Pet Your Pet

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I have been very busy finishing our short film 'Dundas Street' with my film partner, getting it ready for an upcoming deadline. Now that it's essentially done, I can recommit myself to being whimsical and charming for people of the internet. Once in a while, when I feel like it. Promise.

Now that all sass has been replenished, I have some fresh meat to lay down. And when I say fresh meat, I mean animals. But not to eat. I could never eat a dog or a horse, because they make me soft and stupid inside. I love them so much. 

Back to animals. Troy Emery and Jason Freeny. Who are these jokers? Answer: They are artists, who happen to be imaginatively clever. 

Troy Emery is amazing. He uses neon pompoms (probably my favourite medium) to create magical animal sculptures. Stripes, proportion play, colour blocking, and more!

© Troy Emery

© Troy Emery

© Troy Emery

© Troy Emery

© Troy Emery

Unfortunately, I sort of feel like Nicki Minaj or someone equally caustic would wear something like this.

Oh look, she already has:

via JustJared

But why would that cheapen my love for Emery's work? Emery's detailed patterning is gorgeous, and there's nothing like a real huggable rainbow.

One of his dogs is better than a pet because it's just as soft, but doesn't lick its own genitals before licking your face. Plus a real dog would like a miserable clown if you gave it a dyed technicolour coat.

And here we have Jason Freeny, a cunning sculpturist. My oh my. One of his projects is comprised of deconstructed vinyl toys, with inner anatomy on display.

Little bones, little heart, little intestines. And you could easily get away with calling it a adult toy. It's mature, it's scientific (fictionally scientific, but I'll side-step the oxymoron).

© Jason Freeny

Did you know that My Little Pony has bell-bottom foot bones? (I did. But that's an obvious one.)

© Jason Freeny

Did you know that a Care Bear is composed of more than just care?

© Jason Freeny

And now, a dough animal. But he's more than just dough! There's a pelvis in there too. Now we can find the origin of his 'woo hoo' sound. 

Plastic in the Face

I just turned 25. Every time I get carded and the bouncer asks my age, my mouth opens to say I'm 21. Apparently my long-term memory doesn't log any age after that. Which is fine for now, because at least I look 21, if not 17. I often dress like a teenager, and my hair is never styled like a grown woman would wear it. Most of the time, I don't even brush my hair. I call it 'Beach waves'.

But. I'm starting to notice the effects of aging. 

Now, I don't smoke. I don't drink. I always protect my face from the sun. I moisturize, and I do what I can to avoid looking ragged or pruneish. 

But my eyes. They seem to be getting eye wrinkles. They're only prominent when I smile, but I think I'm starting to look James Franco-y when that happens.

I promised my bff (best boyfriend forever) that I wouldn't ever have cosmetic plastic surgery. And I don't want to, really. I'm terrified. There's so many garbage faces out there, women who threw out the eyes and mouth and noses they inherited from their ancestors, only to adopt scary plastic masks that look, at best, not like them at all. 

These plastic faces seem to mimic representations of beauty that are prevalent and enjoyed, even by me: 

Eyebrow lift,  nose upturning, eye expansion

  +

Total facelift, cheek injections, heart-shaping of the face

=

Source: GUP Magazine

Japanese anime doesn't even include noses in its characters much of the time. But Michael Jackson accidentally proved that cutting your nose down to 1/8th of its size is a very poor idea. When it gets that small, it looks like a hangnail. 

I'm never going to have a cute little nose, I'll never have eyes that take up half my face. I appreciate the aesthetic on Bambi, but I'm a real person, and I should probably stay that way. 

Because once I get started, I'll probably end up looking like this:

It looks like a glamour shot from Toddlers and Tiaras. And nobody wants that, unless you're a stage mom or an eager 5-year-old princess. (What is wrong with this world? Also, I kind of like my blush colour here. Ugh I'm the worst.)

Sweet Easter Overdose

The pisanki we make at home usually look endearing enough (in their special homegrown way). But if they took a trip to MAC Cosmetics and got a free makeover, and then were airbrushed and photoshopped a bunch, they might be able to look like these glamour queens:

Tapeciarnia.pl

Of course, to diversify our egg basket, we throw in a couple of wooden Easter eggs (usually painted by old ladies of the Polish Folk persuasion). These can be found in Roncesvalles and other Polish stores around the GTA. 

Or, you know, the Tatry mountains in Poland. 

by Parisot Martine

They're like jewellery! I really want a crown of these wooden eggs, just to wear. My local hipsters will accuse me of being a hipster, but then I'll win them over by showing them how to make their own egg crown.

By the way, did you know that Kinder Surprise Eggs are banned in the US? It's because they're classified as "a confectionery product with a non-nutritive object imbedded in it." I had no idea! They also don't sell ketchup chips there, but that's a whole other issue. 

Unfortunately, their toy collections the past few years have been kind of lackluster. Come one Kinder, bring back the gnomes...

by Poodlefifi via Flickr

...or at least put out some more cute mechanized anthropomorphized objects. Like this pizza oven monster:

via Chocoegg

I'm assuming you've eaten way too many fondant-filled Cadbury Creme Eggs over the weekend, (by the way, even one is too many), so you're probably going through a corn syrup withdrawal right now. 

As usual, I'm here to save the day. Feast your eyes on this super sweet KidRobot Munny, which has been customized to look like a Kinder Egg: 

Customization by Peevee

I wanna take a bite outta that face. 

Except the plastic would taste gross. And wouldn't melt in my mouth. So fine, I wouldn't take a bite. 

But I'm still tempted.

Frankentoys & Regretsy

As you probably already know, Etsy is an awesome marketplace for crafters and artists to sell their works (and I buy from it constantly). But if you've ever searched through listings on Etsy, you'd see that it's definitely hit and miss. And that's where Regretsy comes in.

Regretsy showcases the best of the worst of Etsy goods, and I mean that as a compliment. Your shit is probably bananas-bad if it's on Regretsy, and I think it's exciting to cause such an effect with your work. Which leads us to Frankentoys. 

Yes, Frankentoys has been featured on Regretsy, but I honestly don't think the works by Frankentoys are awful in a pitiful sad way. Actually, they're terrible in the best way possible! Unexpected toy juxtapositions, sewn together in ridiculous and wonderful ways. This is art, my friends, whether you like it or not. Clever, unpretentious, and hilarious. 

Red Carpet Chupacabra (69.95 USD)

Jurassic Jane (42.00 USD)

Death by Dolphin (42.50 USD)

Plus all of these toys have been rescued and repurposed, which fits with the idea of living more greenly, right? I remember when I was a wee little girl, I would recycle the strangest things to make new masterpieces. Snakeskin shoulder pads? Turned them into a flashy purse for my 10-year-old self. But I've got nothing on Frankentoys creator Rachel Peters. And I hope she doesn't Regret(sy) making these beauties. God, that last joke was awful.