Elizabeth Barbaza-cousineau:
CLASS OF 1980
Sir John A. MacDonald Collegiate InstituteClass of 1980
Toronto, ON
Ontario College of ArtClass of 1991
Toronto, ON
York University - Fine ArtsClass of 1984
Toronto, ON
Elizabeth's Story
Life
To those who knew me, it would be no surprise that I am currently involved in visual & performing arts. I have 3 art degrees, BFA, AOCA & Post Grad. I am also privledged to inspire whole new generations of artists in all the different disciplines, as well as enjoying my own creative endeavours in a multitude of venues. Personally I have done just about every art form from all the traditional, to more unusual things like holography, electronics, film video, audio, modern dance, not just drama, but performance art, to my current passion, belly dancing. I also sing & play many instruments. I record my own music & soundtracks for videos, & am now working on learning Arabic & to play the doumbek to aid recording my own vocals & music for bellydancing. I started belly dancing seriously 2 1/2 years ago & now am involved 6 days a week beween teaching,dancing, workshops & rehearsals with Shagara Moon dance company (formerly Troupe Naditu) We have a 2 act belly dance show to be workshopped in the fall. For over 20 years, I have taught adults & children (2-92) classes in various forms of visual arts from painting to pottery or folk art, drama, creative movement, music, videography/claymation, performance art etc., all over the city. I teach often with the name Art-Sea Art as in the Beaches where I live. My videos etc. are produced under my name of Art-Sea Productions. Some in the past have won awards. My big thing is the envirionment & a lot of my work has been promoting envrionmental awareness, especially when it wasn't as far raised in our consciousness. I took a break from doing art shows & promotiong my work to give my all to my family. One of my greatest amibitions & greatest joys in my life is my 3 amazing children. My 15yr old girl won 'Editior's Choice' in an adult poetry competition, & attends Rosedale Heights school for the Arts. She's given up French Immersion to do it, but the creative gene is strong in our family. Even my 7 year old son takes drama, piano, drums, guitar & has some amazing acrylic on canvas paintings. I also have a very talented 12 year old girl who's an excellent artist, drums & also takes drama along with her sister, she has a special gift with animals & people. Each child has their own unique stamp of creative output in all the disciplines they are involved in. They all sing & are muscial of course, so we have a lot of creative fun together. We do have fun, as I vowed as a child to never forget what it's like to be a child -so I will never fully grow up. We all share the same absurd sense of humour, & so does Dad. I met my husband at OCA, & my sister Karenmet hers too. Our husbands were actually friends at OCA before we met them! My husband is also multi-disciplined & has played in several bands including the Matriphiles. He also played live, & as studio musician for Bob Wiseman, as well as do art for him. My husband works in the creative end of IT, also utilizing knowledge from the 'New Media' degree we both received from OCA. We are animal lovers & have 2 cats to play with our rabbit who is like a lap dog & plays like a cat. We've survived our rodent fiasco -when 3 become 43...well Sugar turned out to be sugar daddy, & it turns out hamsters can continue to impregnate themselves at will...So why the mice? Well, Daddy can't resist his little girls, but we're down to 0 hamsters & the last 2 mice just died in May. We also lost 2 budgies to old age but have one young one left, our cocatiel lived to 22. We have lots of fish too. We're close knit & though I only stopped teaching for a couple of years, my kids have literally grown up in my classes & thru creative juggling have only had family & close friends to babysit. until this past year when my son joined the great daycare in his school. He loves it because it's a built in play date evey day, and his 2 best friends are there also. I indulge in social time now that the kids are older & go out every week with a group of friends, 1(Ada) I met in grd 7. We call ourselves the Sushi Girls (sushi is one of our favorite foods) and we are becoming quite famous in many restaurants! I have a lot of friends, though only 2 from High School, and the other I only bumped into less than a year ago, but she has 3 kids around the same age as mine! We met 4 days after Ada & I wee wondering out loud what happened to her. I had no idea she lived so close to me! Ya gotta love synchronicity! It's very strong in my life. Anyhow, all my friends & family get along which is good, because sometimes our house is like Grand Central Station, as the saying goes. I do love porch parties in the summer, & it's not uncommon for many people to stop by & join in. Life is like that in the Beaches. I know so many people from classes I teach, the neighbourhood, and my life in Guiding. I've been a Gril Guide Leader for more than 10 years, Sparks, Browinies and Guides. I love camping, & I got chosen (as did my daughter) to go to Mosaic 2006, an International event (people from over 30 countries were there), & we camped in tents fo...Expand for more
