International Yarnbombing Day 2016 - Where's Waldo?

This year, international yarnbombing day snuck up on me again. But unlike last year, I remembered in time! I remembered with about two weeks to spare, just as I got a new job.

So I wanted to do something cool, but something I could execute in a reasonable amount of time.

Perfect opportunity to do my Where's Waldo project!

So I spent two weeks cranking out a Waldo based off the very first book from 1987, where Waldo has 12 accoutrements that he loses throughout the book! So I made a Waldo with a cup, snorkel, binoculars, kettle, sleeping bag, shovel, backpack, camera, hammer, bag, belt and walking stick.

The plan was to wander around downtown Victoria and take pictures of random, not necessarily easy to guess locations and have Waldo lose an item at each one. I sorta did that, and chronicled it on Instagram.

First, I stopped at Terroir, the amazing tea salon on Fort st. They were having a tea tasting with the tea harvester from Taiwan.

I enjoyed amazing teas, done at different temperatures than normal, and there were so many different flavors! I digress, but it was delicious.

Waldo left his cup behind after we enjoyed our tea.
Next, we ended up in Centennial Square. Waldo decided to try out his snorkel in the pool.

But then he left his snorkel there as we headed off to the next venue.

We decided to get some chocolate from this awesome chocolate shop just off Fan Tan Alley. Waldo was using his binoculars to look around the shop, put them down, and promptly forgot them.

After our delicious chocolates, we crossed Market Square and headed onto LoJo. We ducked into the shopping arcade, where there's a secret garden Waldo and I hung out in.

Waldo thought this would be the perfect place to make some tea. He took out his kettle and was half way through before I told him that he couldn't do that here!

(This picture is a real "where's Waldo")

He ended up forgetting his kettle. I feel kind of responsible for that one.

After we left the arcade, Waldo mentioned being hungry. I decided we should head to Trounce Alley and eat some tapas.

After Tapas, Waldo was sleepy. He pulled out his sleeping bag to nap, but I told him we had to continue on. In our haste to leave, he left his sleeping bag behind.

As we were walking along, Waldo caught a magnificent scent. It turned out that we were walking past Lush. We wandered in and smelled a bunch of their bath bombs. Waldo decided to whip out his shovel and dig away at one of the bath bombs, but couldn't really crack them.

It ended up getting stuck and he had to leave it behind.

After that we wanted to go take a look at the ocean. Walking the promenade, we stopped to take a look as the water-planes were taking off.

Waldo took off his backpack to get a better look up on the rail. When he climbed back down, he just forgot to put it back on.

As we continued walking along, we came across the statues that I yarnbombed back for the very first International Yarnbombing day in 2011. I explained to Waldo how I had turned the statues into Katamari characters. He wanted to take a picture with the statues to commemorate the yarnbombing.

He ended up leaving his camera there though, so I guess I won't be getting those pictures.

On our way back downtown, we passed a lot of construction. Waldo decided that he could really help the workers out as they weren't working on a Saturday.

He lost track of his mallet before he could really fix anything however.

Suddenly! Waldo and I ended up in London!

Just kidding. We were just in Nootka Court, where there is an English style phone box. Waldo decided to try it out, as everyone uses cell phones nowadays. He took off his bag while he was in there and didn't grab it on his way out.

Also while in Nootka Court, we checked out the beautiful totem pole they have in the garden.
Waldo didn't realize his belt had come off now that it wasn't holding up all his various tools.

The belt was left behind as well.

With only his walking stick left in his possession, the Bug Zoo caught Waldo's eye.
I mentioned to him that they would definitely have walking stick bugs in there. He wanted to compare the two so we did.

His walking stick was pretty much as big as a real walking stick insect.

In his haste at comparing the two however, Waldo ended up leaving his walking stick behind at the bug zoo.

With no accoutrements left, Waldo and I decided to head on home.
We traveled by bus and as my stop approached, I thought Waldo was with me, but alas, he remained on the bus.

Where's Waldo now??

All in all, it was a really fun day full of great adventure. I hope you had fun looking for Waldo too.
Happy International Yarnbombing day for 2016!

Integrate Arts Festival 2013

A friend of mine had told me about an art festival that was gaining momentum in Victoria. I decided to go out for auditions as it were, and show the organizing committee my work.

                                     (My work for the committee that I showed at our meeting)

I went with coral, because it's the west coast (do we have coral??) and because it looks cool to see urban objects (like bike racks and electrical boxes) covered in fluffy brightly coulored coral.

I was approved and I decided to do two yarn bombs. One set up before the event and the other, a live installation.

We'll, the installation of the before hand one went well.

here are some pictures of it on the electrical power maintenance box.



Don't worry, it's all safe. I didn't cover important parts of the box.



But sadly, the piece didn't even make it the whole event. I would have thought Integrates Arts Festival would have put more effort into maintaining it for the duration of the event, but sadly they did not.

The live installation was worse.


(Tiny Finn from Adventure time! I was trying to make more characters, but I got distracted with coral for the other piece)

It started raining as I was putting it up, so that impacted who would come, but worse, the festival organizers were supposed to bring the tour people around when I started and they never came. It was super disappointing.



All in all, I wouldn't do the festival again. For how much energy I put in I didn't feel respected or a part of the festival at all.
In fact, I felt really used.

But I did do a really cool coral reef piece, my largest installation of coral yet! So that's something to be proud of!