This is where the Prairie part comes in...

I was born and raised in Alberta. Not the rocky mountain part, or the desert part and not the foothill ranch land part... well I was born there but not raised. Often times I think people assume Calgary = Alberta.  Nope, I was raised around the rolling fields of wheat, alfalfa and barley.

"In  the wee hours"

Detail on back of  "In the wee hours"

Growing up I never really thought about the landscape much. All I thought about was getting out of Dodge! I was the girl who couldn't wait to leave her hometown. I wanted to bust outta there so bad! Eventually I did... to Calgary... but after two years of studying art there (and two years of driving in spectacularly horrible winter conditions to Edmonton to see my boyfriend, now husband-score!) we decided to jump ship and move to a city we could both study in Vancouver! The plan:  finish two years of school (print making for me, writing for him), graduate and move back home to Alberta...which never, nor will ever happen.

Detail of sun - "In the wee hours"

Detail of fence-"In the wee hours"

We loved Vancouver! Water as far as the eye could see, sky scrapers, trees as big as sky scrapers and mountains-all in one City! The gray skies were a little hard to get used to but doable.What shocked me the most about this move was my physical reaction to the landscape change. I wanted something new, I wanted to live somewhere other than where I had grown up, I wanted this... you know that saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder"-well darn it, it's true! I began to long for openness, solitude and a horizon. Skip ten years later and we haven't moved back to Alberta, but here I sit in my yellow farm house on a flat piece of  land that looks rather prairie-ish nestled by a rolling mountains in the background.

" Quietly"

I guess in a very round about way, my claim is this - if I had never moved away from the prairies, my prints of  grain elevators never would have existed. I'm not sure I  would have appreciated what the prairies had to offer me and I'm not sure I would have realized how ingrained it is in me to this day.

  

Detail of Railroad - "Quietly"

Detail of sun -"Quietly"

Recently, in the last year I've had quite a bit of interest around my grain elevator prints. Mostly it's been interest from people who have moved away, like myself but for these recent prints it was for a person who I grew up with in Alberta and now lives in Saskatchewan (nobody offer her condolences like everyone did when they heard we were going there for our holidays last year... Saskatchewan is a beautiful province). On these prints I did something a little different this time, I don't know why I didn't think of it before? I hope you like it as much as I do!

Detail on back of "Quietly".

 Lisa loved horses growing up and now, as it should be, raises horses herself!

So who would you dress up as for a Dead Celebrirty party?

My husband and I were invited to a "Dead Celebrity Party." We like to dress up: it's fun and this gave my husband a chance to combine two of his favourite things - music and zombies. He went as a freshly deceased Kurt Cobain (yup that's my man).

Who would I be? It's got to be a costume with the right mix,  reflecting one's personality with the person you're pretending to be. Actually I knew right away who I wanted to dress up as.

"No one will know who you are!" was the instant feedback from my husband on my costume idea.

I kinda knew this already but I had always wanted to dress up as this woman, even though in the 10 years we have been throwing our annual Halloween parties there was always something more Halloween(ie) to be. I had studied about this woman in art school, she was married to a very famous muralist and partied with the Rockefellers back in the day. She's on plenty of pop culture items such as buttons, posters, jewelry etc. She's had countless books written about her and had a motion picture made about her life. She was a strong female artist and sexy but not in a typical or blatant way.

There were plenty of sexy and awesome costumes at the party:

Marlyn Monroe (a staple)
Audry Hepburn (very classy)
Sid and Nancy (a great couples costume)
Jim Morrison,
Eazy-E ( I'm not sure who Eazy-E is but my Husband was impressed)

Steve Irwin, The Crocodile hunter, with the end of the stingray hanging out of his wet suit chest:
 

 Evil Knievel, although I'm not sure if the fellow dressed up as Evil was dressing up or really channeling him?

Our hosts went as Mr. Rogers and the sexiest Julia Child you will ever see (Hellooooooooo!):

A few brave people asked me who I was. They kinda had a feeling who I was from my eyebrow (or should I say unibrow?) and once I mentioned Salma Hayek they were like ahh.Then my husband would give me a look of "see I told you nobody would know who Frida Kahlo was", I didn't care! I felt my back straighten in pride just as Frida carried her body. I loved wearing all the bracelets and bangles, the shawl and best of all the flowers in my hair. I enjoyed, even for one night, pretending to own it the way Frida did.

I thought I did a pretty great job. Perhaps I was missing one little detail:

Now I put it to you, who would you dress up as for dead celebrity party? I'm dying to know (get it dying to know...)

Just in case your answer is Frida Kahlo too, here are some of my favourite Frida Kahlo(ish) things I've come across:

Mexican Maxi Party Dress 

Monarca Black Mexican Dress Tunic

Embroidered Vintage Blouse

Emerald Garden Necklace

Frida Azul Necklace 

Raven Necklace

Silver Skull Pendant