When you hear the word “fieldguided”, you likely think of those manuals that classify animals, birds and all kinds of flora found in nature. It also calls to mind field trips – all those past school excursions where you ditched textbooks and gathered lessons from outside, your mind treated to an absorbing sensory expedition.
Anabela Carneiro runs Fieldguided, a site dedicated to the collection of everyday thoughts, projects and the hand-made products she and her boyfriend create together from their Toronto home. Anabela is also cat-obsessed, and she extends this love for felines into Dream Cats, a site she and Erin Gilkes created and where crazy cat people could scroll through an endless stream of dreamy cat photos.
Anabela’s writing is a pleasure to read – ambling lightly and often humorously, neither taking itself too seriously nor too carelessly; like a short trip of walking through trails and fields.
How would you describe the palette that represents Fieldguided? And can you explain what Fieldguided means to you?
Generally the tones I’m most attracted to are muted, pastel, soft, and delicate. I’ve been drawn to bright colours lately as well, but I think that’s the influence of the season. Fieldguided as a word is something I try to think about from time to time as a means of focusing — when I’m trying to find inspiration, it’s a reminder to go back to nature (that makes me sound a bit like a hippie, but I think it’s just good advice). I often stray from nature, or forget nature, because ultimately “fieldguided” is a word that I made up one day while trying to create a new email account. I had no idea I would end up creating an identity around it later on.
You tend to write a lot about seasons. What patterns do you notice change in your artwork throughout the year? And since it’s summer, can you describe the perfect summer day for you?
I do write a lot about seasons! I don’t notice too many changes because I think that the seasons that influence me the most are still spring and fall, the transitional seasons. I joke about how I would love to live in a perpetual springtime, although I think that would make me miss the occasional snowstorm and occasional sticky-hot day. The perfect summer day would be pretty simple. It would involve a body of water or a pool of some sort, a bike ride, iced coffees, lounging on a picnic blanket in the grass.
Typesetting, printmaking, and fabric work require precision and patience – just as a writer waits for inklings and thoughts in order to draw up words, but it’s a bit of a different kind of world. Have you always been drawn to this tactile profession: working with fonts, creating pieces with your hands?
I think I have, although I am relatively new to it. I’m a typesetter at my job, which is pretty funny to me. When I was a little kid I used to wonder just how books were made and I used to imagine people sitting at typewriters and typing them out from hand-written manuscripts. Now I’m involved in the process of making books. It just sort of fell into my lap, and I still think that I’m an amateur, mostly because it’s the sort of thing that you have to learn by doing it over time. As to making things with my hands, again, that’s something I’m pretty new to. When I think back to things I used to make really all I can think of are mixtapes. I used to take a lot of pride in making covers for them and writing the names of the songs very neatly with different colours, etc. I don’t have a history of making “crafts”, to be honest.
Can you describe the room where all your art is made? And are your cats respectful of this space?
We don’t have a specific room in our apartment, so it’s basically our whole apartment. The cats aren’t too bad. Sometimes we find them napping on our totes which can be so annoying but cats are impossible to train!
As a collector of many curious things, are you drawn to particular types of objects or pieces?
It’s getting embarrassing now but I do love vintage cat trinkets. I’m trying to collect fewer things, though, because sometimes when I look around all I see is clutter. It’s not really that bad but as a renter I always think about how horrible it would be to have to pack everything up.
You’re working on a new collaborative project called rosegolden, creating posters out of your photos of flowers. Out of curiosity and since we live in the same neighbourhood, have you ever gotten mean glances from grumpy folks whose flowers you’ve just photographed? (Can you tell it’s happened to me?)
Ha! I actually haven’t! I try to be as inconspicuous as possible and fast. Although a few weeks ago I did climb up onto some stepping stones in someone’s garden to get a better picture of a poppy. I would think those grumpy folks would be flattered that you liked their garden.
Outside of what we see on Fieldguided, what other things inspire you?
I’m definitely overwhelmed by all the imagery I see on the internet on a daily basis, so as I said, sometimes it’s important to try to think about nature, about things that exist just as they are, and to be inspired by that. For example, the rosegolden project definitely came about that way — I had been emailing with Erin about doing a collaborative poster, but taking my time coming up with an idea, and when I realized that the flower photos I had taken one day in the neighbourhood would probably make nice posters, we just ran with it. The flowers were just so beautiful they didn’t need editing or anything and were perfect as is (or so I like to think).
Where do you turn when you’re out of ideas?
I try not to worry about it too much. Something new will always come along, I hope.
What is the most pleasurable thing about maintaining fieldguided?
To be honest, it’s pretty much all pleasurable. I mean, hearing from people all over the world who like what we do is pretty amazing. I’m really grateful and wish I could do it full-time.
How did you come to decide on using the lyric on your tote bag?
I just dreamed it up one day without thinking about it. When the Kate Bush lyric (and subsequent tote idea) popped into my head I told Geoff about it in a sheepish sort of way, expecting him to say he didn’t like it, or that it was weird or silly, but he liked it! Luckily other people did too.
- Anabela Carneiro, Fieldguided
Photos by Anabela
