Oh Canada! 2024 notes

After much cogitation, I've decided to direct you to my Substack for the weekly photographic summaries of my Oh Canada road trip. (Link)
I will add a Linky table of contents in another post after I finish them all on October 30.
I am concurrently working on an analog journal/ scrapbook, which I intend to post for paying subscribers on Substack.

Impatient? Go to the posts here!
or
The FindPenguins diary here

Trip artwork, [currently altered photos] will show up below as I get them archived.
It's possible to search by typing in a keyword, such as state/ province, landscape feature (such as "mountain"), etc.

Safe travels!

Cross Canada (and Diagonally Home) Road Trip Done!

This is my route as logged into the Find Penguins app. (I’m still editing it, adding more photos). Here’s the link to view the entries.

7870 miles, 2 days north, 7 days across Canada, [8 days doing non road trip activites], 6 days westbound.

Next, I will work on a more detailed analog travel journal, with maps and ephemera.

I’ll use a format similar to journals I created in 2014 and 2009. (Did I make one in 2019? Not sure!) I blogged the 2014 trip and book in my Patreon. (In reverse order, link to first post) For 2024, I’ll be blogging my journey on several sites, as an experiment.

Years ago, I had the grand idea to circumnavigate Canada, the way I did the US in 2014. I was going to include Alaska, the one US state I have yet to visit.

Looking at that map this January kind of freaked me out. I couldn’t wrap my head around doing the whole route. I scaled it down to something more manageable, just the part between Sumas, BC (north of Bellingham, WA) across to the Thousand Islands border crossing (north of Watertown, NY). And I pretty much avoided big cities (Vancouver BC, Toronto ONT).

Every week, I’ll go into detail about each day [except the 8 days in upstate NY].

While you wait for next week’s first installment - Los Angeles to Weed, CA - get previews on FindPenguins.

Most of My Road Trips, Stitched

It's been WAY too long since I've been on a road trip!

I'm happy to say that I'll be making a quick drive up to San Francisco this coming Saturday.
Woohoo!

One of my stuck-at-home projects was to start stitching all my road trips on a dish towel sized North American map. 

I worked up the map in Illustrator, using a Photoshopped denim scan and vector maps purchased from iStock. I had it printed by Spoonflower in cotton twill.

This is a work in progress.
I want to include my planned circumnavigation of Canada in 2024!

I am also still missing some past road trips - the ones where I didn't keep good records and am having trouble remembering where I went. In addition, I'm not including any trips to just San Francisco. Too many!

The trips inventory:

• fall 1974 one way [ow] not yet stitched
• summer 75 round trip [rt] not
• winter 75/76 rt not
• summer 76 rt not
• winter 76 ow not
• winter/spring rt 82 yellow
• fall 82 ow not
• winter 93 rt white
• summer 94 rt very dark indigo
• spring 95 rt lt green
• spring-fall 96 rt hot pink
• winter 96/97 rt light pink
• fall 99 rt not
• summer 2000 rt orange
• fall 09 rt rust
• spring 14 light blue
• summer 15 emerald
• summer/fall 21 rt tbd
• spring/summer 24 rt tbd

Some housekeeping for those of you receiving these (rare) posts by email:
the current service will stop sending posts at the end of July. If you would click through to the blog and sign up again with the new service, you'll stay in the loop! Thanks!

Greetings from 77002: Downtown Houston on Foot

During my five day stay in Houston, I had opportunities to escape my StARTup Art Fair room and explore the historic downtown area. [Long post with lots of photos]
But first, the view from my room:

Definitely a Maxfield Parrish dawn
I won't bore you with the tons of pictures taken of the view from my room.
If curious, go to my StARTup Houston photo dump on Flicker.
A significant amount were taken, at all hours!

My first foray was on Friday, when I was craving something sweet.
These shots were taken on Main Street.

My hotel, the Hotel Icon, is in the background on the far right. 

Saturday, I headed northeast for breakfast on San Jacinto Street.
This took me past the courthouse, an unusual parking lot sign, over the Buffalo Bayou, and into the land of bail bond establishments.

This was my breakfast view.

On Monday, I had to get some supplies at CVS. En route, I got good views of the neighboring Islamic Center, which housed the curious open air structure on its roof, seen in the first room view picture.

The impressive facade of my hotel.
It was originally a bank.

Near CVS was Market Square, a lovely park with fun decorations. In the sidewalk surrounding it, old tiles (original establishments?) were embedded in the sidewalk.

Returning to the hotel, I heard a familiar Texas sound: the cry of a grackle.
My Texas sojourn was now complete.

