I’m fundraising because it’s time to do more than just shake my head at the news.
Women’s reproductive freedoms are eroding around the world, wiping out decadesof hard-won human rights gains.
I designed this T-shirt* to say that the female body should never be subject to government control.
#NotHere stands for Canada, the United States, Poland, and beyond.
For every T-shirt sold, I will donate $10 (all profits) to Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights(@ActionCanadashr), a progressive, pro-choice charitable organization committed to advancing and upholding sexual and reproductive health and rights in Canada and globally.
This weekend Toronto is heading to High Park to take in the cherry blossom trees (“Sakura” in Japanese) at their peak.
I painted this delicate pattern last spring while I was sitting on a streetcar in downtown traffic.
The design is available in my Shopify store, PenJarProductions.com. Just search the term “cherry” and you’ll see how it looks on pillows, phone cases, laptop skins, and, new this Spring, a scarf!
Music credit: “Ishikari Love” by Kevin MacLeod, YouTube Audio Library
This week, to drum up interest in next weekend’s Jane’s Walk Toronto, Laura and Eric, the owners, have kindly put up a display of my Pen Jar Productions line of Jane Jacobs merch (a tote, a tee and an enamel pin). At the front of the store no less!
I’m proud to be teaming up with a neighbourhood retailer that makes social justice, equity (gender, race and class) and diversity the guiding force of their existence.
Jane’s Walk Toronto is happening May 3-5. For a list of walks you can join, go to janeswalk.org/canada/toronto/ and check out their Instgram feed at @JanesWalkTo.
Let’s celebrate our city and our stories next weekend and all year round!
A week after I teamed with with Another Story, I put on my party shoes and headed to the opening bash for Jane’s Walk Toronto. The Urban Space Gallery hosted the event. My illustration studio, Pen Jar Productions, was a sponsor.
It felt good donating my Jane Jacobs enamel pins to all 130 Walk Leaders, each of them committed storytellers and determined community activists who are working towards a more diverse and equitable world. Here’s how they responded:
The next morning, Juan, one of the festival organizers, went on the CBC’s Metro Morning to share details about this year’s Jane’s Walk with host, Matt Galloway.
I missed it. I was at my desk journaling in silence during their interview. By the time I emerged and let myself check my phone notifications, I saw from a friend’s text that my little pin had caught Galloway’s eye.
The best thing we can do with our ideas and talents is to catch someone else’s eye and make them think or take a more positive action.
Ever since it hit us that technology has gained control of our weaknesses, we’ve been asking ourselves, how do we fix this?
The hundreds of Jane’s Walks that took place this past weekend in Toronto (and 250 cities around the world) are a grassroots, citizen-led effort to improve the physical and emotional habitat we live in, be it cities or online communities. It puts our shared humanity ahead of individual interests.
Let’s keep looking for more ways to stop the spread of human downgrading. (Tristan Harris’s term).
In 1967, she was thinking: air hostess (for the glamour), nurse and office girl with oodles of charm and personality. In 2019, she is thinking of algorithms, black holes, oncology, Odyssey translations, and true crime. She is still being instructed to improve her hair, her voice, her figure, her walk, but the joy of applying herself is stronger than the drumbeat of criticism. Keep going, sister.
Alison has been blogging since 2009, and drawing for much longer. Society Pages looks at how technology challenges and shapes human nature and creativity, among other things. It isn't always pretty.
