I cycle in a skirt

me with my bicycle
One thing Amsterdam is famous for is bicycles everywhere. And it's with good reason. The bicycles are comfortable, the bike paths are plentiful, it's safe and quick, and it's ever so flat. I'm sure I've been spoiled for cycling anywhere else for one thing.

The Dutch-style city bicycle is soooo comfortable. I don't think I've raved about them on my blog as much as I have elsewhere, but I can't resist. The basic shape hasn't changed since the 1920s, and the result is a bicycle that allows proper posture. You're not bent over with arms stretched out, like on a mountain bike. The handlebars come back to meet your hands, just shoulder-width apart and the frame is quite tall. This means, amongst other things, that it's easier to gracefully wear skirts while cycling. Even with my foot on the pedal at its highest point, the height of the frame and my seat still means that my leg slants downward.


"vintage"

My philosophy for biking in a skirt or dress is largely to just not worry about it; certainly no one else seems to here. I basically get dressed to my own whim, and then just get on my bicycle regardless of what I'm wearing. Two tips to those new to cycling in a skirt: 1) angle your knees inwards, and 2) (this is the biggie) just relax and don't worry about the slight chance that someone might fleetingly see a bit more thigh if the wind is particularly naughty. There seems to be lot of palaver on the internet of people advising wearing shorts underneath or complicated systems of pinning or tying dresses. Now, I can understand some of the discussion of tucking or pinning if you have a full skirt and your bike doesn't have a coat guard, but my impression was mostly that people seem overly worried about someone catching a glimpse of their underwear. To quote Dress A Day, "C'mon, people, are we all six years old? ... Most people wear underwear that is, at minimum, the same coverage as a relatively modest bathing suit."

It's a generalization, but it seemed to be mainly American sites that treated biking in a skirt as a big deal. Maybe it's partly cultural, and maybe it's also that biking as a normal, daily thing just to get somewhere (as opposed to a sporty activity) is not so common in North America. I do wish I could find it again, but there was a site where someone commented that biking in a skirt was maybe not the day to wear your cupcake panties. And my thought was, that's backwards! It's EXACTLY the day to wear your cupcake panties (even though the chances of someone seeing them due to you cycling is actually miniscule). The European attitude largely seems to be confused by the question "how do you bike in a skirt?". Uhhh, you put on a skirt, then you get on a bicycle. And this is the attitude I first adopted when Bixi was launched in Montreal last year. Afterall, if you might just randomly jump on a bike anywhere, you can't really plan what you're wearing.

For reference, I've worn at least 7 different skirts and dresses on my bicycle, of varying lengths and fullness, none with any particular problem. The knee-length, fuller skirted ones are probably the easiest in terms of freedom of movement. But if you're dithering about what to wear on a bicycle, just don't worry. Put on a cute outfit, hop on your bike, and go see the world.

Photographs by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

On one planet, it rained paisley.

"paisley"

I wasn't too enamoured of this week's IF topic of "paisley" at first. I prefer the very abstract themes. But after doing a little mind map brain-storming, it turned out that you just can't predict inspiration. I'm really rather loving my little alien, who seems to be turning up all over the universe. I have a sneaking suspicion that my subconscious produced this little purple-suited alien because I have some fellow-feeling for a being in strange new surroundings.

I think there must be several of them on that pink flying saucer and they're on rather a long holiday, adventuring round the universe. They stopped by Earth for some ice cream, and blew some bubbles as they left. Here, one of them is rather surprised by the form precipitation takes on an otherwise ordinary blue-green planet.


