Happy Sleepy is an art and projects collaboration by Canadian artists Marc Ngui and Magda Wojtyra, and Happy Sleepy is the name of the first stuffed toy that Magda made based on a creature Marc drew.
We cope with the intensity of our times by telling stories of the hero’s journey and using beauty to pull deeply into the now. Through our art we homestead the future we want to live in, one where cheerful people make brave decisions and consciousness change is key to personal fulfillment and social harmony.
Marc and Magda chibi heads with Buddhist thangka inspired flowers. Drawings by Marc, colour by Magda.
Dinner in a cold house, Savigny-sous-Faye, France 2008.
We have been together as a couple for 11 years and we delight in combining our huge range of digital and traditional art making skills to produce colourful and thematically flamboyant paintings, textile art, animation, soft sculpture and toys, photos and digital art, installations and video. We also work together on design projects, like websites and exhibitions, for mostly educational clients. Our individual and collaborative work has been exhibited and published in Canada and internationally.
We both studied architecture at the University of Waterloo, were Toronto based for 6 years, then went travelling for 5 years, and now live in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.
Internet on the Beach
Dedicated to DIY and lifelong learning, in 2005 we gave up our possessions and took up a nomadic lifestyle as art project, dubbed Internet on the Beach. We wanted to push the boundaries of freedom through technology, see just how wide the network goes, and to experience the techno-nomad existence. Turns out it’s pretty far! And it also turns out that it’s far cheaper to travel full time than to live in a first world city…
Marc improving the WiFi signal by sitting at the top of the stairs outside the hotel room, Hanoi 2007.
We spent time in Vancouver, Montreal, coffee mountains in Central America, beaches and cities of South East Asia, a year in the French countryside with chickens and side trips to Rome, Berlin and Amsterdam, 4 months in south India, a month oggling thanka paintings in Kathmandu, 5 months in California, and concluded with a giant road trip from Los Angeles to Toronto in the fall of 2010. There are photos from our travels on Flickr. It was inspiring.
The long term travel gave us freedom to explore in depth ideas and models of human consciousness and evolution, as well as ply ourselves with all kinds of delicious and colourful cultural and natural splendour.
About Marc Ngui
Marc in a silk scarf from Hong Kong and a bespoke suit from Kathmandu. Toronto 2009.
Marc Ngui (born Guyana 1972, grew up Windsor, Ontario) believes DIY is the way to go and has been making zines since 1989. He divides his energy equally between his inkwell and his digital drawing tablet.
Recent projects include illustrating an award winning children’s book about public space and urbanism titled Watch This Space (Kids Can Press, 2010); an interpretation of Timothy Leary’s Eight Circuit Model of Human Consciousness as a “totem pole” Flash animation called Totem Pill; and an oversized book-painting called Rotate Thought Objects: I’m Ready for My Chip.
These days Marc is busy cranking out his most recent graphic novel, a magnum opus called Olden County.
To see a truly heroic variety of drawing styles, go check out Marc’s drawings on his website, Bumblenut Pictures.
About Magda Wojtyra
Excellent bed head on a 7 month old haircut. France 2008.
Magda Wojtyra (born Poland 1973, grew up Scarborough) makes art focused on color in a major way and includes handmade soft art, photography, digital art, and painting.
Under the name of RNA Studio Magda designs websites and visual identities for educational, research, and small business clients. Most noteworthy (read: most fun) of these are the zany websites for biochemistry research labs at the University of Toronto.
These days the laptop sits right beside the sewing machine, which makes it very convenient to divide the time between turning out a storm of Happy Sleepies and then putting them into the Etsy shop, or for making digital patterns that then turn into the Polytopia textile art exploration of geometry.
About Happy Sleepies
Happy Sleepies are soft, abstract animal toys sewn from an original pattern by Magda based on Marc’s drawing of topsy-turvy creatures named Jig and Limp that act as a museum giftshop guides in the graphic novel Enter Avariz. They are so named because held one way they look like they have smiling closed eyes, and when turned upside down their eyes look sealed with sleep.
The first Happy Sleepy made in 2005. Well, that's Sleepy on the left and Happy on the right, and really they are one. The pattern has been perfected over the years, and the myth has grown in depth and detail.
Happy Sleepies are enlightened beings because they always remember their freedom to choose how to be. They can zoom around in excited high energy or dream in restful slumber or choose to feel anything in between whenever they want.
In the Land of Happy Sleepy all art tastes delicious, looks fascinating and sounds melodious. All our items are original works of art, and most are unique and one of a kind. And all stitching is straight and neat!
We make things according to rules of luxury and efficiency, shunning waste. For example, the fabrics we use are very high quality, often 100% silk brocade or wool and yet usually come from mill end rolls, or industry cut offs. Our designs are sometimes the result of piecing together scraps from our own work – nothing is wasted and the result is unique. Equally, packaging for shipping is often hand decorated, repurposed material.
Right now the best place to see a bunch of these guys is the Happy Sleepy Art and Toys Shop on Etsy.
Pyramid of Crafty Love: group photo on product photography day. It's great to have these piles of soft happy things around!
