A temperamental artist and a small lap dog walk into a bar...

November and December mark Natasha Lawyer's third art show at The Sugarbowl in Edmonton.  Aside from being a favourite friend, she is also a favourite artist of mine even though she turned American and moved away and left me here to eat chicken caesar salad alone.  She drove from Seattle through the night (maniac) and showed up at my house around noon on Saturday with tons to do before we hung her show at 6:30 a.m. the next day.

We ran around trying to find a place that would do a rush print job on watercolour paper of some last-minute prints for the show.  Tash ended up calling the guy at one place a pointdexter because he was being letter-of-the-law and refused to print them for her.  Don't cross Tash when she's tired.  Below you will see a picture of her smiling like she would never dream of calling anyone a pointdexter.  Don't be fooled.

While she was in Edmonton, she thought "why not pick up a puppy?".  Well, actually it was slightly more intentional than that - her sister Melissa decided to fulfil Tash's dream of having a little yorkie friend as an early birthday present.  So we went and picked up the tiny, hypoallergenic, and fabulous PENCIL. I proceeded to take a series of glamour shots of the two of them and gross Tash out by referring to her as Pencil's mom.

Then we had a pricing bee on my kitchen table.  Tash (with a little help) had collected about a bajillion vintage frames and painted them all white to frame her illustrations.  Her show this time around is crazy different than the last one.  It's very architecturally inspired and has some amazing paper weaving and metallic thread details.

My kitchen was so full of art, and is not very big anyways, so I had to improvise when I was dishing out the CCS (chicken ceasar salad) for our dinner.  If you look below you will notice a plate of salad sitting inside of an open drawer.

Pencil likes art.  These are the aforementioned typewriter prints on watercolour paper.  They are adorable and come in 9 different colours!  Awesome!  They are framed and selling for just $45 each, so they would make an excellent Christmas gift. The text on the paper in the typewriter says "I want to take you to all my favorite places".

Joel liked Pencil and came to help us with some last minute framing.  I think he was sort of enjoying scaring poor little Pencil too.  He was mostly nice to her but couldn't resist pushing her timid little buttons.

And then we went to bed at like 3 - which was actually 2 thanks to daylight savings time - and had to get up at like 6 the next morning.  But we slept in a little and ended up being late and leaving poor Megan at the Sugarbowl alone. Here is the classic temperamental artist shot with Tash scrutinizing the placement of the pieces.  She wasn't actually very temperamental, but it still is fun to tease.  Or maybe I'm just adjusting to the temperament.  Anyways, this picture shows off how sharp the white frames look on the brick wall.

Because of us being late and her being early, Megan was already pretty perky by the time we got there.  No fair that she looks so cute.  Here is a glamour shot of her hammering a nail.

We had breakfast at the Sugarbowl after the show was hung and then went to my house for a nap.  And then we finally got to hang out and chill out.  We took tiny Pencil out for a walk in the ravine by my new digs, and she kept running in between our legs and getting kicked by us by accident.  She seemed unfazed but I felt awful.  Right after I snapped this pic she ran between my feet and I almost crushed her little four pound dog body.  It took some fancy footwork to avoid it.  Worth it for the pic?

Overall, fantastic weekend.  Tasha's show is up until the end of December so GO TAKE A LOOK.  Pieces have already sold.