Photographs by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

How to De-Clutter and minimize your "Stuff"

glowy dining room lighting

In the spirit of our pre-move decluttering, I've been trying to be good about tossing things out and thinking carefully about what new things to add. One thing I'm doing is not buying things in anticipation of needing them. For example, I haven't bought a toaster yet because we don't usually eat much toast in the summer. When winter rolls around, we'll probably buy one, but for now we just use the broiler in the oven. I do have to fight against my it-might-be-useful-someday tendency in terms of hanging on to things. But it always helps to remember the amount of such stuff that wasn't ever useful that I had to get rid of before we moved. Stuff does have a tendency to multiply in the back of dark cupboards. I want to write down what was actually involved in our pre-move purge before I forget and hopefully it will be helpful to others.


cabinet of curiosities

De-cluttering is not a quick job. It takes a lot of mental energy and many iterations. If you try to do it in one pass, you're more likely to make bad choices. If you're rushing it, you'll cling to things you don't need just because you're sick of getting rid of stuff and you'll toss stuff you'll miss just because you're tired of making decisions. Motivation is a huge part of the job. Moving overseas was an excellent inspiration to be more thorough than we had ever been before. If you don't have to minimize your stuff, it will be a lot harder to let go of things. So state your goal clearly to yourself and keep it in mind when evaluating each thing.

My steps for decluttering:

1. Quickly ditch all the things from the house that you already meant to get rid of (for us this was an old stereo and a box of clothes set aside for the Salvation Army). This should be fast because you've already made the decision, and getting it out of sight will feel like good progress.
2. Go through the sets of things that you know you can trim down (clothes/shoes, books/movies/music, kitchen housewares, etc) and get rid of anything you don't like or don't use enough to make it worth keeping. The more honest you are about what you don't like or use, the better the results.
3. Repeat step 2 several times, over the space of several weeks. You need the time so that each time you look at your stuff, you come back to it with fresh eyes. You'll be surprised at the end by things that you kept on the first pass. There are obviously some things that are not frequently used, but are still worth keeping, but it's important to remember that you can borrow things, rent things, and even buy things again if necessary.
4. Now that you've got the obvious excess trimmed down, go through absolutely everything, starting with one cupboard or drawer at a time. Look at EVERYTHING (including the things you've already gone through several times). If you don't look at it, there's no chance you'll get rid of it. This step is really tedious, but it's also the most likely to turn up things you didn't even realise you HAD! You should have reduced a lot by this point and you might be pretty mentally exhausted. To de-clutter to the fullest extent, there's one more thing to keep in mind: Can I live without it? The key is to acknowledge that you can like and use something and still decide that you'd rather have more space and less stuff than owning that thing. 
5. The last step is maintenance.  To make all that hard work worth it, you need to keep returning to your evaluating mindset.  Think carefully when acquiring new things, and review the stuff you've kept as your life and activities change.

Throughout the process, be truly honest with yourself about why you're keeping things. I, for example, had a number of pairs of shoes that I liked the look of, but hardly wore because they hurt my feet. I was resistant to getting rid of them, though, because of what they cost. I thought that if I kept them, I might eventually wear them, thus getting some value. In reality all I was getting was hits of guilt for not wearing them every time I saw them. It took me quite a number of decluttering passes to realise this. I was eventually able to "throw them on the fire" as we took to calling the act of tossing things in the box to be donated. It turned out to feel amazing to throw away the guilt that was associated with those shoes.


lisianthus in the living room


Photographs by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

5 months into the Expat Adventure

"ripple"

It's about 5 months into our Grand Adventure and we're definitely feeling more at home. The busy-confused-paperwork stage is mostly over (at least Round 1, let's not be too optimistic) and we've settled into our apartment and a routine. We humans are quite adaptable. While I miss my friends and family (skype is so fantastic!), I love so many things about Amsterdam, that I don't miss Montreal quite as much as I expected.

A few lessons learned that might be helpful to other expats-to-be. Don't expect things you ship to show up in a timely manner. Even though our boxes were only 12 days in transit, all the paperwork and permits and delays meant that it was nearly 4 months before we saw our stuff again. If you want something right away, take it in your luggage. One thing I'm glad was in our luggage (and not our boxes) was our good pillows and the quilt I made. One thing I wish we'd put in our luggage instead of in our boxes was our good kitchen knives. That said, be very careful what you choose to bring since you'll almost certainly make assumptions that you won't even realise you're making.

