Site Management with VMF 2020 was AWESOME!
To my great relief and excitement, in June of 2020 I was contacted by the Production Manager at Vancouver Mural Festival, asking if I'd be interested to work with them as a Site Manager for a 2-month contract, a part of their Production team. I said yes 100%: I absolutely LOVE murals and had been wanting to get involved more with VMF, so this was perfect. The pandemic had subsided a bit, the work would be mostly outdoors anyways... Yay!
​The work of a site manager in this case was all about supporting the muralists on the ground, including neighbor relations, site access with various aerial lifts as needed, image transfer assistance with projectors sometimes, and helping to paint if needed. I had a fantastic time, and I really liked the culture of the VMF organization and leadership. Can't say enough good stuff!

* The first mural process in these photos is by the artist known as Animalito, Graciela Gonçalves Da Silva, location 2286 Ontario St. Mt Pleasant neighborhood
* The second set is of a mural designed by Thomas Cannell, lead painter was James Knight, assistance by me, location the Patricia Hotel near the Downtown East Side
*The third set is from a Hogan's Alley mural painted on the Georgia Viaduct itself, a real piece of Vancouver history brought to life by artist Anthony Joseph, where I also got to assist in some painting.

At the end of March 2020, the pandemic hit a level of severity that caused me to leave my painting gig, and leave Vancouver: I fled the city and went to my parents place in the Cowichan Valley, my childhood home. Everyone was being told to stay home to save lives; it was the first major lockdown in BC and I knew I would be better off there, plus I was so lucky just to have that place to escape the city to. I thought I would be there for a few weeks, but it turned into 5 months. During those months I went through a lot personally, as all of my work evaporated and I tried to adjust to the changes. I'm so grateful for the CERB. I did a good deal of work on my parents' property: gardening, landscaping, cleaning out the old barn, using the hayloft as an art studio, sanding and repainting the enormous lattice garden fence. I'm so glad I did, because the next year in 2021 they sold the property and moved house!

Personal Artworks
Beyond keeping myself busy and active during the worst of the pandemic, I also engaged in some explorations in my personal art which was very rewarding in itself. I participated in a free "taster" online course from UK artist Louise Fletcher called Find Your Joy - all about discovering one's own style in abstract painting. It was fantastic to play with art for art's sake or simply as personal expression. I also created a few new pieces in my "Nothing Is Original" series, where I mash up old and out of copyright prints, then create a collaged canvas to transfer the graphic onto.

Custom Street Number Sign with Solar Lighting
A gift to my parents, before they moved :(

Fence Painting
I did 2 big fence painting projects that summer, one at my cousin's house and the other for my mom's enormous garden. Using a nice little airless sprayer and the same solid color wood stain, I thought about what it would like to be a professional commercial painter. Could I start a painting business in the Cowichan Valley? 

Landscaping as Therapy
Digging out this derelict bit of garden, redoing the ground cover and replacing the stones along the path turned out to be a good distraction tool and physical activity for several weeks.

For the first 3 months of 2020 I was freelancing in scenic painting and costume work for film; I did a really cool project for GNW creating anamorphic illusion paintings for the floor of a mall in Richmond, BC. It was quite a challenge, I gained a major appreciation for the artists who do this work on the street, without a projector. I was very proud of this work, but I doubt many people saw it since the pandemic was getting serious when it was installed in March 2020.

And then I got an exciting gig, re-painting life-size animatronic dinosaurs for a company called Dinosaurs Unlimited, which was owned by a company called EMG, Experimental Media Group. I was going to learn how to spray-paint with silicone AND I would be sent to Minnesota to repaint a collection of Dino's there. ​I started working with them in mid-March and after 2 weeks, the pandemic really truly began to take hold and... I decided to take my leave.  Just in time, I have to say: soon afterwards the company went bankrupt. The dinosaurs were sold off in a public auction which made provincial news, and now they pop up in funny places around Vancouver or on social media.

Iron Peggy
Boca del Lupo with the Vancouver International Children's Festival and red diva projects
Set Design by Shizuka Kai, Directed by Sherry J. Yoon
​These units hinged together to move onstage so both sides were seen.

McLaren Housing Society of Vancouver hired me to turn their giant wooden arch into a multi-dimensional rainbow for their Pride Parade float. I was very happy to do it because the arch itself was recycled from a film set and the society is such a good cause, providing housing to people with HIV/AIDS in downtown Vancouver.

My work over Jan - August at Great Northern Way this year brought me a variety of very interesting, unusual, and challenging projects, almost all of which had sculpture involved. From pipe-fitting PVC pipes to chainsawing styrofoam blocks, I had my hands on all sorts of  It was really fun and I learned some new skills along the way! 
Read More below to see the post...

Chicken Girl 
Scenic Paint by Amira Emma Routledge!
Written by Derek Chan
Presented by rice & beans theatre & Vancouver Civic Theatres at the Annex Theatre, May 2019
Set Design by Shizuka Kai
Construction & installation by MJY Fabrication

Fake Rocks 
Over December 2018 - January 2019 I had the pleasure of casting multiple cement "rocks" for people to test their shoes on at Mountain Equipment Co-op, through my work at Great Northern Way Scene Shop. This was actually the second round of rocks that were built at GNW; this year's rocks were made to be smaller, easier to step on and off, accompaniment to the first round which were bigger & steeper. Props artist Tara Wallace created the sculpture and the mould, with support from Che Campbell who created the rotating table to cast the rocks in. 
Here are some "behind the scenes" shots of this process! Each rock has 4 adjustable feet set in with rebar posts and a piece of metal mesh to support the structure, as well as a styrofoam core to lessen the weight of the finished piece. They were all finished with a mixture of concrete sealant product, tint, and some of the cement for texture. 

2018 was a year full of painting and sculpture. I continued working at Scenic Oasis as the Head Painter until October, at which point I switched back to freelancing and started working at another scene shop in addition, called Great Northern Way. GNW serves mainly the Vancouver theatre community and various live events with scenic elements of many kinds.
At Scenic Oasis we do all kinds of set pieces and props for commercials mainly, although we also did some pieces for the TV show "Man in the High Castle" and some pieces for real-life actual places (gasp!). Read more and scroll down for the results and some process shots from my work on commercials in 2018.
Seen above; my "office".