card books and soon-to-be-created journals. Pics to come this week.
And, to usher in the fall, a new poem over here*
October 8, 2007
I have two poems in Descant's latest issue: D138: Fashion (there's even a sneak peek...*)
If you're in Toronto, head on over to the launch. It'll be fan-fashion-tastic!
Wed. Oct. 10th: The Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St W) @ 7:30pm...fashionable attire encouraged!
October 1, 2007
Puddle Press embarked on a silk-screening campaign and made limited edition tshirts
to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's Run for the Cure.
Our running team was called "Saving Second Base" (if you don't get it right away, give 'er a quick think...)
and through the support of friends, family and colleagues Puddle Press' Saving Second Base campaign raised over $500!
GO TEAM!
Twas a stunning sunshining day in Toronto...a bit greyer west-side...
Happy October...many events are underfoot...keep your eyes peeled!
September 5, 2007
Hooray! Annie Oakley: Git yer gun was featured on CBC's Metro Morning program in the What's On column.
More here...
September 1, 2007
I have an installation up in Toronto!!
Annie Oakley: Git yer gun
She Said Boom! Window Space: 372 College St. (at Augusta), Toronto
Annie Oakley: Git Yer Gun is a paper and soft-sculpture installation based on an original poem about the famed cowgirl, Annie Oakley. This installation reintroduces the historical figure of Annie Oakley into a contemporary context, highlighting the juxtaposition of Oakley’s the traditionally masculine world of guns and the Wild West, with a conservative femininity. Focusing on Annie Oakley as both subject and object, there is a sewn paper quilt, two soft sculpture Annie Oakley dolls and various objects: the cigarettes Oakley shot out of the Prince of Prussia’s lips, feathers from the quails she shot as a sharp shooting child, the playing cards she could split in two with a bullet and the sewing supplies she would use to make her own clothes.
Go on, check 'er out!!
~
Thank you so much to Tara Bursey and Susan Kendal-Urbach
ps: this poem was first published in echolocation
August 28, 2007
My doctor friend, Suzanne Watters and I collaborated on her Family Medicine Residency Project: Centering Ourselves as Patients.
She describes the project: "When physicians are forced to assume the sick role, their trials enable them to develop deeper empathy for their patients as they experience healthcare from an unfamiliar perspective. This project aims to disseminate the knowledge acquired by these physicians." Suzanne interviewed Canadian doctors who developed health challenges over the courses of their careers and I transcribed quotes from these interviews on to hand-made quilts (with books in the centre with longer versions of the interviews). It's generated loads of support after its premiere in Vancouver at the annual UBC Family Medicine Residency Projects conference and has since been exhibited at the John G McKenzie Family Practice Centre in Prince George, BC. We have plans to send 'er far and wide to hospitals across this fine country of ours. I'll keep you posted...*
~
And in other fabric-y news...I've been making skirts out of bed sheets and pillowslips
100% twirl-able...
August 15, 2007
More soon oh soon, much is underfoot in the land of Puddle Press, but for now, let's dance!
iPOD on shuffle + sun + strangers + bus loop park near granville st. + black eyed susans = so much fun!
It is a fantastic community dance project headed up by Foolish Operations
I got a little bit of Feist, some Mr. Somethingsomething, Neko Case and Fela Kuti. the perfect evening dancing mix!
~
sandwiched between a soccer game
and a waterballon fight,
the evening curls around,
then away from
my tucked-under feet.
June 17, 2007
We hit the Trans Canada as CCR sings about cotton fields,
and I think milkweed on the scrubby side of the highway
into cotton.
Crows arrange their wings
one at a time on top
of a telephone pole,
right, left
and don't bother watching us pass.
May 27, 2007
The cross-country adventure begins oh-so-shortly...and in between packing...
reading and writing in the sunshine, punctuated by brunch and then some more reading and writing in the sunshine...
(give or take some quince blossoms, picnic blankets, Canada geese goslings, white chocolate, Sopranos pizza and pints of Denisons...*)
Other goodness:
* Feist's far-too-much-fun show at Massey Hall (complete with some RAZZLE DAZZLE)
* Gonzalez's extraordinary piano playing (and audience humming*) as he opened for Feist, white gloves a-flying, magic spells a-cast
* Deeeelectable Georgian Bay Trout and the 100-mile special at La Palette
* listening to Q
* The Cape-elution...(a revolution of capes...stay tuned) at the PS Kensington Festival
Time to pack up the car and crank some tunes...
planned for the trip...not much save for a prairie picnic, singing the Eagles/Neko Case/Johnny Cash at full volume and some
air-banjo
See you from the Pacific side...be well*
ps: Massey Hall's glorious ceiling...the acoustics still give me goosebumps...
May 19, 2007
Love Letter Project III:
Odes on brambles and elegies on hawthornes...
The love letter project continues for the third straight year!