We shipped some fridge magnets, but don't actually have a magnetic fridge door. At least that was a small mistake. We considered shipping our half-sheet pan and silpat. It's a good thing we didn't since our oven here is teeny... about the size of a microwave. And many of the apartments here apparently don't have ovens at all. Strangely (to us), they all have full-size dishwashers. In Canada, a full-size oven is basically a given, but dishwashers are usually reserved for only the most posh apartments. Another surprise was that furnished apartments are actually the norm for the expat market in Amsterdam and they're cheaper than unfurnished. I'm actually really happy having our own things, but it was a surprise. The up-front cost of renting is also much steeper than in Quebec, where there are no fees or deposits. Here, it's normal to pay an agent fee equivalent to one month's rent, plus 2 months rent as a damage deposit. At least you can expect to get the damage deposit back at the end, but it's still the equivalent of 4 months rent to start!

Overall, despite the stress and paperwork of the beginning, it's a fantastic experience to live somewhere completely new. As my Mom told me throughout our struggles to get everyday life set up, these things are why travel is broadening. And as my husband Damian said, if it was easy, everyone would do it. For everyone who gets the chance, I think you should do it. We've had lots of fun so far and learned a lot. We're both trying to learn Dutch even though almost everyone speaks English and we've definitely taken to the biking culture here. Reflecting on this move has made me ramble on, and I've already edited out 2 other blog posts worth of stuff (which I'll post later). Suffice it to say that moving overseas has given me a lot of experiences to think about.

Photographs by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

From Urban planning to the Food on our Plates

Or, Unexpected Musings as a result of being an Expat...


Roses on my table

So from my last post, you might be getting the impression that it's a grocery paradise over here. It's not quite so easy. One thing I've noticed in the stores in Amsterdam (though not at the amazing variety of farmer's markets) is an obsession with over-packaging. We bought some crackers once that, within the outer package, were individually wrapped in groups of 8. WHY??? Certain types of fruits and vegetables are packaged on foam trays with cling film, or in plastic bags, or simply wrapped in cling film. It seems intensely unnecessary and is one definite downside to shopping at the local grocery store chain. Once we have bicycles (something I hope to find second-hand and soon), I plan to do more shopping at the farmer's market where I can bring my own re-usable bags for things. On a related note, at D's workplace, they have a wonderful sounding canteen, but for hygenic reasons have individually wrapped each portion of cheese and meat. So to make a simple sandwich generates a ton of waste.

Something else I've noticed is that, as a result of the latest obsession with being environmental by taking your own bags shopping, there seem to be a zillion new bags being made. I see them everywhere from fancy designer ones, to promotional ones, to cheap department store ones. I mean, at least they're re-usable, but still, it seems excessive and little bit missing the spirit of the idea. I can only imagine that some will not be sold and that the excess stock will end up in a landfill somewhere.


Roses

I have been reflecting recently on consumption and waste and where we find value and meaning in our lives. A lot revolves around the food we choose to buy, grow, prepare, and eat. We have been eating a lot better since moving to Amsterdam. Mostly because we are being more frugal and cooking all our meals from scratch. We never ate a lot of pre-prepared food or ate out a huge amount, but we're doing so even less here.

Making this sort of drastic, long-distance-and-short-notice move, with its associated massive reduction in Stuff, has resulted in a lot more changes than just the scenery. It's forced me to think about just about every lifestyle choice and be more conscious in choosing what I want. When you don't experience any change, it's very easy to stay within your comfort zone and not examine WHY you do or believe something. So far, I think this has been the most rewarding part of this experience and not at all what I expected. I thought it would be the travel ... which will probably be great too, once we get to that part of the Expat Adventure. As it is, I've been far more productive in writing and drawing than I had been for ages, I'm getting much more regular exercise (love the climate here!), we're eating much better, I'm feeling very content with having fewer things (though I still am excited to get our boxes with what we did choose to ship), and I feel like I'm benefitting personally from consciously re-examining my beliefs and assumptions.

