Featured Artist with the Luupe for International Women's Day.

Can someone pinch me?

This just happened. Featured Artist with the Luupe for International Women's Day.

This image is part of a self-portrait project I did during the lockdown. I created a self-portrait a day for 150 days and during that time I decided to shave my head so I didn’t have to dye my hair anymore. This image encapsulates a moment in time that began a new chapter and I am beyond thrilled to be a featured artist among such a powerhouse group of women who work to lift each other up every day.

The blouse I am wearing is orange and navy blue, I bought it for $2 in a bin at a local thrift store. The pants I have on are polyester navy blue and pin stripped. I bought the couch during lockdown for $200 so I had a place to lay down or relax that was not my bed. I live in a bachelor's apartment and my bed is in the center of the main room. I wanted to change the vibe during the lockdown and I sold it once things opened up again and my apartment went back to being my workroom. I couldn’t move it out of the way to give myself enough room to shoot or use the floor when I was doing projects.

I hope you found a way to celebrate yourself today, remembering that you are an integral part of moving us forward and I am so grateful to be able to share a piece of my journey with you.

Lost at Sea

Lauren, in the ocean on film and in digital too. Sometimes we have to get lost in order to be found again. To let lost we go to the sea and drift, let the water flow into our ears and onto our skin to block out the noise all around. We listen to the sea and we let it fill in the blanks.

And then we move forward, again and again.

Vogue Italia and a Skill Share course

It has been a busy week here at Chez Flinn. Marketing emails have been going out. We celebrated our 9th Vogue publication and are putting the finishing touches on our first SkillShare course of 2022.

We also had an amazing studio shoot with a textile artist, thanks to Doris Land and Ronnie for such a fun shoot.

The new year is off to a big start and I have got some big goals for this year.

What are some of yours?

Christmas Eve, a nod to Joan Didion and Yoko Ono

It has been an incredible year in many ways and now we are spending holidays in a familiar uncomfortable way.

Joan Didion passed away today at the age of 87. My favourite writer and inspiration. She got up every day, late, got a coke from the fridge and started writing. Every day began like that, no matter what. She lost her daughter and her husband and somehow found it in herself to go on. To keep moving forward. How do we find that kind of hope now? We find it in each other. We need each other. So the next time you see your neighbour say Hi. Make eye contact and greet them some way, you will be surprised at how this will change your everyday interactions.

This week I had a rare Tuesday evening off so I took my 79-year-old artist friend to the Vancouver Art Gallery to pay what you can night. Yoko Ono’s Imagine exhibition was on and I wanted to go, I also wanted to see if I could inspire him in some way. Joe has been a dear friend to me for the past several years. It is him in that image looking closely at the circled piece on the wall that simply says Hi.

I met Joe at a coffee shop when I first moved back to Vancouver in 2015, Delanys. I was sitting with my camera in my lap catching images of passerby’s. He struck up a conversation and we became fast friends riding our bicycles all over town and collecting things from the lanes. I often find things for him and drop them off to him. He is amazed at my gift of finding things, frankly sometimes so am I. One time we found a whole carrot cake, split it and both ate it within a few days.

The pandemic has changed Joe, it has changed all of us. I am doing what I can to show him the life he knew before the world changed. This exhibition was one way I could do that.

I have never experienced such a beautiful, well-constructed interactive art exhibition. The intention of it is simple. Imagine Peace. Yoko’s whole life has been dedicated to peace and this exhibition moved me.

See it, I hope it does the same for you.

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and I can’t wait to see you again soon, in person.

Let's take a look at some lights.

I live in a beautiful neighbourhood in Vancouver, nestled right next to the ocean. It is the West End and I love it. I have lived here for 8 years, half the time I have spent in Vancouver and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. My apartment is a perfect live-work studio for my work and I am nestled in a variety of outdoor backdrops that you can see in a variety of my work.

I wanted to post my gratitude for this holiday season and share with you some of the lights that are placed in my neighbourhood every single year. I took a slow shutter abstract approach, I love when lights make patterns in an image.

Please enjoy this winter interlude of the lights in my community. My neighbourhood.

More on Film

If you have been reading this a while you know that I am in love with film.

I am in love with it because of it’s flaws. Sounds weird right, well let me tell you that there is always a flaw or three in any roll of film. The human element, the connection to the person who created it and now the person shooting it (me) and then the lab who develops it and scans it for me. The journey is similar to the one I love with lines.

We know each other by our lines, William Blake.

We also know each other by our flaws and guess what, that is where the love is.