Sell Out is a series by interdisciplinary artist Angela Fama (she/they), who co-creates conversations with individual artists across Vancouver. Questioning ideas of artistry, identity, “day jobs,” and how they intertwine, Fama settles in with each artist (at a local café of their choice) and asks the same series of questions. With one roll of medium format film, Fama captures portraits of the artist, after the verbal conversations have been had.

Meaghan Kennedy (she/her/hers) is a piñata artist and Aquafit instructor. Follow her piñata art at https://yourpinata.com, on Instagram @yourpinata, and on Facebook. Follow her Aquafit instruction on Instagram @meaghansaquafit or on Facebook.

Location: D’oro Gelato & Caffè

What do you make/create?

I make custom order piñatas of people that you love. I don’t make piñatas of people you don’t like. I made a series of Rob Ford – the infamous mayor, with all the nonsense in Toronto. He was infamous, because he was a drug dealer, and also the mayor of Toronto. He was just a horrible guy. He was super conservative, shut down a lot of funding, and closed a lot of businesses. And his brother Doug is now the premier of Ontario, or something, and doing the same thing which is like, awesome. I was commissioned by Global Television Network to make one of him for every network across the country, and I was like, “Oh, fun project!” They wanted to fill it with nuts, because that’s funny, and I was like, “Ok, cool.” While doing it, I just didn’t feel very good. Physically, I got quite sick. I felt very uncomfortable, and I didn’t enjoy anything about the process. I decided after that – I just didn’t know if my values could align, if I’m making like your mom for her 80th, and I’m making Donald Trump, that just doesn’t work for me.

When I originally started, I did make exes and all that stuff, but I also host creativity workshops, which are super fun, where I always say if you want to make your ex-husband, or whatever, come and make him yourself, because I’m not going to do it for you. I’ll provide you with the supplies, and show you how to do it. Way more cathartic. People say: “What if I tell you I like the person, and I don’t like the person?” I’m like, “Well, you have to live with that then.” It’s about intention, right? People ask: “Isn’t it really mean to break a piñata?” I mean, if you’re putting intention into it of “I love this,” or “This is funny,” then no, right? It’s a different vibe altogether.

What do you do to support that?

I have a website, so people reach out – I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and it’s a super specified, particular, weird niche thing to do, so people find me on Google, and then email me pictures of their loved ones, or their company logo or whatever it is, and I make them and send them to them. I also work once a week at a restaurant, and I teach Aquafit. I get funding through things, like Neighbourhood Small Grants, to do fun things with my community. It’s all pretty random.

I like to stay super busy, so that works out well for me. I get to be really active, creative, and financially somewhat secure. It’s so weird though, even after thirteen years of doing it, if I don’t get a commission for awhile, I’m like, “Oh my god, I am a failure! What have I done? Why did I make this decision?!” And then, if I’m real busy, I’m like, “Holy smokes! I’m really busy!” It’s all just ridiculous. It’s good. I feel very lucky.

I’m working on four commissions right now, and they’re all so different, so it’s been super fun. I’m trying to figure out how to make a collapsible piñata for a client who’s doing a lot of conferences. Then I’m making another one: this guy emailed me a picture of Thor – the Norseman, not the Marvel character, he’s very specific – and he wants his face on Thor’s body, which is awesome. And I’m making this woman in Minneapolis – she’s turning 50, and she’s throwing herself this big party. She’s in a wheelchair, and she wants the wheelchair as part of the piñata, and she’s super pretty, wearing this beautiful dress, and she’s feeling really empowered. That’s going to be a super fun one to do.

Aquafit has totally changed my life. Being an artist, I sit all day, and as I was nearing 40, a friend of mine really encouraged me to start doing something physical. He’s a big gym guy, so I was like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’m not gonna come do CrossFit. I’ll break a nail! None of this works for me.” With some encouragement, we went to an Aquafit class at the aquatic centre, and I was like, “Oh my god, what is this?” I just loved it. I wore a bikini to my first class, which was really dumb, because you spend the whole time trying to make sure it stays on. It was so much fun, and when I get really into something, I get really into it. I’m not a casual “liker” of things, whether it’s boyfriends, hobbies, or whatever, I’m in. So, six months later, I decided to start teaching it. I took all the courses, and now I teach like 15 classes a week, I’m all over the city. It’s so much fun. It doesn’t pay great in money, but watching a 91-year-old’s posture change – and her confidence and golf swing gets so powerful she now has to use a heavier golf club – is so amazing. Being a part of that. She’s doing the work, but providing somewhere that feels safe, and good, to do jumping jacks for an hour is so awesome.

Describe something about how your art practice and your “day job” interact.

We’re coming up to my favorite time of year, Halloween, so that’s really fun. The restaurant I work at has piñatas all over the ceiling. I just took over. It looked boring without them, and it’s so fun. I feel like with the creativity and piñata workshops that I host, they’re so uniquely fun, because even if you don’t like what you make, you just get to break it, so it’s fine. I feel like as grown-ups, we’re so judgmental of ourselves, so it’s this opportunity to comfortably make something and get the catharsis of being creative, but not have to worry about it at all.

Aquafit, to me, translates to a physical version of piñata making. You can do all the stuff in water you can’t do on land. No one can see your feet, so it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. I’ve got varsity students and 98-year-olds in the same class, and they’re both getting a wicked work-out. The community that it creates: you’re not thinking about your arthritis, or your break-up, or your bank account when you’re rocking out to Britney Spears in the pool, or trying to make a balloon look like Marge Simpson, or your mom, or whatever. And I kind of love that, that’s how they go together.

