Look Who I Met

ok, so lately I've been doing a little bit of promo work as a way to fund my art. It is a really good deal since you work as little or as much as you want (given that there are jobs to do at the time) so it is quite flexible for my art schedule. in September I went around downtown with TELUS giving out roses and footballs for TELUS, in August I worked at cirque du soleil as part of the infiniti tour, and this month I am working with TD with their hot chocolate truck.

I've found that doing promos has actually helped me in more ways than just earning some money. I have always been a rather shy person who didn’t talk to a lot of people and when I did, if I didn’t know you I would feel kind of awkward talking to you. Now I may not be as outgoing as I would like, but I am more likely to start up conversations with people. I guess this started with when I first started doing "promotional" work at the beginning of summer(I use "" because technically what I was doing - it was illegal to promote it and no, it was not prostitution or anything like that). I remember telling people, "I got a job where my main job is to randomly talk to people, I know.. I hate talking to people". Now I am more comfortable meeting people and I think this is a step in the right direction :)

For this TD job, I have been rotating between beeing a mascot and being a spotter. This job is deff different because my job is not to talk to people but as the mascot interact and get peoples attention to bring the experience of the promotion to a higher level. basically I just dance non stop the entire time Im in the suit and well it seems to work haha. Funny how I keep getting finding jobs that pay me to dance while carrying heavy things lol. Last week we were at wordfest and they pulled me aside to pose with franklin! If I had known franklin would be there I would of brought my sister along to see him.

working at cirque du soleil had its perks, other than seeing the show every night on the screen in the tent. I learned that 5 minutes before every show the mosquito would come out and shoo people into the big top. So when I saw the show for the SECOND time I made sure to stay and wait to get my photo with the bug!

OH and one of the big perks of working promo? The people you get to meet. At cirque du soleil I got to talk to the traveling employees about the textile department for cirque, got to go into the vip tent to take a close look at some costumes and talk to head of security about how they are made. At my current promo my manager even has connections to people from marketing of cirque du soleil in montreal.

Oh I may not have mentioned this, but I would maybe like to spend a part of my life learning and being a part of the textile team behind cirque du soleil (if you didnt already figure that out). All I need to do is become fluent in french :)

love.dance.art

There are two things in this world that sometimes confuse me, because they are the two things that I cant really describe why I love them. art, and dance. I was going to wait till morning to write this, but it is in me right now. I love to dance, and I love to create art, I cant explain why and I often wonder why and what force drives people to want to create, and dance well thats harder because as styles change you kinda really are just flopping your body around. A few years ago, I was quite involved with both aspects of my loves and I made the descision that I would fully commit to art, and just dance when I could.

However now that I am not in school or really working that much, its really wierd but Ive been feeling kinda unmotivated. However now that I have some dance back in my blood, I get excited to work again and be creative.

I always thought that I had to choose one or the other and now I know that I need both. Dance motivates me, and art keeps me passionate.

When I was younger and I liked a boy, if I wanted him to like me back I always had the mindset "well, he just needs to see me dance". For those of you that have seen me dance you know, once I start, I cant stop.


(This was brought up by my seeing footloose today, man I love dance, and I love dance movies)

Rivalry

You got to find it interesting when different people from different areas of the globe both come up with the same idea, both market it well and yet probably dont even know about eachother. My facebook still thinks I'm in LA so I get ads from there, today I looked at one of them and it really reminded me of a calgary brand

first up is stellar hoods from calgary
www.stellarhoods.com

and today I found out about Schoodie from LA who is trying to completly brand the hooded scarf as a "schoodie"
www.schoodie.com
*schoodie I like your idea of flipping the hooded scarf and using it as a bag, should of been a bigger part of your "teach me how to schoodie" video

(this one is mentioned in the next paragraph)
www.jalu.ca

Stellar hoods website says that it was founded in july of 2009 and schoodie was made in october of 2010 so I have to say congrats to stellar hoods for marketing first; but honestly I remember seeing it first from space angel which is now jalu (from calgary). since space angel is no longer around and jalu is not producing the "barminder" anymore I cant really find dates other than a youtube video from march of 2009. Maybe there is more comapnies just like this, and maybe they started even earlier, and lets be honest the idea of attaching a scarf and ahood has probably been around for quite a while in the knitting world, but it was smart of these three people to market something that maybe hasnt been done before.

I guess the point of this is, no matter what you do, you there will always be rivalry. When your a kid they tell you "there will always be someone smarter or faster than you" and in art school they tell you "everything has already been done before, nothing is ever new or original". I guess the key part is taking what you do, and doing it your way and if you find someone who is doing the same thing as you, embrace what they have to share and dont let it deter you off of your own path.

If i could be anything...

I'd be a (hip hop) dancer. Ive always had a dream to be the star of a dance movie. I dream about it, day dream about it. Dance runs through my blood and it makes me happy. Girls flock to movies because of actors they love, male actors have never been someone I fantasize about. I have however been known to fall in love with dancers. People I know, performers I dont, male, female.. their movement captivates me. Dont get me wrong, I love what I do, but if I could do anything, it would be dance.

Then again it isnt just dance that I am attracted to, I think it is just talent in general.. there are a few artists Ive met in the past few years in calgary that I am just head over heals for, what would we do in this world without creativity and self expression?