Ann's Musings
Steel Horses & Drawing Horses
As a biker watching the peak riding season fade away, I want to say something. There’s a certain kind of melancholy that comes from watching summer disappear. The days get shorter, the evenings get colder, the motorcycle gets parked a little earlier in the evening. You start checking the forecast: What time does the sun…
Read
Art Is Not a Credential
It’s Labour Day — and to me, that marks the unofficial end of summer vacation and the beginning of the academic season. Which got me thinking about education, credentials, and what it really means to be an artist… I recently saw Maud Lewis’s house at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Not a replica. Not…
Read
It’s Not a Bad Life, Just a Bad Day
Yes, I was livid. For three days. My motorcycle was towed. It was parked in front of my own house, in a residential parking zone, with a residential parking permit, and riding insurance. I thought I was doing everything right. Apparently, I was wrong. Unbeknownst to me, there’s a 14-day parking bylaw. If my vehicle…
Read
Stronger Together: Part 2 – It Takes a Community to Raise a Dough
A bakery might not seem to have anything to do with life-drawing. But it does. At NOOD, we believe collaboration goes far beyond what happens inside our studio. Sometimes, collaboration looks like a life-drawing session with another arts organization. Sometimes, it sounds like live music. And sometimes, it smells like coffee and a table full…
Read
Stronger Together: Part 1 – Why NOOD Collaborates
At NOOD, we've never believed that building a community means competing with one another. We believe in lifting each other up. That's why we collaborate with the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) to create an elevated monthly life-drawing experience for artists in our community. Together, we each contribute our strengths. This kind of partnership reflects…
Read
Classroom Skeletons Are Lies
The skeleton in your art class is a hoax. Those perfectly arranged bones? In real life they’d be a catastrophic pile on the floor. Your skeleton only works because of 200+ bones, 900+ ligaments, 600+ muscles, the I-don’t-know-how-many cartilages and … one brain. This is what it takes to fight gravity … and gravity still…
Read
The Heart of a Canadian
World news is often filled with headlines of conflict, crisis, and division. It can feel as if these stories define the shape of the world we live in. But in times like these, it’s important to practice something quieter and more lasting: creativity, connection, and kindness. Being a Canadian is not just about flags and…
Read
The Art of Looking Ridiculous
Not every moment in the studio need be serious. Sometimes life-drawing is about observation and silence. Sometimes it’s about dancing in your socks, underwear, a button-up shirt, and sunglasses to “Old Time Rock & Roll”. NOOD has always been about comfort in our bodies, creative freedom, and letting go of the idea that we have…
Read
You Were Never Failing, You Were Just Starting
If you’re a life-model, you’ve felt this — and so have I. You step onto the platform for the first time. Your leg trembles, time stretches, and a quiet doubt slips in: Maybe I’m not good at this. This is “learned helplessness”. It’s a psychological state where you come to believe that nothing you do…
Read
Coffee, Tea, and the Art of Arriving
At NOOD, there’s a coffee maker and an assortment of teas. Not as an add-on but as part of the ritual of unfolding. Slowly. We believe in the moments that happen before anything begins ... making something warm, reaching for a small snack, exchanging a few words, and letting the body arrive before the work…
Read
The Seeds We Don’t Know We’re Planting
There’s something to be said about things coming full circle. You model for a school for a few years ... year one, then year two ... you learn names, rhythms, fun facts about people. You share space, silence, and trust. Then they graduate. And you assume that’s the end of that chapter. Until one day,…
Read
From Need to NOOD
NOOD didn’t start as a business. It started as a need. I spent years commuting across the city to work as a life model — sometimes 10–14 hours a day, just to make a few sessions happen. I kept waiting for something closer to home. Something consistent. Something that honoured the work. After 7½ years,…
Read
The Quiet Joy of Solitude
Solitude can be the gentlest kind of company. A quiet space, free from the pull of yesterday’s guilt or tomorrow’s worries. No scrolling, no notifications, no noise asking anything of you. Just this moment, uninterrupted, unperformed. It’s a return. A return to your own thoughts, your own rhythms, your own inner voice ... soft, steady,…
Read
It’s Not Flakiness, It’s Survival Math
Not related to art … but somehow completely related. I understand why Vancouverites hesitate. Why we wait. Why we make soft commitments. Why we sometimes cancel at the last minute. Because here, disposable income isn’t really “disposable”. It’s a question mark at best and crippling anxiety at worst. That $275 concert ticket you bought today…
Read
Your Art Shows Up When You Do
Today on Groundhog Day, NOOD asks you to take a moment to notice something. The dance between light and shadow. The coexistence of hope and hesitation. What we see and what quietly lives beneath the surface. As artists, this isn’t unfamiliar territory. Every time you draw, you’re already having a conversation about duality -- the…
Read
What It Means to Draw for the First Time
At NOOD, we welcome people from every walk of life: lifelong artists, art students, unemployed animators keeping their skills alive between jobs, people returning to art after years away, people on a path of self-discovery, and people who are simply curious enough to walk through our door. Last night, a group of friends joined us…
Read
Thinking Outside the Frame
When you draw, you’re not just making a thing – you’re practicing how to think. Every habit you lean on (the same stroke, the same palette, the same idea of what’s “good”) is a frame you didn’t realize you were standing inside. Thinking outside the frame of mind doesn’t mean being wild for the sake…
Read
New Year’s Realizations
It’s January. Which means everyone suddenly thinks they’re going to become a new person just because the earth did a circle. January 1st isn’t a reset button. It’s just December 32nd with better branding. Scientific fact: Your brain does not know what a “calendar” is. It barely knows where your EarPods are at this moment.…
Read