For Halloween, I go balls to the walls. I make tons of costumes for it, and I teach all week in costume. I’m really excited. I make matching costumes for Ice-Cream (Meaghan’s dog) as well. I was the Mandalorian last year, and she was Grogu, which was really cute. We were firefighters last year, and a couple other Star Wars characters. This year, I’m going to be the barge. I am obsessed with the barge. Ice Cream’s going to be the barge too, or she might be the “Bard Chilling Beach” sign. For Aquafit, I am going to be an air traffic controller, because I think that will work really well – not a flight attendant. I also really want to be Rick James, because I think Rick James is the coolest person, and it will be a fun costume. I wear the costumes to the pools all over the city, and I encourage people to wear costumes as well, and then I give them prizes. They’re good prizes too. Like stickers of my pool! Or piñatas! That’s another fun way that the jobs kind of come together.

When we went into lockdown, I had just moved into this apartment, nothing had a place yet, and I wanted to do an online something. I didn’t know what that was going to be. Online fitness is really intimidating for a lot of people. It’s like really flexible 20-year-olds, no shade to them, they’re amazing, but, if you’re someone used to doing Aquafit…For me, the biggest deals are inclusivity and community. I wanted to make a really inclusive work-out, but also make it me, so I was like, “I’ll just papier mâché a pool in my house.” I told my landlord I was building a pool in my house, and he was like, “What? In the bathtub?” I’m like, “Oh my god, no, please don’t think….” I am so glad that I told him, because it got me thinking. I hope people don’t build pools in their bathtubs, because that would be really dangerous.

I’ve put up hundreds of the Aquafit videos online. It’s a free platform. I had two women during COVID who were going through cancer treatment and doing my class every day. When I did things like “Soap Opera Sunday,” or “Outer Space,” one of them dressed up as a full alien, she glued eyeballs and hands to her head. For Soap Opera Sunday, she gave birth during a class to a sea lion. She got so into it. She dressed in a full-on otter costume. She’s so much fun, and also going through all this cancer treatment. It felt so good for me to provide her with this half an hour of joy, because if you’re going to take care of someone else, you have to take care of yourself too. She was going through a lot, but it was so much fun that she took hours of her day to make a Dr. Crusher costume. And I ran into the other woman a couple weeks ago — she’s like a really fancy lady-around-town, a West End staple. I saw her at The Sylvia and asked what she’s doing to stay fit, is she back at the pool, and she said she puts her bathing suit on and does my class online every day, and I was like, “Oh my god, I live.” There’s like 400 of them on Facebook to choose from, and they’re all similar but different.

What’s a challenge you’re facing, or have faced, in relation to this and/or what’s a benefit?

Aquafit is early in the morning a lot of the time, but I’m more creative and functional in the morning, so sometimes it would be a challenge to come home after doing three or four classes, walk the dog, and then sit down to give myself time for being creative. That can be a challenge. A great thing about the two of them is that there’s a lot of cross-over. A lot of Aquafitters have come to piñata workshops, or commissioned piñatas from me. I work at really beautiful fancy clubs, and people’s homes, and I’m getting to know their kids, and they’re like, “Our kids are having a party, or a wedding, or whatever, can we get this from you?” It’s nice, because then they get to see a different part of me, which is kinda cool, and I get to know them a little bit differently as well, meeting people’s families, or having the pleasure of piñata-ing their husband or whatever. I did one of someone’s husband recently – she’s an Aquafit student, and I asked what clothes she wanted him to wear, and she was like, “Oh! He’s the only husband I’ve ever had who I don’t have to shop for!” And I was like, “I have so many questions. How many husbands have you had? Tell me everything!” I did ask her, maybe she’ll see this and tell me. I’m thinking, at least, it’s a minimum of three, right?

Have you made, or created, anything that was inspired by something from your day job? Please describe. (I know you don’t like the word inspiration.)

About a third of my apartment was inspired by something from my day job! When I built a pool (a water-less pool, paper all over my floors, and walls) in my house, I wanted to give it my own touch. I started off with a wetland vibe. There were fish, and turtles, and then it morphed, because I wanted colour in it, so I took the whole thing down and put a coral reef in. I had a gigantic tentacle that came down from the ceiling, with jellyfish and stuff. That was really fun. There was a river/stream/waterfall vibe. I had salmon, birds, and cherry blossoms. I liked that one. The most fun was when I made dumbbells. I painted them black and wrote 100lbs on each and was like “Oh, I am so strong!” That was awesome.

I love making costumes. I love making piñatas. I also really believe you get what you are giving. If I don’t have commissions, and I don’t do anything about it, I don’t get any work. But if I start making something, suddenly the phone is ringing, and I’m getting texts, and emails, and I am like, “Oh shit, amazing.”

We had a friend’s dog staying with us last week, and I had to piñata him, because he was really cute. It took like an hour, but it was just really cute to do it, and it made them so happy when they got home.

Angela Fama (she/they) is an artist, Death Conversation Game entrepreneur, photographer, musician, previous small-business server of many years (The Templeton, Slickity Jim’s etc.). They are a mixed European 2nd-generation settler currently working on the unceded traditional territory of the Coast Salish xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations.

Follow them at IG @angelafama IG @deathconversationgame or on their website www.angelafama.com

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Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Meaghan Kennedy