Just in case you're getting the impression that I'm a lady of leisure who lounges around just dreaming up frivolous things about which to blog, I'm putting it on the record things are very busy around here. More on that later (or, if you don't hear any more about it, you can just assume I'm too busy to fill you in. For now, I'll just say that it has a lot to do with the fast-approaching Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo on April 26-28).

When I'm drawing comic strips, I have to be able to concentrate. But when the drawing's done and I'm just inking, I don't have to think, so I love to work while watching (or rather, listening to) a movie - preferably something long and slow with a lot of dialogue, so I'm not missing much by never looking at the screen. I know, I should just be downloading podcasts. But anyway, the other day, I watched a 1994 TV adaptation of George Eliot's jaw-droppingly awesome novel "Middlemarch."

Why am I telling you all this? Because watching "Middlemarch" reminded me of a brilliant discovery I made almost twenty years ago. So I looked up my record of this in some ancient archives from the Drawing Book (the discovery's on page 2). This is about Bob Dylan, of course.

So what do you think, Middlemarch/Dylan fans? Is it not obvious that "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" is referencing this book? What other perfection-seeking bankers' niece, associated with a country doctor, could Bob possibly have been thinking of? (I've heard it suggested that this might be a reference to a banker's niece in Henry James' "The Portrait of a Lady," but what about the doctor?) Google wasn't around back in 1994, but it is now, so I Googled this hypothesis - and came up with nothing. Is nobody onto this except for me? Well, if not, consider this vital information my sole contribution to the jam-packed libraries of Bob Dylan scholarship out there.

There was a third page in this little Drawing Book anecdote, by the way - here it is, for what it's worth.

P.S. Most people think the last verse of "Love Minus Zero" is about Edgar Allan Poe... but I think it's about "Wuthering Heights." A debate for another day... if I ever have free time again.

This story starts a few months ago when I had the opportunity to be part of what may have been Calgary's first "graphic jam," hosted at the Calgary Public Building - a hidden gem of a heritage building right in the heart of Calgary's downtown - complete with awesome vintage elevators (and real-life, contemporary elevator operators. By the way, do you know of any other such still-in-action elevators anywhere? Let me know! I haven't seen anything like these since that elevator scene in the Hudsucker Proxy).

Anyway, this photo comes from a little piece featured in Metro enticing Calgarians to come to a more recent (and just as cool) event at the Calgary Public Building: "Continue the Conversation." To find out more about the event, take a look at this very fun-to-read online invitation (which probably won't stay online forever - read it while you can!). This event was designed for citizens to suggest and discuss ideas for public engagement, as part of an ongoing process called the Engage Review. But this was more than just a conversation with words: Calgarians were invited to come and write their ideas on the walls!

The Calgary Public Building has a few specially-coated walls which you can draw on (and - later - wipe clean). And that's where I came into this fun evening: City of Calgary Engagement Consultant Tracy McCabe invited me to do some graphic recording. So we started with a "Welcome Wall" to inform participants about the evening's agenda (only partially finished in this particular shot):

Some close-ups from the Welcome Wall (complete with different coloured walls, thanks to my attempts to take some intermittant non-flash pictures and avoid the glare):

Just before the event got underway, I was finishing the "Welcome Wall" and writing down the info about wifi access. I noticed someone behind me who was taking a picture of the wall. He said he'd tweet the picture. So I thought he'd be a good person to draw in my wifi illustration. He took a picture of my illustration to use for his Twitter icon. Later on I discovered that this gentleman was Brian Pincott! Well, I just didn't recognize him. At least I can say I'd recognize my own City Council member. (And he might even recognize me!)

This part of the Welcome Wall explained my job for the evening: to listen to comments and conversations and draw what was being said!

There was a photographer snapping pictures throughout the event, too - so if I see any of his live-action graphic recording shots, I'll be sure to put some up here sometime!

For now, take a look below to see the enormous group wall-writing collaboration that transpired. Just in case you ever thought there was anything dry, boring or stodgy about a municipal engagement campaign... think again!

By the way, attendees were also given maps of the event space. I drew the map too, and here it is (yes, kinda busy, I know... but so was the evening!)

Kiran Somanchi got the evening off to a great start by suggesting, not only a public engagement idea that I could draw on the wall, but an idea that really got people excited (to judge by all the enthusiast comments that amassed around the picture): setting up a public "Speaker's Corner" somewhere in Calgary.

As I was drawing this, I heard someone behind me say, "It can't just be online!" That turned out to be another civic engagement pro - Nancy Close of 3 Things for Calgary.

After that, I just started to draw whatever I heard people say.

One thing I happened to hear someone say, when people began to notice what was happening: "Speak and ye shall be recorded!" Indeed. Luckily, everyone was putting out such interesting ideas, that this was all very fun to do.

Probably the most fun part for me as a graphic recorder was trying to capture a discussion about how to change and improve the City of Calgary's website. With many people involved, and three sides of a pillar to draw on, this was a fast-paced real-time capture of a discussion that yielded quite a few excellent suggestions. (Feel free to take a look at the website: www.calgary.ca. What do you think? And can you recognize all those slideshowing images on the landing page? Personally, I have no idea about that modern-lookin' building in the water. Looks cool though.)

Needless to say, I think it is great that the City of Calgary is using such a fun and interactive method as graphic recording to engage citizens. Quite a few people mentioned to me that the City also just released a stop-motion video animation (is that what these things are called?) to let people know what the civic IT department is up to (I just took a look at it, and so can you). So perhaps this kind of illustrated information is part of a hot new trend!

Well - that was fun, and now I'm exhausted. It'll be cool to see what the Engagement team does with all this good feedback, and how it intersects with other innovative civic initiatives that seem to be popping up everywhere these days (CivicCamp - imagineCALGARY - which has a very nice website - Cultural Transformation - just to name a few). Are you creative types looking for a fun way to stay engaged with the Calgary scene now that Calgary 2012 is drawing to a close (as we speak, I think)? Look no further.

It's Margaret Mahy's birthday. (At least, it was yesterday if you're in New Zealand, but there are still a few hours to celebrate in this time zone.) Margaret Mahy... my literary hero... passed away last year. Right now I really hope she's up in heaven having tea with W. S. Gilbert. I wish I could be in the heavenly audience when they start collaborating. Has there ever been such a meeting of like-minded poetic geniuses on earth? Well... hardly ever! It is fun to imagine what their combined wordsmithery, wit, irreverence and humour would produce. And you know there'd be pirates.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall during that conversation. For now maybe I'll just re-read "Portable Ghosts" while listening to The Mikado at the same time. Not quite the same, but it'll do for now. (Actually, that might seriously mess with my brain.)

By the way, "Portable Ghosts" is about a couple of ghosts who haunt (respectively) a book and (eventually) a laptop computer. Portable ghosts... get it? It is nice to think that Mahy's spirit is just as portable - inhabiting every one of her many great books and leaping out to astonish her readers every time - just as it did while she was still alive.

In case you're interested, I've written a bit more about Margaret Mahy here in this blog. And here is a comic strip I wrote about her. I've written about Gilbert & Sullivan here and there in The Drawing Book, but I don't think any of that stuff is online. Ah well... I'm sure it's only a matter of time!

I've had this cool group of local visionaries on my radar since 2007 or 8, when I first heard of "Plan It Calgary." That visioning process has evolved into the imagineCALGARY of today (follow that link to see their lovely new website). But I've always been watching from the sidelines since I was (first) usually out of town, and (later) always at home being a new mom.

Well, now that my son is four years old, I can actually find a little free time now and then to get out and participate in these exciting conversations. I was really looking forward to attending my first imagineCALGARY event this morning. I imagined myself talking with grown-ups about far-sighted, complicated visions, and most of all, enjoying a change of pace from my usual life at home building train tracks with my four-year-old. It's a bit ironic that one of the big selling points of this particular event was that we'd get to play with Lego. Honestly, if I never see any Lego again, I'd probably be ok with that. At least it wasn't train tracks!

