there (and back again)

Change you can believe in

2009-10-23T11:30:00.001-07:00

Moai

2009-10-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

Moai, the giant Easter Island statues built by the society that collapsed there, are shaping up to perhaps become a potential theme in my art. They are a re-occurring symbol in the Leadership Calgary course I am taking (something for a future blog) of the blinding power of short-term economic & political gain and they threaten to crush long-term survivability.

I've always wanted to go to Easter Island and ride horse back. I may have had a dream like that once.

Important knowledge

2009-09-01T13:27:00.001-07:00

Dilophosaurs part deux (still in progress)

2009-08-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

Dilophosaurs (in progress)

2009-08-11T19:10:00.001-07:00

ABSTRACTED SCIENTIFIC EXPRESSIONIST DINOSAURS

2009-08-07T12:41:00.001-07:00

Does this adequately describe my art?

Papo dino

2009-08-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

I last bought a dinosaur model in 2007 at the Tyrrell: the very awesome Spinosaurus

I found some more recently on our drive back through Canmore during our recent vacay in Fairmont, BC. One was from the Schleich line, a line that I've become familar with for their animal models that CRB loves. Their dinos are alright, and I purchased their Saichania. However, I'm finding the Papo line even better. Along with Saichania I got Triceratops & Stegosaurus. I thought the latter two were Schleich but upon closer examination I discovered they were Papo, like Spinosaurus. