Oh seriously who am I kidding, I think it’s only been my family that’s been wondering what’s up. And no, I would not announce on my blog the news of new additions to the family or similar such things…so rest assured it’s nothing that thrilling.

The news is sadly shameless self promotion, yup even I have to pay the bills sometimes folks. The glamorous life of a blog writer is just not all it’s cracked up to be : )

So here’s the deal: I’ve got a show coming up at the Sask Craft Council that I’m super excited about. Not only am I showing in my hometown, I’m also showing with two artists whose work I greatly admire – Jody Greenman-Barber and Robin Lambert – but on top of all that lately it’s also been a bit of a private anniversary for me. It’s silly really but in August of 2005 I graduated from Grad school, so this year is my 5 year anniversary of living in the ‘real’ world as an artist. Maybe it’s silly, but maybe it’s not. Sometimes we have to take note of our achievements, and not belittle the trials, risks and challenges that we’ve undertaken to get to where we are. Sure I would like my career to be further along at this point. But realistically i’d say it’s not so bad. I’m not working a crappy job instead, so I must be doing something right.

Oops I’m steering off course so before I go too over the top sentimental and lose you all, if I haven’t already (mom and dad I know you’re still here reading) my big announcement today is that in celebration of the last five years that I’ve been working on my Collection of Small Miseries series, I’m putting together a small self-produced publication highlighting pieces from the last few years. This publication will be launched at the upcoming exhibition.

Now I know some of you know about this already from the blog, facebook, etc., but what you don’t know is that for the rest of the month I’m going to be offering pre-orders of the publication at a discount of 20%.

As it sits right now (i’m in the final stages of editing) the publication will be a lovely 30 page full color, soft cover book. There will be over 70 color images of pieces from the collection from 2005 to 2010, plus a bit of text and quotes taken from my thesis/artist statement.

In fact here’s a sneak peek!

Of course two lucky people who contributed their opinion of their favorite will be randomly selected to win a free copy. You still have a chance to be one of these people – find out more here.

So if you’re interested in a copy you can purchase pre-orders here. The books will ship in early October.