Joking aside (the Lego was fun), this was an awesome crowd of thinkers and doers. The opportunity to learn about what they've been up to, and what they want to do next, was inspiring. Here are my sketchnotes:

I was drawn to Bob Miller's suggestion that everyday citizens could engage their neighbourhood spaces with simple activities such as front-yard gardening. This idea reminded me of the 23rd Avenue Artwalk & Street Celebration I helped to organize on my street in Ramsay last year: an event that grew out of a desire to share and showcase the creative talents of a street full of neighbours.

Our one-day event certainly convinced me that getting neighbours out on their front lawns is a great way to forge connections, make streetscapes more lively and lovely, and enjoy all sorts of excellent long-lasting "by-products" into the bargain (neighbourhood safety... friendships... inspiration... not to mention a line on local vegetables, if your neighbours happen to be the Leaf Ninjas). Anyway, I joined this group of thinkers who were working on building a lego model of what our "living sidewalks" (enlivened by gardens, art and general neighbourhood creativity). Here's Mike Fotheringham showing the street we designed.

It's a cul-de-sac that features a painted street, gardens and art installations in front yards, as well as all sorts of other front-yard features to entice visitors over: a bench, a firepit, a gazebo, and an empty lot featuring a tire filled with potatoes. Oh, and some chickens - or at least, a representational chicken leg.

Our group discussion unearthed other ways to engage our street- and sidewalkscapes:

Pop-Ups (shameless plug: take a look at find it!)
Home business ventures, from lemonade stands to yard sales to craft fairs
Street festivals
Firepits for chilly evenings (with hot chocolate for neighbours who stop by)
"Little Free Libraries"
Water tanks & rain barrels for watering gardens
Public art (for some great homegrown examples courtesy of Calgary is Awesome, see here)
(And by the way, public art can sometimes serve a purpose as well as plain old street beautification: witness the Painted Utility Box Program and Sunalta's muralized pedestrian crossing)

Good things about this kind of engagement:
It doesn't have to cost a lot
It doesn't (have to) require jumping through a lot of bureaucratic hoops
It can have great side-effects (traffic calming; crime prevention; neighbourhood networking; creative inspiration; healthy outdoor activity... the list is endless!)
And... it can get people (such as elderly folks) engaged, who wouldn't usually have that kind of opportunity

If you need more inspiration about this kind of thing, look no further than this TED Talk by Jason Roberts of Austin, Texas, in case you haven't heard about his brilliant "Better Blocks."

Well - our group of imagineCALGARIANS talked about staying in touch in order to make something happen on our own streetscapes. Stay tuned! I'll let you know what we come up with!

Thanks, imagineCALGARY, for a great morning. And now back to the train tracks.

After I wrote about multi-generational housing, I heard from all sorts of interesting people with different kinds of experience and expertise in this subject - either as caregivers for their own multi-generational families, or as urban thinkers who've given a lot of study to the subject of how we can make our living spaces work better.

My neighbour Fred Hollis lent me this book ("The Small House Book" by Jay Schafer). It is full of inspiring pictures and ideas - inspiring not only if you're trying to do a major downsize, but also if you only have a small space to start with. Tiny can still mean luxurious, liveable, and definitely cozy.



Then tonight I happened to read a story to my son: published in 1971, Peppino is illustrated by Sita Jucker and written by Ursina Ziegler. As far as I can tell (and I can't find out much... i.e. a link to put here!) they were (and still are, perhaps?) both Swiss. This book (like most of the zillions of children's books piled around my house) was mine when I was little. I remember loving this story of a boy whose dad was no longer able to work as a travelling magician; Peppino (the boy) helps by earning money - and creating hope - with his wonderful drawings. I loved all the pictures in the book, but I really liked this one, which shows Peppino's drawing of the house he dreams of living in with his father.

Peppino was ahead of his time! He was designing tiny houses long before they became trendy!

And, you know, this wasn't where I was going with this at all, but those pictures just make me think of another children's story: Roald Dahl's "Danny, the Champion of the World" in which another boy lives with his father in another cozy "tiny house" (a gypsy caravan - pictured here in one of the original illustrations by Jill Bennett). Tiny homes in children's literature - perhaps a subject for another day!

