Frank McAuliffe

Name: Frank McAuliffe AKA Kiki St John
Age: 32 2/3
Location: Toronto
Craft: Interiors and Exteriors (Blackrock Works)

Tell us about Blackrock.
It's a full service design build firm with a focus on the raw beauty and natural splendor of all materials in all functions.

Where did you grow up?
Downtown Toronto. Cabbagetown, specifically.

Where do you go for inspiration?
Out the window of my car and I Google. Lots and lots of Google.

What are your 3 favourite spots in the city?
I really like the Habitat for Humanity Restore. There is this place by the water where the city dumps the trees it cuts down. A butcher at Islington and Albion called Potenza where if you don't speak Italian, you are treated like an immigrant (I don't speak Italian).

Are the best things in life for free?
The best of the free shit, I guess.

What is your favourite material to work with?
Wood of any kind except ipe.



What are the basic tools you would recommend for craftspeople that are just starting out?
Pen and paper.

What is your dream project?
I think today, with the sun shining and the birds singing, my dream job would be to build a rockery in Central Park or maybe build a garden around the base of the CN Tower. I love the CN tower. I hope they never change the name to something like the Quizno Tower or the Wild Wing Ding. Even if they did, I would still like it more than that thing they built in Kuala Lumpur.

Do you have any hidden talents?
In my line of work, you better bring your talents right off the bat.

What is on important life lesson?
Boys are garbage.

Tell us a story.
A number of years ago, I heard about a guy that was rebuilding a barn in Normandy. In order to secure the contract, I started a somewhat monogamous relationship with his daughter. As the project was nearing the end of the second of four phases, there was a halt to the work due to funding constraints. I broke it off with the girl and, of course, came home. We lost touch after that. She did email me and asked if I knew what the significance of May 5th was to her, and I explained that I am not Mexican, and don't think about what she thinks about. I've been thinking about that lately.

www.blackrockworks.com

Ian Jackson

Name: Ian Jackson
Age: 30
Location: Toronto
Craft: guitar/vocals in Persian Rugs

Tell us about your instruments
I have a bunch of instruments. Mainly guitars that I've acquired over the years. In high school, I got a 90s-era Fender Telecaster deluxe (pretty much directly because of Jonny Greenwood, with the same pickups and everything), and later on I bought a somewhat modified Fender Jazzmaster (see: Thurston Moore, Kevin Shields). I have a beat up acoustic guitar whose main selling feature was that it was the cheapest model that the company - Seagull - made at the time. As well, I have a couple other cheap guitars from the 60s that look bad ass but don't stay in tune worth a damn, so they just hang around and look cool most of the time. Oh, and there's my... piano. It's a tiny grand piano that sounds sort of bell-like and is painted silver. It looks like something Elton John might have played when he was a little boy.

What is your creative process?
I tend to happen upon things. I don't have a specific process really. Usually random noodling on guitar is involved and I'll stumble onto something I like, then try to fashion it into something song-like. Writing just happens when it does. If I sit down and try to force myself to come up with something it's usually fruitless. It all comes in fits and starts and hopefully eventually something coherent forms out of it. Lots of keeping notes of words or phrases or small musical ideas and building on them. Often taking a small bit of music to the band will, very much with everyone else's help, turn into something more and we just go from there.

What are your three favourite spots to get inspired?
The edge of my bed. Our hovel of a practice space. The shower.

Are the best things in life for free?
Some of them.

Do blonds have more fun?
Oh yes.

Tell us about a time you felt on top of the world!
On top of the world? Well, I went up the CN Tower recently. And had oysters afterwards. That was a good day.