r 10 days. Then last summer I got chosen for Impact 2007, where delegates from all the UN countires came to Toronto & Brampton, & we chosen delegates from Toronto were part of the opening Ceremonies, & we had a Ferry boat cruise & campfire event on Toronto Islands. Did you know Girl Guide leaders sit on the UN council & advise world events?! They meet every few years in a certain UN country. We were lucky to be hosts last summer! It's all very humbling! I'm lucky my life is so enriched, though of course it's not charmed. For example, houses in the Beach fall apart faster, basements like to flood (we're built over underground streams), & tomorrow we're getting an estimimate to dig up our basement & replace sewer pipes, which means my husband can't come up to the cottage with us... but you've got to take the bad with the good. I need some R & R, after the year of more than 10 classes to teach, rehearsals 2 or 3 times a week, & all my kids needs (more time since I'm working more). But one of the best things about living in this area, is being able to walk down to the bottom of my street, which ends at the lake. So when, like tonight, my daughters ask if we can go to the beach at Midnight, I can say "sure", & we can get a French Vanilla Iced Cap at Macs (open 24 hours, and no matter what time you're there, so is at least one other person), & then we can sit by the water, & sure enough, there's going to be someone you know. I wrote a song about living at the beach, & one line says "and when you're walking any neighbourhood side streey, you'll meet and greet and chat and have a good day, we're friendly people and we like it that way, that's life, in the beaches. that's life at the beach, how we love it here..." and ya, you can't help but feel life is good!
I've finally learned how to be a kid, & I like the 'Peter Pan' syndrome. Those who knew me might remember how many pies I had my finger in & how busy & serious I was about all my endeavours. Okay, that hasn't changed, except I know how to let lose, be silly, & have way more fun! It's cool that me teenagers like to hang out with me. Not surprising I guess in the sense that my Mom is one of my best friends, & my sister another (also a Sushi girl). But then only my Mom would say to her Grandaughter "Oh for God sakes T, why can't you be like your mother and pierce your own ears and save yourself some money". Her friends loved that one, and my Mom's come a long way since I gave myself double pierced ears at age 15. I don't know if anyone remembers that I wanted to get my nose pierced back then, but no-one did noses, and the one time someone at the Ex said they would, I doubted the cleanliness... Anyhow, I finally did it. And, ya, I did it myself. Some kids I met in line in Wonderland told me a great method and it worked well. I did in front of my almost 15 year old who had been talking about piercing her own eyebrow and her own belly button. She changed her mind after she saw me do my nose. She'll get her belly done. We were going to do that together over a year ago, but last summer she was going to Mexico, a trip she was chosen for through Girl Guides. I didn't think she could keep up good belly care there. Mine didn't turn out so good. In my vanity, I got a ring so I could hang charms from it for the big dance show I was in 6 days after I got it done. I should have picked the barbell. The cats have enjoyed the ring while I wa sleeping too many times. Then I'd do things like get it caught in the danglies on my purse (at a subway station), and, well, all the weird things happen to me. But it got yanked so many times, it was almost completely out, and the next pull it would be, so I'll have to get it redone in the futre, with a barbell! I considered doing that myself, but the curvy upholstery needle I have, is still not quite the right shape for it. Fortunately my kids don't feel the need to rebel by being crazier than Mom, well, not in a bad way. They have their own methods though. I certainly have a full fledged drama Queen, and another one blossoming! My son's getting there too! Well, he's the class clown. I'm glad though to see their initial shy natures are being worked through. It took me into adulthood to work through my shyness. People now don't believe I could ever have been so shy, but it's the years of teaching, or having my 'teaching persona', that has worked. Here's a tip for anyone with shy kids. Encourage them to develop personas to handle situations in life, of course that can result in multiple personalities... no, not really, but it can make for developing drama Queens (or Kings). Oh well, I'll stop rambling, dawn approaches. Alas, I'm still a night hawk, and never get a lot of sleep. But all will be revealed in my upcoming autobiography I'm working on, well the first one is my life as a belly dancer titled "The Reluctant Diva". I'll probably still be writing it for a year or 2 though! My daughter might have her 5 novels editited before I finishe it, but that's okay! I reiterate, Life is Good!
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