Here's my tale of a quest for inner-city multi-generational housing in Calgary.

This post has been simmering for a while, but it seems the more I think about this, the more there is to learn. (Also, I've been so crazy busy the last couple of weeks drawing stuff for the Calgary Comics Expo at the end of April, so I haven't had any time to work on this!) But I can't wait forever, so I think I'll just put it out here and see what happens.

Local housing options are a bit of a hot topic in Calgary right now, as it happens. Calgary entrepreneur W. Brett Wilson just wrote this editorial in the Calgary Herald adding his voice to the ongoing debate about legalizing secondary suites (Wilson - who, I just discovered, has quite a unique website, by the way - is in favour of doing so). "Density" is a popular buzzword in current discussions about housing options. But although I'm all for educating people about "density" - and the fact that it doesn't have to mean "condo towers" - this post isn't really about the stuff going on at City Hall. This is just about finding a way to live with my mom.

I made this the subject of my most recent Ramsay comic (which I usually post here at the beginning of the month; I delayed it this time so I could put it into this story). Here it is. But keep reading below if you should feel so inclined. Basically, what began as a search for a good plan to move my mom in with my family, has become a passionate inquisition into the local lack of what I'm seeking. Read on!

In the year-or-so I've been writing the Ramsay strip, which is distributed in our community newsletter to about 1000 households each month, I've had lots of general positive feedback (thanks everyone!), but hardly any specific comments. It's interesting that this one time when I wrote about something so close to home, it seemed to resonate with quite a few people! I've had comments and suggestions coming in from neighbours I've never met.

This subject - or some variation thereof - clearly hits close to home for other Calgarians, too.

Here are some of the suggestions I received:

And from my out-of-the-box-thinking neighbour Fred Hollis, some informative and inspiring thoughts about the possibilities of a so-called "tiny house" (if you haven't heard of these, check them out!):

Here are some pictures I found of tiny houses... Click on the images to see where they are from. (The last one, in particular, is from a really cool site: www.designboom.com. Note: many tiny houses seem to capitalize on their small area by building upwards, but there are quite a few bungalow-style options, too.)

Oh - and I love the term "grannex" (*grandma + annex).

So, I guess I should clarify: I wasn't really looking so much for advice about zoning and secondary suites and specific ideas for a house/renovation design (although I most certainly welcome it!), as I was wondering if there are any houses out there that are designed and built especially to accommodate multi-generational families (or at least, that have two suites, one of which is designed for accessibility, and one of which isn't).

I think the fact that so many of my neighbours were motivated to reach out and offer me feedback, says something about the degree to which all of us are affected by our living spaces. Many of us share a common struggle: how to force our lifestyles to fit into the shape of our dwellings? But shouldn't it be the other way around: shouldn't we be building our dwellings to fit our lifestyles? I read something recently about how it used to be common for people to move to a new city for a job, and then try to adjust to that new city; now, apparently, it's more common for job-hunters to check out the city first, see how well it suits their existing lifestyle, and then take the job only if the city's a good fit. Couldn't we approach housing that way, too?

Anyway - here are a few thoughts that I've been mulling over as a result of pondering my own family's situation over the past year or so. Let's start with two assumptions that seem to be commonplace, at least in this city... both of which I think are a load of hooey.

What's the cost to society when all these people have to adjust to new lives?
Transitions are harder for elderly folks and people living with mental illness or other disabilities.

It just sounds like a plan that will encourage depression, isolation, and accidents... or, at best, will put a strain on those family members who will have to work as hard as they can to help with the transition so these kinds of things won't happen.

Don't get me wrong - retirement homes can be wonderful places, and there's no question that they've improved vastly since the "old folks' homes" of a generation ago. But I always kind of feel like they're designed with the idea that residents' healthy, hale and hearty grown-up children would be able to drive over all the time to visit and help out. These days people are having children later (well, at least I did). If you're forty and you've got teenagers, chances are you've got free time to visit your aged parents at the home whenever you like. If you're forty and you've got toddlers, chances are you're just dreaming about being able to take a nap sometime. (Or you're awake at 1:44 AM wondering why you're writing a blog post instead of sleeping like a smart person. Oh yeah... because you won't have any free time to do so while your child is awake.)