The Grocery Dilemma

sausages at the market

North America is big. Really big. You may think it's a long way down to the grocery store, and in general, it is. And this is the source of many problems.

First, when the grocery store is far away, you're likely to go less often. This has two consequences: you'll buy more food and less of it fresh. Buying more food generally leads to buying things you won't end up using (it's hard to always plan perfectly just what you'll need a week or more in advance) and fresh food tends to be the healthiest. So already, you're set up to be less healthy and to waste food.

Next, for whatever reason it originally started, stores in North America carrry enormous bulk sizes of things. The smaller quantities are then priced unnattractively, so that it seems like a financially sensible choice to buy the large size. This makes your groceries heavy and since your grocery store is far away, it's not feasible to walk. So you're spending more money because you're buying more food at a time and you're driving instead of walking, which is worse for both you and the environment (and costs you even more money when you consider all the tangential costs of cars).

Finally, because you've had to buy lots of food, in large quantities, you need a larger space to store all that stuff. So you're spending more on your home or apartment.

In contrast, consider if your grocery store was 5 minutes walk away. It would be more hassle to drive there and find parking than to just walk over. Then you'd have to buy less stuff because you'd need to carry it home, but if you're that close to the grocery store, you can go every couple of days. So suddenly, you can buy fresh food every couple days and be more accurate in planning what you'll use and get some exercise too. I was lucky enough in Montreal to be in this situation. There were small grocery stores scattered all over my neighbourhood, so I could easily walk to the store every few days. The one piece that still caused a problem, though, was the way small quantities of pantry items tended to be overpriced compared to the bulk sizes.


fresh scones

Something that annoyed me initially in Amsterdam was the lack of bulk sizes. I do a lot of home baking and go through flour pretty quickly. I was used to buying 10 kg bags. The bags of flour here are 1kg. However, the key difference I've realised is that I'm not paying a markup for the small package. It's about 0.58 € (includes taxes) and while I can't pop into a Canadian grocery store at the moment to check, I can just about guarantee that a 1kg bag of flour will cost more than $0.80! Once you lose the pricing incentive to buy the large size, it suddenly becomes clear that bulk purchasing is really not advantageous. It means you have more money tied up in "stuff" that you don't really need yet, for some things it means they won't be as fresh when you get to using them (or might even be spoiled if you get bugs or mice), and it means you need space to store all your bulk stuff. If you're walking home with groceries, it's also much nicer to be carrying 1kg at a time rather than 10kg!

I think many of our current problems in North America could be solved by returning to an urban model where it was convenient to walk to stores (and if we got over the obsession with bulk and "supersize" options). It would be better for our health, our pocketbooks, and for the environment. But why won't it happen anytime soon? Because it means more overhead costs for the corporations and thus smaller profit margins. Shopping at farmer's markets and smaller shops is great if you have that option. But what can people stuck with a distant, monolithic grocery store as their only option do?

I don't have the solution other than to say that it presumably works in Europe, so why not in North America?

My idea of "success"

art not ads
Originally uploaded by allisongryski

I've been thinking about what it means to be a successful artist. It started in the middle of the night when I woke up and for some reason was thinking about a post I'd read on someone's blog about some new products that were being made with their art. There was something that made me wonder if that would feel like "success" for me. It's such a subjective term, that it bore more half-asleep thinking and then I woke up this morning with lots of thoughts on the subject.

It always sounds like a 1980's self-help concept to me when I hear some version of the widely accepted idea that "you have to visualise where you want to be if you're going to get there". But then again it sounds a bit mystical to me to accept the idea that you just do things and "the way will open up and the path will become clear as you go". I think I fall somewhere in between these two philosophies. I want to have some idea of what I'm trying to do, but not a fixed roadmap. You can't really know or plan anyway. The universe seems to take great delight in showing you otherwise. Have you noticed that? But all my thoughts about "success" start with my art, my ideas, and being able to create what I envision. They're not so much about the business aspect, which I think is a good thing, if a bit impractical. My dream is to be an artist, not a business. Of course to make money from art, you do have to do some things that make it a business, but that's a necessity, not the dream.

