temporary spaces

Well in true March form I have spent the past week buried in assignments and fighting off a nasty cold. But nevertheless it has been a busy great week. Despite the sickness and snowstorm, my sister and I went out to Stellas on Osborne for the opening of Canadiana - a group show full of wonderful pieces that especially speak to the sensibilities of us northerners. Two of my photo collages are among the bunch. For more about the work in this show [click here].

And tonight at 7pm is the opening of my show Temporary Spaces at GoSA (Gallery of Student Art) at the U of M, featuring paintings from this past year of thesis work. Very exciting stuff, there will be snacks and you are more than welcome to stop by. If you can't make it out tonight the show will be up for the rest of the week gallery hours are 9am-4pm

Monday to Friday.

My thesis this year has been in a way a reflection of my time spent in Haiti. For the past couple of years I have been making paintings about time, memory and dreams. Kind of dreamy landscapes varying in degrees of abstraction. My time being away impacted how I make work in that I had all of these new places in my head, new memories. I feel really good about my work at this point in the year, and I think I have stumbled upon some really interesting pieces.

In other news am getting very close to the end of the school year and I am very excited to finish, just over a month and I will have my degree. This is both great and scary as I'm not really sure what I am going to do afterwards. But I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go along.

-Julie

best of 2010

One of my lovely friends (fellow photographer/blogger Brittany Mahood) encouraged me to post a "best of 2010". I thought it was a great idea and started scanning through the thousands of photos I have from this past year. So as most of you know this past year 2010, was a big one for me. In early January I had the amazing privilege of travelling to Costa Rica (with YWAM)... it was an absolutely insane (in a good way) experience.

bonfire, bonding time with the new family in CR

baptism at Manuel Antonio

I was in school and living in community with people I had never met. But they were all amazing, I have never felt so accepted in my life. I learned so much, and made great friends.

after a school program in Nicaragua

From there I was able to go on outreach throughout Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Haiti.

across from the Guanacaste YWAM base

Haiti was both a dream come true and a nightmare. It was hectic and blazingly hot. I went with a team of 9 other people to work with those who had been affected by the terrible earthquake (which happened in January 2010). It was life changing! The children were so precious but the atmosphere in the nation was just so different. There is a lot of poverty and fear. I feel like our mission of bringing hope was successful, and though it was challenging, it was so so worth it (these next few were my May in Haiti).

June marked my return to Canada :) how I missed so much about this beautiful country.

Tulabi Falls -- one of my favourite places on earth

I was, needless to say, happy to be back with my family here. For me that includes a lot of people outside my parents and siblings. Mostly from my amazingly supportive church. These beautiful ladies are part of a very special family that shares their love with me and so many others. This was taken right after the beach baptism in September. So carefree. I just love their free spirits.
This candid shot of my mom laughing at my brother with a kayak on his head at our family cabin in October just makes me smile. It had been years since we had all spent thanksgiving together at the lake and I was so thankful that we made it all work this year with all of our crazy schedules pulling us in so many different directions.

fall light after a second thanksgiving dinner with the Cormie family

A very oddly mild November led to this moment captured. A friend at work who always encourages my creativity was interested in some new family shots of her bunch. I really feel like family pictures are one of those very important things that we often put off in our very busy lives. And was more than happy to take these pictures for her. This one I snuck (no warning, un-posed) just wanted to capture the genuine love in this family.

My final "best" was taken a few days ago, while I was finishing off a roll of film on campus. I have taken many pictures of this spot and I always come back to it. I guess I find this graffiti on an old green house to be a little charming. The importance and power of love is underestimated daily I think. But I think its the most important.

Photography has always been such an important way of processing how I see the world. It has been a truly amazing year, full of new experiences and challenges. Hopefully I will be writing again in one year from now with more photos, and stories.

wishing you lots of love and blessings in 2011,

-Julie

thought process...

When I was a child I was very odd. But you know, lots of kids are funny, if you spend time around kids you know what I mean, I mean that in the most positive way possible. I wore rainbow fluorescent tie-dye outfits, didn't brush my hair, was super painfully shy in social situations and wanted to be frankenstein when I grew up (that was until my wise brother told me I would have to have bolts in my head; so I chose to be an astronaut instead).

But anyways this all has a point I think...

thats me in the middle

So anyways my work this year has to do with destiny and dreams. It gets me thinking a lot about how different events in your life alter those original plans and dreams. Also though how you can be in something that makes no sense what so ever at the time but look back on it and have moments of major clarity. For as long as I can remember I have had an odd fascination with tarps. Yes those blue, orange, yellow whatever colour bright plastic things that cover construction sites in the winter. When I was little they looked magical to me. They made me want to go play in there. A few years ago I decided to re-visit this fascination after seeing a large balloon shaped tarp on a power line by my home.

This launched into a photography project that brought up issues of time, change, transformation, whimsy and the way I see the world. I love the photo collages that I created in 2009 and this year when applying for a show I dug up those images to send along with my application. All of a sudden my brain just click click clicked all together. Here I was painting these children in their dream spaces... while their cities have turned into tent cities. They were essentially living my childish naive dream of living and being under a tarp, with some very real very difficult realities.

While in Haiti this past May I myself slept under a "Samaritans Purse" tarp in a pastors yard in Port au Prince. All of this led me to turn my studio space into a kind of gallery under a tarp, the blue light is both comforting and limiting. I feel like this idea and how to incorporate it still needs a lot of developing. But its so odd how these things come together, it both makes me smile and makes me feel on track.