I asked someone who works in the Calgary housing and development industry whether multi-generational housing, or at least housing that can be adapted to accommodate changing circumstances, would be a popular option, if only it were more widely available. "No," was the answer. "Unlike you, most people want their parents in retirement homes."

Really?



While writing this post, I couldn't help remembering a boat tour I once took through the St. Lawrence River's Thousand Islands. One of the spots that was pointed out on the tour was the so-called "mother-in-law island," on which tiny speck of land George C. Boldt had reputedly built a little cottage for his mother-in-law. (I found this photograph of the island here in a flickr photo gallery, although it looks like the photographer might have removed the picture since then.) So, yes, I get it - mothers-in-law are notoriously bad housemates for many.

But that's precisely why I'm suggesting a separate suite within the house for my mom. Even though we get along really well (and, even better: my mom & husband like talking sports, which takes the pressure off me!), my mother and I agree that no kitchen is big enough for the both of us. Until and unless she ends up needing more help than my family can provide, this seems like a good plan. At that time, a retirement residence, where she could receive care from qualified people, might indeed be the best option. That, or a caregiver who either lives with her or visits often. But that might not be for years!

However, even if it's just for a short time, we'd still like to have her nearby.

Here's a quote from "CreekLife," an Edmonton magazine about Creekwood Chappelle, a new suburban development that's marketing itself to young families. This does sound great - except that the house in question is probably something like 4000 square feet and about a forty-five-minute drive from the city's downtown. The concept works for me (and illustrates the fact that yes, there are families to whom this model appeals) - but the numbers don't compute. I don't need (and can't afford) 4000 square feet - and I like being able to walk downtown from where I live.

By the way, it looks like Amber Lee is part of a Chinese-Canadian family. This is one culture that definitely, in my experience, places a high priority on keeping parents nearby. One might argue that this doesn't represent enough average Calgarians to rethink our current housing model. But even if you argue that parent-house-sharing is more of an Eastern than a Western phenomenon, remember that Westerners are not the only folks in Calgary (developers take note: Chinese languages accounted for the largest number of immigrant tongues reported in Calgary, according to this 2012 article from the Herald), and that "the East" is a big place: I have friends from Tanzania to Tibet who co-habit with their parents in Calgary. And Calgarians from all over the world have parents who visit - or, at least, who would visit, if they could be assured of safe and comfortable accommodation!

And just in case you really don't believe me that this is any more than a recent trend - or that it's something that "Westerners" do: I can steer you back to 2001 when Lynn Johnston, capturer of Canadian culture in comics form ("For Better of For Worse"), wrote about the challenging process of moving Elly's father in with her family - a scenario which, I have no doubt, resonated with many Canadian readers.

So...

Luckily, Calgarians seem to be "getting it": a home should be designed to suit your own, personal, unique lifestyle - or, at least, a lifestyle that matches you pretty closely - not the other way around.

(Don't get me started on how silly it is for 800-sq-ft condos to have these obligatory "guest bathrooms". What the heck. If you know someone well enough to invite them over to your 800 square foot condo, you probably know them well enough to let them use your own private bathroom. Of course, if two people are living in the space, or if you use your space as a home office for visiting clients, you might not want to share - but many of these suites are inhabited by single occupants who'd much prefer to have some of their precious 800 square feet allotted to a work space or something else useful, rather than a redundant WC, when there's another one ten feet away! But, as usual, I digress...)

Of course, I'm not talking about custom-designing each feature of your home - if you can afford to do so, that's great, but most can't. I just mean that dwellings could be designed with a few more modular features that allow for easy adaptations to suit the inhabitants' lifestyles.

