Aruba Adventures: The Butterfly Farm

I'm going to get a little bit real here today: traveling with family can be tough. Especially when you stick three adult siblings with very different personalities into one tiny hotel room for the week. There were definitely some sharp pointy words thrown around and lots of built up tension, which is always a little bit disappointing on a beautiful vacation where all you want to do is enjoy! But c'est la vie, right?

That being said, because Aruba is so safe, I was able to wander off and get a little bit of space by walking to the Butterfly Farm all on my lonesome! The reason I bring up the drama at all, is because the Butterfly Farm was the exact healing, calming, and restorative thing I needed. It had a really big impact on me because I needed that and I want to share how magical it felt.

I walked in a bit timidly - I'm still not one of those people who boldly does new things alone, especially in foreign countries. I do so timidly, though, so that's a start! The people working there were so incredibly friendly and cheerful that I felt very at ease around them and better about going alone.

The tour was wonderful and funny, I learned so much about the life cycles and habits of butterflies. Did you know that rainforest butterflies adapted to get their nourishment from fallen fruits, which inevitably are fermented. Ergo, drunk rainforest butterflies, at all times! The tour guide was really kind and we chatted. I think he sensed that I was a bit awkward being there on my own and he helped me get an owl butterfly to eat some orange off of my finger! It was the best.

I also just walked around the relatively small, enclosed butterfly garden and spent time sitting on the benches in quiet corners, green foliage tickling my shoulders and butterflies fluttering around me (and sometimes, the drunk ones, swooping dangerously close to my face!), birds in the distance singing songs and water trickling in the garden's little ponds. It was really peaceful. My only regret is that I went at the end of my trip, because they give you a ticket for re-entry throughout the rest of your trip!

At the end of my visit, the staff chatted with me and helped me pick which souvenir I wanted: a choice between earrings made of butterfly wings enclosed in glass, or a necklace. One asked me why I was all covered up and not working on my tan. I told him I was from Canada and therefore would simply burn. He got really excited and asked if I'd ever been to the Butterfly Conservatory we have in Niagara falls, which I have been to! So we chatted about that and he said it was on his bucket list. They were all very fun people to be around with great spirits and kindness.

I walked back to the resort hugging my little souvenir to my chest, just filled to the brim with hopefulness and renewed peace. Man, is nature ever the healing and magical thing. Nature and sunshine; though I guess the sun falls under the umbrella of nature doesn't it?


ps. it was SO HARD to get good photos of the butterflies! Most of my film ones turned out super blurry, except these two at the end.

Aruba Adventures: Horseback riding through Arikok

I finally got the film from my trip to Aruba developed, so I'm ready to share some beautiful memories from a beautiful island.

I had forgotten how beautiful and, as cheesy as it is to say, majestic, horses are. They're such incredible animals and have such force, intuition, and personality. It was a really special experience to witness the beautiful North coast of Aruba with such incredible creatures.

Aruba was a really cool island. It has your typical resort and tourist beaches on the one side, and then protected natural land on the North side. This is partly because the waves that come crashing into the island on the North side are quite gloriously forceful. Of course, it's hard to actually capture one of the big ones on camera since they never seem to happen when you're at the ready to click your shutter ;)

It's also a very dry island - lots of cacti (which I don't actually have a picture of in this post - oops!) and dry shrubbery. I loved the impressive cacti double my size, wonky and weird and perfect.

We stopped at the natural pools, seen behind me here, and normally visitors have a chance to go for a dip in them, but with the winds of that specific day it was too wavy and dangerous. I was ok with that though - going back on horseback in wet clothes is no fun..... yes, that's foreshadowing...

On our way back, we got to the peak of Arikok park, and a windy storm blew in. It became a precarious act of balancing on the horses, who decided they weren't gonna casually stroll while they got bombarded with sideways rain and strong winds and began galloping down the hills, holding onto the reins, holding onto our hats, and getting totally soaked.

It was hectic and a little uncomfortable after, but kind of a cool adrenaline rush and our guide was super great at making sure we were safe and not overly concerned. I highly recommend the Rancho Loco folks if you're ever in Aruba and want to go Horseback riding through Aruba's nature!

Have you been to Aruba before? What was your fav part?

Stay tuned for a few more Aruba posts with photos!

BEDHEAD: Update & Writing for Self Love

First, I want to thank everyone for being so supportive and kind to me about my Bedhead Project. If you follow along my Instagram, you'll know that's where I've been posting the photos fairly regularly (except for during October- my Instagram 'detox' month! That's a whole other post in the making...). I'm going to share more of them here as I go, too.

I admit that I have started to let go of the Bedhead Project as a daily part of my routine - some days I just have the same old sloppy bun and the same old face and there's nothing new or exciting about that. But then again, maybe that's the whole point of the project - I AM exciting, every day! Because I'm me! What a great thing to be.

Ok, real talk; I just came to that realization as I wrote it... writing can be so good for sorting out your thoughts and realizing some of the damaging self-talk we get ourselves into. I didn't realize I was calling myself boring and "same old same old" until I wrote it out, and that's not a great way to treat myself. It's pretty antithetical to the whole Bedhead Project's purpose; to treat myself as a subject worth photographing, whatever state I find myself in first thing in the morning. Natural and as is.