I guess I'll see what it turns into.

-Julie

A little preview of Haiti

I just wanted to put up a few pictures to help the blog I posted while in Haiti come alive a little bit. I hope these help to get you all intruiged to hear my stories when I come home.

the base in St. Marc

living in the refugee camp

little Emanuel

baptism in Balage

demolishing a church in Port au Prince

my team at the base in St. Marc

See you all soon,

-Julie

Haiti Update

So I'm finally updating you all on my outreach in Haiti!

After touching down into Haiti almost 3 weeks ago we all knew it was going to be a crazy new experience in this nation that is like no other. The customs at the airport is in a converted hanger, it was chaotic and hot and everyone was speaking creole. A weird welcome, but we were all excited for whats to come!

The first week in St.Marc we worked a lot at the base, helping with different projects. We were living in tents in a field on the base property, getting to know Haitian culture, and just how things work around here. During our first week my team was having a hard time being all together, as people kept getting really sick. Once they were better another person would be sick; Ingrid, Regi, Jenelle... one after another (it was so weird). After our orientation for new teams we were all pumped on the vision that this base has for the nation of Haiti. There is so much opportunity for teams here to work with people living in poverty (victims of the earthquake or not). God has huge plans for Haiti and its exciting to see the Haitian people rise up and take ownership of their true identity. Needless to say we were waiting for what we would be doing the next week with a ton of anticipation. We got assigned to go out to a refugee camp called Timonette, and live there for the week along with a team from Switzerland.

Our first week in Timonette was full of hard work for the team, working on a "Homes of Hope" house in a nearby town called Bellaguay. I instantly fell in love with the kids in the camp. There are about 23 tents with families from Port au Prince who have been displaced because of the earthquake. Out of around 120 people there are about 50 kids. Most of the kids don't go to school and are really bored during the day so we would hang out and play with them, and take pictures (they all love having their picture taken). Sadly I didn't make it past Wednesday morning, I got really sick and had to be brought back to the base. Rayme came back with me and played nurse, thank God for all the relief nurses staying here at the base! I got medicine right away and was back to normal by the weekend.

Our second week in Timonette we were working with the DTS from Panama. It was great to go back knowing some people already, the kids were happy to see us return and we had more of a plan of projects we wanted to complete during the week. As a team we constructed a "tippy tap" for each tent to encourage good hygiene, set up a garbage/ compost program, had an amazing womens ministry where pretty much every woman in the camp came out, had a couples teaching, had numerous kids programs, took family photos for the people, put up signs with scriptures on them around camp, had 2 amazing church services and had a big community dinner were everyone in the community got a brand new bowl with chicken & pasta. It was so cute to see the happy little faces munching on their chicken! In Bellaguay this past week we finished the "Homes of Hope" house, put on a kids program, had a mini clinic AND had an amazing time participating in a 24 hour prayer and worship "burn" that the Kona team was a part of. We felt like for our 2 hours of prayer to go to Bellaguay, a town living in a lot of poverty, that needs a lot of prayer. It was an incredible time as we began to pray for the people of the town, which lead to some serious preaching, new Christians and a river baptism! It was so incredible to see God move so strongly in a place that has been over run with voodoo and an incredible spiritual heavyness.

Anyways so we are back at the base in St.Marc today but we are leaving tomorrow to Port au Prince to do ministry there until Saturday when we fly back to Costa Rica. Its been a crazy ride here in Haiti and I am excited to see what happens in Port au Prince!

Lots of Love from Haiti!

For more info about the "24 hour burn" check out my friend Jasens blog:
http://jasenchung.squarespace.com/blog/2010/5/20/24-hour-burns-really-do-light-places-on-fire.html

HAITI!

So I'm leaving for Haiti in the morning! Very very excited!
My team will be staying at the YWAM base in St. Marc from May 4th- May 29th.
I'm not sure how it will be there for internet access so consider this my last update for a while. Please be praying for protection and provision for my team. As well as unity for my team! We will be staying in tents on the base, its really hot about 35 degrees, and it is the rainy season so its going to be a bit cozy. But yeah I have to go do my last minute packing and planning.
Talk to you all soon,
Lots of Love from Costa Rica!

This past week...

So life in Costa Rica is going awesome. I am just winding down after a busy week here at the base in San Jose. Our speaker this week was awesome, he talked a lot about leadership, living in community and how we should react towards one another. I've been O.D.ing on ice cream, as it has been really hot out for most of the week. For our local outreach this week we put on a children's program at a church nearby with music and games. It was a lot of fun and some of the little kids were on there way home from school and had their adorable uniforms on. The kids had fun, we had fun, it was a good day for everyone.

This Saturday I went to downtown San Jose with some friends and we just did touristy things, walked around, went to markets, took pictures... it was a nice relaxed day. We found a Canadian cafe, which was a nice taste of home (coffee and donuts). It was a great day with really fun people and to top it off we had burritos for dinner!

This week we also had our first official meeting with our outreach teams and it was great to see us all together, praying about what we can do while on our outreach. My team is made up of people from the states, canada, switzerland, el salvador, norway and costa rica! Its a really sweet diverse group, all of us with a huge heart for Haiti :)

Thank you guys at home for all of your support and prayers, I miss you all!

Anyways thats all for now from Costa Rica, lots of love!