Photos below by Scott Wachal, U of M Fine Arts students and zombie extraordinaire (he’s the one who fully plunged into Lake Winnipeg…in…October).

Fred, dancing before the farmer attack scene.

This is not a wedding shoot.

Last week I was in Winnipeg, my hometown, thanks to Cliff Eyland and Sigrid Dahle of Gallery One One One and The University of Manitoba. In half a week, I shot a new video titled A Prairie Horror, featuring the talents of various Winnipeg folks. These production photos are by Derek Brueckner, my fabulous Sunday assistant:

I finished my Body Count Drawings, featuring slasher films, and the images are up! This detail is from Happy Birthday to Me (1981) - I saw the film in the mid-80s and this image freaked me out.

May, according to the Zombie Research Society, is zombie awareness month. It’s already the 10th, so if you’re behind I recommend sleeping with one eye open - starting now. Wear your grey ribbon (perhaps you have one you can recycle from other awarenesses such as Diabetes, Brain Cancer, and others).

Secondly, there is a band from Paris called Zombie Zombie - it’s trance music - get it?

And visit the blog for an upcoming DIY (as yet untitled) apocalyptic zombie film combining narrative fiction and contextual zombie-expert interviews… by Michael Frank of Rochester, NY. I met Michael in January in frozen Buffalo, NY and look forward to his feature.

And last but not least, this Studio 360 clip on zombies was sent to me from Sam Zimmerman in NYC:

Wildflowers are in their late spring phase. Yesterday I saw white-fringed phacelia, trout lily, flame azalia, wild iris, wild violet, pink lady slipper, and trilium. Also louse wort and squaw root which are cruel names for flowers. The squaw root is not a beauty:

Meanwhile, I’ve been drawing unpleasant things.
Below are some details of Body Count Drawing 7: “The House on Sorority Row”

Now that spring has sprung, my mind has turned to new tricks and slasher films: there are new signs of life (such as pollen) bursting out everywhere and most slashers strike in warm weather. For these reasons I don’t plan to set foot outdoors until late fall, so I’ve plenty of time to teach myself new skillz including drawing! Though not exactly new, drawing is a skill I’ve forgotten to exercise for approximately 15 years. It’s probably like riding a bicycle, but the last time I tried that I fell flat on my face, scared the crap out of myself, and left the bike equipment where it lay.

Here is a sneak peek of details from the first of my drawings, in progress, titled Body Count, Friday the 13th.

For those who are curious there are 11 deaths (athough 3 took place in the past and it is revealed that 1 of the “dead” may in fact be “undead”).

Apparently it’s Easter and I am sitting in my temporary studio which is really a parlour in a possibly creepy old white mansion on a very run down street. There is moss between the stone steps leading up from the street and an electric yellow forsythia just outside one window. Through another window is a tulip tree, the kind I used to call magnolia, with half-opened magenta buds. I hear fire trucks in the distance and the older gentleman owner of the house, whom I haven’t met, is singing Candle in the Wind with radio accompaniment and working in the yard which is filled with antiques - his worn t-shirt says rocket in my pocket, in red.

I’m watching slasher films from the 70s and 80s for a series of drawings I am working on.

Its all very lovely, like spring…

In Banff today I took a pilates class, ate lunch while enjoying a jaw-dropping view, sat in the steam room, worked ever so briefly, soaked in the nearby hot springs with new friends, and ate an elk burger with pineapple. That’s what I call an artist’s retreat.

So happy to learn that the other one makes nice happy baby prints in fun colours! I feel instantly relieved of any and all previous guilt. Very nice!

RedRum, my show at Hallwalls is up and running now through late February. It features a new video, also titled RedRum that features young ghosts and houses that drip with blood.

Dear Buffalo,
Thanks to Hallwalls for everything and curator John Massier for the fabulous production assistance; the students at Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts and Jam Vafai for being my crew and actors; Joan Linder and Paul Vanouse, Julian and Colette Montague, Sandy Ludwig and Mark Kerwood, and Dennis Maher for lending their homes; The Buffalo Soundpainting Ensemble for creating uber-creepy sounds and introducing me to the ocean harp; Gerry Mead and Cori Wolff for lending paintings from their collections; and Debbie and Gary Hill for hosting me. Buffalo, I miss you already!
~love, Jillian