welcome to camp + quarry!

Welcome to Camp + Quarry! After two years of calling my creative project Sadie Designs, it's time for a change. Sadie has been a labour of love and it has, with my interests, changed over the past two years. As I take on new challenges I want to work under a name that reflects my aesthetic and interests more accurately, and Camp + Quarry is just that name.

Camp + Quarry will focus even more on the awesomeness that is the Pacific Northwest, the amazing things that people make with their hands, think with their brains, and see with their cameras. Yes, in 2012 this blog is going to feature even more prominently the outdoors, brain thinking, and picture taking.

I will be renewing my summer guest post series, sharing a lot of my creative projects and (hopefully) titillating you with my West Coast adventures. If you knew how many tries it took for me to spell "titillating" correctly you'd know why I feel the need to include an emphasis on brain thinking here on the Camp + Quarry blog in 2012. Yes, I will learn new words for you, dear readers!

I hope that we coalesce here often, to share chronicles of captivating experiences and to celebrate our successes. ("Coalesce" was a bit of a stretch just then, perhaps...) In the meantime, I leave you with a new Camp + Quarry soundtrack to consider. Thanks for joining me in this evolving endeavour!

Connect with Camp + Quarry on Twitter

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Check out the new Camp + Quarry Etsy shop

Camp + Quarry from CAMPandQUARRY on 8tracks.

tracks:

1. foam hands destroyer

2. ada the national

3. hand me down your love hot chip

4. after the gold rush neil young

5. river guard smog

6. (i can't get no) satisfaction cat power

7. play a slow jam javelin

8. love king the-dream

9. ritual union little dragon

10. stay free black mountain

friday favourites

A new year, a new format for Friday Favourites. I'm going to renew this ongoing series by bringing you a few of my favourite objects and images each week, along with an amazing video, should I be lucky enough to find one. This week's picks are a bit all over the place, but here we go... 

Seeing as how my iPhone is my new favourite toy, this case caught my eye. There are lots of other great ones on Society6, too, including this crystal case which is kinda my other favourite (my real iPhone case cost $2 on dealextreme.com, by the way). 

I always like weirdly mundane photography, and the work of Corey Olsen fits the bill perfect. Cute photography is never bad either. I had trouble choosing my favourite from a collection of sled dog portraits in this month's National Geographic and look forward to following the adventures of Cal and her new puppy, Turbo, over at Boardwalk to Eden. Turn Off Your Computer and Go Outside? I hope we all consciously choose that this weekend. Finally, I offer you the most amazing video that I've seen in a while. A time lapse of the Earth from the International Space Station. I urge you to take a few minutes to watch the Northern Lights wash over the atmosphere. I hope it proves a magical start to a wonderful weekend for you. Thanks for reading!

sources:

1. sequin spill iPhone case by Grace Breyley at Society6 

2. photographer corey olsen via BOOOOOOOM! 

3. Cal's new puppy, Turbo, via boardwalk to eden 4. Laura George print via design is mine

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.
via fecalface
Two posts that made my week:
How Lola spent her holidays (with Stina from Honeywild) and the fabulous Alex Silva featured wearing a Sadie necklace on The Cultist.

Tusen tack

We woke up to another rainy day in Vancouver. Winter here is kind of amazing in a way, because we live in Canada and yet it rarely gets colder than freezing. This is especially incredible in light of the human-killing temperatures Jeff and I learned to survive in Alberta and Manitoba growing up. -40C/F was not unheard of, in fact, it was to be expected. Jeff lived this way his whole life until we moved to Vancouver. I, on the other hand, had a taste of grey English winters, Maritime snowstorms, and even a few tepid Mississippi Christmases.

When I came across this beautiful Swedish restaurant, Tusen, designed by Hans Murman Architects I couldn't help but feel a little wistful for snowy winters. For all I know, this restaurant is 500 kilometres from the city my Swedish friend Rebecka calls home, but reading about it certainly made me jealous of even the faintest possibility that she, or really anyone, gets to experience winter like this. Idealized? Of course. The snow is always whiter when you don't have to shovel your car out of the driveway to get to work.

But still, I love the way deep snow absorbs sound and quiets even the busiest streets, the way it slows you down, and the impromptu winter adventures that can be had when there is fresh snow on the ground. Living in Vancouver, I find myself missing outdoor ice rinks and sledding. Truly, though, I do not miss the subzero temperatures and frigid wind of the Prairies. It's a fair trade-off in the end.

Let's here what Jens Lekman has to say about The Cold Swedish Winter:

on the mountain

Yesterday looking over Burrard Inlet and towards the Coast Mountains. Couldn't have asked for a nicer New Year's Day. Tomorrow it's back to the grind. Why do vacations always fly by?

resolve

Resolve 2011. It feels like it has no bearing at all on 2012. If last year was all about new things (thesis, marriage, work), this year the focus must be on getting better at those new things. It has been a long time since there was no giant goal post visible at the end of a treacherous field. My focus for the past eight years has been getting a fine arts degree, getting into grad school, getting a degree in landscape architecture, getting a job, getting married. And now those things have been got. I'm there (or here?) and can just hang out for a while. I can take my time. I have time.

Resolutions are a good thing, and writing them down makes them real. Mine are simple this year, inspired by the over-riding resolution to simplify it all, not plan life out months in advance, save some money, enjoy some down time. I have jewelry-related resolutions that include learning and making many new things. I have piles of new supplies that I brought home from Alberta that I'm excited to work with...but not yet. First the time to reflect. Reenergize. Prioritize. Sleep.

In 2012 I will read more. This used to be something that I loved and, honestly, I still do, but I get caught up in bright screens and busyness and forget that I'm in the middle of an amazing book. The best things I read in 2011?

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

"What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory -- meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion -- is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw."

It Chooses You by Miranda July sticks with me, too. I'm excited to see her new movie someday.

I will eat more salad in 2012, even when it is too cold to eat salad. Martha knows what's up.

When I think of 2011, I think I will think of this:

And as for 2012, I think it needs some time to figure itself out... Today we'll hike up a mountain with some good friends. We might go to Starbucks afterwards. No one is perfect.