Which brings me to another 'self love' practice I've been trying to get into: Writing! A few weeks ago I attended a writing workshop for Artist's Wellness, put on by Toronto's Artist Health Alliance. We focused on identity, on the self, on using writing to explore one's inner world. It was a really healing and wonderful workshop. The other attendees were super supportive and created a beautiful, safe space to share your writing in. It reminded me that I used to want to be a writer, before I dove into visual arts. I had forgotten how much I loved writing - also one of the reasons I started a blog way way way way waaaay back when (I've been blogging, I think, since before I was a teenager. Yeesh.).

Writing in a journal most days (because I suck at 'every day' challenges it seems) has been a really great self-love experience. It helps me check in with myself, see how I'm feeling. It also helps me get out of my head without having to reach out or share with others if I don't feel like it (or if they don't feel like it!). I'm exploring different ideas about writing for self love, and I'm curious:

Do you journal? Or heck, do you blog about your life?
What kind of language do you use to talk about yourself, when you write about yourself? What words stand out to you?

Take a second to think about what your language says about how you feel about yourself, how you treat yourself.

xo -k

Photos: Victor's Apparel

Last spring I helped out the good folks at Victor's Apparel with a photoshoot to show off their luxurious, comfy silk boxers! Rachel and Nick have been two of the best clients ever - from design work to photos we've had a ton of fun working on their brand and making stuff happen together! I reflect back fondly on scouring a Value Village in Waterloo with Rachel trying to find fancy robe props for this shoot - and if you know me I love thrifting - so this was all in all a very fun project to work on.

For this shoot I wanted to capture a really luxurious feel with decadent textures and tones, but also natural light and natural, somewhat candid moments!

Also, fun fact! This shoot took place at my grandma's house - HA! I figured she'd have the nicest couches and chairs and natural light of any place we could comfortably have 3 men in their boxers hanging out and lounging for the shoot. I'm actually not sure if she's seen the photos... hi Mamy!

I recently edited some REALLY funny marketing photos for Victor's Apparel, which I will share soon! I realized I hadn't shared these though and thought they should come first.

Interested in some silk boxers? They also make for very comfy pyjama shorts ;) Check out the Victor's Apparel website here, and their Facebook and Instagram!

xo

NEW PROJECT: Bedhead

As an art student I developed an immense appreciation for the human body. In life drawing classes I realized I could find much beauty in the "atypical", "flawed", "unique" bodies of the life models. Through my propensity for art, I value the capturing of "imperfection" in human faces. Crooked noses, textured skin, body hair, scars. I see these in others and love it all.

I use these words: flaw, imperfection, atypical, in quotes, because they are not really how I see them at all. They are unfair descriptors and show just how skewed our perception of beauty is. But what else is new. We all know that in our social context, these are how these traits are seen and described.

As much as I can more easily accept and embrace these traits in the photos and depictions of others, earlier this summer I realized that I still have unrealistic expectations of myself. I see a photo of me and I don't settle for "imperfection". I don't embrace the deep purple circles under my eyes. I don't like the fact that one eye seems droopy in some photos. I don't want to keep photos where my smile is so big you can see funny shadows in my smile. I cringe at photos of my profile. The way my neck and chin look as I gain a bit of weight. This isn't how I feel about myself in real life - but the more photos I see of myself that I don't like, and the more I try to engage in an online world where photos of the self are aplenty, the more my feelings of "imperfection" seep into my day-to-day, outside of photos. I think part of this started when I decided to stop wearing make-up all together. I don't like the feel of makeup, but I stopped liking photos of myself without makeup for a while. I love photos and photography, so this made me feel pretty badly.



So I decided to do something about it. Throughout this summer I have taken photos of myself immediately after I wake in the morning. First thing. Whatever my hair, face, and feelings were doing, I captured it. There is something psychologically empowering, I suspect, about choosing yourself as a subject worthy of photographing. And not just in selfies for instagram, but for my own artistic experiment. I felt excitement. I felt that I loved the photos even though I could see what I normally wouldn't like in myself. My fella got involved, whenever we woke up together, and his photos of me are my favourites. It became an act of self love every morning, and source of love and support from my partner. I've grown so much through this project and am surprised at how much it actually has helped me. At first, I made a point of not publishing the photos. This was a personal practice, a project just for me. How novel in our instagram obsessed world. But now that I've realized how much it impacted me, I want to share my experience.

Here is a small selection of my photos from this summer, and I will continue to post and share them here, as well as on my instagram account.














AND NOW:

I want you to join me - if you'd like? Just once? Maybe twice? This was such a transformative project for me, I imagine it could be for others, too!

I want to see you embrace your unfiltered bedhead and I want to see you become reacquainted with your early-morning, natural self, in whatever form that may be. I don't want another hashtag-no-filter post or a phoney "I woke up like this" comment (though humorously that's exactly what this series is about, ha! The REAL "I woke up like this" type of photo). I want you to do it for you. And if you want to share it online, you can use the hashtag #ellbedhead or share the link to your post in the comments.

Go forth - beautiful bedheads!

ps. I'm nervous to post this because it is such a personal project and a personal experience. Also it's all just photos of me, taken by me.... boring? I don't know. I think it's worth it even if one other person tries this and gets something out of it though, right?