And there seems to be a trend in this direction. Although it may be a long time before mainstream developers are turning out versions of my particular multi-generational dream home, certainly there are some cool housing options in Calgary which indicate that quite a few people are not content with the status quo. A new one is Dragonfly Cohousing in Crescent Heights (get in while you still can!), Calgary's second such development to my knowledge (the other one - and it's also awesome - is Prairie Sky).

So - maybe this isn't really about my family's plan to co-habit with my mom. That's our issue, and there are lots of possible solutions. My point is that, despite the fact that there are many families who face this kind of situation, there is no simple "roadmap" that explains how to do this. Each family has to educate itself, navigate the red tape and figure out its own creative solution. But what if there was already a ready-made cookie-cutter solution in the offering - just like an infill, made according to a pattern that someone figured out based on a demographic? Instead of building a suburban house designed to contain two adults and 2.5 children, how about a house designed for two adults whose mobility may be compromised down the road? How many families would jump at this chance?

Maybe I'm just naive. But think about the savings to health care when elderly people and folks dealing with mental illness/mobility issues all of a sudden DON'T have to move. To say nothing of the family happiness.

How would Calgary profit from more multi-generational housing?
I'd like to find out.

P.S. You might not think it from reading this rant, but there are actually a whole lot of fabulous services and resources available for people who are hoping to alter their dwellings to accommodate a senior citizen or a person with a disability. This post is too long already, so I won't list them here, but I have been learning a lot about the options that are out there... maybe that list will be the subject of a future story.

P.P.S. In case you're thinking, "Why can't you just renovate your house? Secondary suites are legal in Ramsay, and you have enough room in your backyard!" - We might do so, but it's a weighty decision. Our 100-year-old house, sturdy though it is, still has (in part) 100-year-old wiring, plumbing, and windows. Doesn't it seem kind of dumb to put a modern addition on something like that? To gut the whole thing and update everything at once, would be, based on our previous renovation experience, just as expensive, if not more, than buying a new house. We're still on the fence about how long we should stay in this spot. So... we'll keep on thinking about this. I'll let you know what happens.

At a recent CivicCamp talk to a packed house, City of Calgary General Manager of Planning Rollin Stanley made some controversial comments about how Calgary subdivisions have rather... unlikely names. (I have to say, I couldn't agree more. I always have to roll my eyes when I drive along Coventry Hills' "Country Village Way" - a wide, paved road through a big-box store shopping development - as little like a country village way as anything you could imagine.) But that's not the reason I mention this. It's just because, a few days after listening to the talk, I happened to pick up an Agatha Christie novel ("The Big Four" - not one of her best, I'm afraid) - and read this:

"A few moments more saw us ascending the steps of The Laurels, as Mr. Ingles' residence was called. Personally, I did not notice a laurel bush of any kind, so deduced that it had been named according to the usual obscure nomenclature of the suburbs."

This book was published in 1927. Mr. Stanley, Agatha Christie saw it coming, and she was on your side.

Here's the talk, by the way...

And here's a map.

So here's how it started... with a 7-foot-long "mind map" showing a sampling of arts & culture events and organizations that Calgary celebrated during 2012, its year as Cultural Capital of Canada.

But now that 2012 is over, Calgary 2012 is handing all this arts & culture engagement over to 3 Things for Calgary - an ongoing civic engagement project which will be well suited to keep up the great momentum built in the city's arts scene over the past year. That's Karen Ball (Calgary 2012) handing over a wheelbarrow full of arts & culture stuff to Nancy Close (3 Things for Calgary).

There's one minor point... the wheelbarrow wheel should be on the front of the wheelbarrow. Not the back. Hey, I'm an artist, not a wheelbarrow expert. Maybe if there weren't 3 feet of snow outside and I had actually worked in a garden anytime recently, I'd have been more up to speed on the art of wheelbarrow depiction. Oh well. You get the idea!

Then what happened? There was an enormous party to celebrate the end of Calgary 2012's year of great work. And everyone was invited to contribute ideas and suggestions to the map. Which they did.

And what happens next? Something will be done with all these creative suggestions. What exactly will that be? It will be something creative. I'll keep you posted!