I'm starting to feel from a number of blogs out there that making money has become too much of the focus. They fill their blog sidebars with ads from "sponsors" (a weasel word for advertiser) and have frequent promotions from them. Something about this bothers me, perhaps particularly because these are artists whose blogs I enjoy reading otherwise. Of course artists need to eat too... but the commercialism of it does bother me a little. I dislike the omnipresence of advertising (just as a general principle, I think we're over-exposed to it) and it seems to have become quite common amongst those who can, to choose to make money like this. To use my voice for promotions like that is definitely NOT my goal. I really appreciated Keri Smith's posts about why she doesn't have advertising on her blog (here, here, here, and here (this last is the post I was actually thinking of when I googled and found all the earlier ones) and for the short version, the ad-free blog faq). The concept of drawing a line around what space is not for sale to corporations really resonates with just how I feel on the subject. It's not that all ads are evil all the time. It's that ads are EVERYWHERE now and I've drawn a line about where I think they should be in my life and my work and I won't move my line for money.

I don't mind when people are talking about their own art/ideas, but it's when their blog becomes a forum for advertising other businesses that I start to be a bit put off. While some of my thoughts may seem critical of how other artists who blog are choosing to make some income, that's not so much the point of it. This is more me figuring out what is consistent with my beliefs and what is right for me. I don't at all mind mentions of stores that they like to go to or friends who are also artists, or even the occasional review (of a store/product/whatever). It's all about the volume and intent... ie. low volume of endorsement and intent to share information/opinion, not advertising. That is certainly what I aim for.

I'm still so much at the beginning of my artistic journey, that I'm seeing the choices that others who are already more known, more "successful" have made, and trying to see how I want to be. I'm not really sure at this point exactly where I want it all to go, but I'm starting to get some idea of where I don't want it to go. It wouldn't be "success" to me, though many would see it that way, to end up making money from ads. I just kind of think ugh. I want to write, and create, and make things that make people really happy to have or see or read. To make the world a little bit more beautiful, a little better, to provoke some thought. And I want to have that beautiful feeling of creating from idea to finished product. That's what I'm aiming for, that happy feeling.

Success as a full-time artist does involve making money from my art, and I do need to figure out how I want to do that. But when I think of success, it's not just the money, it's also about success AS an artist, in the process of creating things. The funny thing is, I don't say this from some high morals against commercial or graphic artists (how could I with a sister who is doing her PhD on Canadian illustrators and has talked about how illustrators are often seen as somehow lesser artists because of the commercial element). It seems perfectly reasonable to me to make a living being paid to make art with a specific intent and even creating art that IS advertising. If we've got to have it, it would be nice if it was beautifully photographed and illustrated! I think it's defining success solely in terms of income that I dislike. It's a corollary that making money from advertising (and I mean by providing the forum for it, not creating the advertisment itself) is something I see as a symptom of that money = success mindset. Accordingly, since I think we are over-bombarded with advertising, that to me is what I think of as "selling out" or losing your artistic integrity by doing something for the money regardless of the effect.

All this started as vague thoughts at 3AM. It jumbled around in my head and didn't really make sense nor did I even know exactly what it was really about until I wrote it out. Sometimes it takes trying to explain some random feeling or thought to someone else to really understand what it was all about. So success for me is making a living by creating the things I envision and exploring and developing the skills to bring my ideas to life. An important part of my artistic integrity is to not compromise on what areas of my life and work I let the corporate world intrude on. And if you made it through this whole long post, thank you for your attention. I hope it was interesting and thought-provoking, even (particularly) if you don't agree with me.