This time, it was a "love"-ly wee tree in Trinity Bellwoods Park, Toronto...adorned with one-of-a-kind hand-created love letters a la Puddle Press
Nothing says spring-y goodness like coming across a love letter dangling in the sweet May breeze*
~
Mmmm, spring also means copious amounts of picnics, dreams of west, glorious evenings with the most wonderful of friends,
editing and re-writing in the sunshine and gin and tonics as the sun sets. Nothing short of delightful!
ps: check out this fantastic new installation space (with a stunner of an opening exhibit!) curated by Tara Bursey
April 15 , 2007
(ps: get your very own library cards here*)
March 30, 2007
It is spring! Finally spring, and spring means two things...
skirts and skirts and skirts and....and a completed manuscript
(with some of this to celebrate its done-ness*)
(And now, time to make things again...paper and fabric and a new love letter project...keep your eyes peeled*)
March 22, 2007
* sorting through chapter three at ella's uncle*
~
A mail slot, a knocker,
a metallic number six
that darkens where the loop meets the stem.
Dora stands to the left of the six,
one hand pauses on the peeling door frame,
the other holds a scarf,
its fringe dangling past the hem of her coat.
March 18, 2007
From ninety steps skyward...
And for more mid-March inspiration, the amazing Mark Freeman has his fantastic and inspiring short film Planeless...
And if you need to shake it, check out Mr. Something Something's new video...
March 6, 2007
* figuring out chapter four in the chilly sunshine *
~
Door: a moveable structure of wood, metal, glass
used for closing up an entrance to a building or a room
A door, framed with peeling paint,
waits to be stepped into or out of,
a door with a small curtained window,
a brass knocker,
and a lock above the palm-warmed handle.
Dora,
two even steps,
right left
in out.
February 23, 2007
Tucking in, trying to hammer out a draft of my book. Potential titles swirling about like the morning's snowflakes...
And in between cups of coffee and Dora-ing, wintery goodness -- skiing, skating and wintery fields.
February 13, 2007
Oh! London!
A week of poking about in basements and boiler rooms and pubs and the peeling top floors of run down mansions,
discovering magpies and fish and chips and the Christmas bulb seed pods of peeling plane trees...glorious!
(On my wanders, I found myself noticing brick colour: Harrod's orange, South Kensington Station yellow, Toynbee Hall red, Holy Trinity brown...)
A bit of a poem inspired by a dance piece performed at The Place:
A dress named Alice:
The fabric folds back on itself,
buttons and cuffs and hems,
bones buried in
unpredictable sleeves
that turn wrists into warnings,
a Wednesday into Tuesday
and hand to elbow to sky.
~
Let the Toronto adventures begin! To kick off some mid-February goodness, a wee smidge of Annie Oakley fun...
January 28, 2007
Dreaming of London...my very *first* research adventure.
Map :
Hyde Park curves
south-west to north-east in capital letters
that are as wide as they are tall,
and next to the long arrow with an N at its tip,
the parade ground spreads south of Speaker’s Corner.
~
I am aiming to find the most perfect bench in Hyde Park, visit the Imperial War Museum and read some WWI letters, a jaunt out to Toynbee Hall, where my character, Dora, worked with orphans during the war and then meander about to find the grottiest bus station and London's most delicious pint.
ps: Echolocation is launching their newest issue with my poems inside! Do go if you can!
Toronto: Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 8pm
at Labspace Studio, 276 Carlaw Ave., Suite 202*
January 22, 2007
I may have brought the snow,
but I did not bring boots,
or mitts, or a warm enough coat.
my victoria writing space :: my victoria writing duds
This is not a lake,
the stones do not skip not matter how flat they are
and the waves against the sand
are not from a passing motor boat.
~
And a song to celebrate coming back to T-dot...teehee.
January 20, 2007
Oh, a glorious west coast adventure. I am full to the brim. My, that Pacific Ocean sure is something!
Beyond the ocean, the ocean and some more ocean, the spectacular coffee, *snow*, scintillating conversation and never-ending walks along Fort Street,
The Noodle Box (the most delectable noodles and the most fantastic back story!) :: Sorensen Books (for amazing used books and paperly treats) :: The Rebar (for delectable double chocolate chip mint cookies!) :: Smoking Lily (for some smoking clothes) :: Moka House (for the most delicious espresso muffins near the ocean...mmmm!)
And after the most inspiring ferry ride to Vancouver, lot's more wandering, some breakfast kimchi and gamjatang (this vegetarian's dream come true!)...
The Elbow Room (for some sass with our eggs*) :: The Regional Assembly of Text (for some text-y inspiration) :: Our Town Cafe (for an tea-ed pause in the comfiest chairs ever) :: The Vancouver Art Gallery (that included an impromptu CBC TV interview and some quilt-inspiring art)
January 2, 2007
Happy New Year!
This map book is the product of my New Year's eve. I think pop-ups will rule my 2007.
I'm off to visit the ocean and write write write.
~
But before I fly off, some late 2006/early 2007 finds:
* morning-ness (how I love mornings)
* MADE: a fantastic new design store on Dundas at Euclid
* Stunning photographs by Stef Boudreault
*Took a while to get into, but I'm finally falling into this book, laughing HYSTERICALLY over this one and saving this one for the plane ride
* And last, but certainly not least, a FAN-tastic reading I wish I was in town for (go if you can!!)
Triny Finlay, Holly Luhning, and Daniel Scott Tysdal ~ Thursday, January 11th, 2007
Bar Italia, 582 College St. at 8pm
*All previous entries can be found here*
(all writing is copyrighted by lindsay zier-vogel)