Linking up with
Shelbee's Spread the Kindness
Catherine's #ShareAllLinkup

Greetings from 77002: Video Walkthrough of Room 400, StARTup Art Fair, Houston

There's a great video interview posted on Facebook shot by Ray Beldner, the fair director (which I don't know how to post anywhere besides Facebook. Sorry. It was one of those Facebook Live things).

Greetings from 77002: Setting up my StARTup Houston Show

The concept of the StARTup Art Fair is this: it's a pop-up takeover of floors of a hotel. Each artist (or group) has a room to make over into their exhibition space (without damaging the walls).
I walked the Venice CA edition last February, and wrote about it here.

Here is my process of redecorating room 400 at the Hotel Icon in Houston.

Room 400 before.

The hallway before.

Those cow prints did NOT want to be removed.

The cow print hanging hardware that I had to work with

Preliminary #dailytrucks hung on existing hardware.
More trucks piled on the orange chair.

Took a break from the trucks to work on hanging the On the Edge pieces in the hallway.

Getting the north edge images hung (left side of hallway).

Southern edge.
My "Eureka!" moment with the blue tape. Better than sticky notes.
This was the most mathematically challenging wall to hang.
The center piece was 5x7", the rest were 4x6".

Southern edge completed.

I installed the eastern edge vertically in the arch of the entryway and the closet door.

I placed the western edge (only had two pieces), random other pieces, and the road trip journal
in a nicely lit niche where the coffeemaker had been.

At this point, Danielle Grant came by to help curate. I was in somewhat of a quandary over how to display the trucks and she gave me some helpful tips. We also discussed the lack of lighting in the hallway.

Trucks randomly hung on existing hardware.

On the walls by the bed, filled in the space keeping the same rhythm
and extended a line to the left over the bedside table.
Took the $25 prints off the bed (too messy) and had a "secret drawer" for them in the bureau.

On the big wall, Danielle suggested "embrace some chaos" vs keeping to a strict rhythm.
I loved this suggestion and it made hanging MUCH easier! No more hanging math!

Room 400 ready to show. I then sat in the chair and took a nap.

The next post will be a video walkthrough.

Suitcase Full of Art

In exactly one week, at exactly this time, I will be doing my final bit of packing and boarding a plane to Houston for the stARTup Art Fair.
This bag is already full!

All the metal prints fit in here, but I'll be splitting them up between my two bags.  Just in case.

Did you know that Southwest allows two FREE checked bags if they're each under 50 pounds and under 62" height + width + depth? Southwest supports the arts!

Note: you may have arrived here from the QR code on the back of my old "On the Edge: US" postcard. 
If so, the most current EDGE posts are now subscription-based on my Patreon site. For only $1/month, you'll be able to read everything! Go! Click here and take that offramp!

On the Edge Goes to Houston

Woohoo! I was accepted into the stARTup Houston Art Fair!
October 11-13
Hotel Icon
220 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002

I AM SO EXCITED!

I'll be showing new On the Edge prints along with Daily Trucks.
More details as I get them!

The concept of the stARTup Art Fair is: artists do a takeover of floors of a hotel. Each artist gets a room and redecorates it with their art. Here is a link to my post about stARTup LA, which I visited last February.

Is this my room?

Greetings from Hudspeth County, Texas

I have been working through my images captured five years ago on my circumnavigation of the contiguous US. Some I've been uploading to Saatchi Art, others I'm keeping private for my Patreon subscribers.

What became very apparent with the latest batch is how totally inspired I get on a forty mile stretch of I-10 in western Texas.

I-10, West Texas, digital watercolor printed on various media, available on Saatchi Art
©2019 Anne M Bray

Here is one in the original 53 Edge images (and it was the only "out the side window" view that rendered well in the 2014 version of Waterlogue:

West Texas, digital watercolor printed on aluminum, 4 x 6"

 ©2014 Anne M Bray

2019 version:

I-10, Western Texas, digital watercolor printed on various media, available on Saatchi Art
©2019 Anne M Bray

This image, (which I'm only posting here):

I-10, Mesa, West Texas, digital watercolor printed on various media, ©2019 Anne M Bray

Is compositionally very similar to this chalk pastel from 1994:

I-20, West Texas, pastel on paper, 18 x 28" (unframed),

©1994 Anne M Bray

In 2014, I drove through at the perfect time, with the sun stating to set and the shadows growing long.

I-10, Western Texas Sunset, digital watercolor printed on various media, available on Saatchi Art ©2019 Anne M Bray

Four Corners on the Edge

The four corners of my Edge journey (as close as I got, at least).

Southwest US Corner: I-5, San Diego

Southeast US Corner: US1, Key West

Northeast US corner: US1 x I-95, Houlton, Maine

Northwest US Corner: US101, Forks, WA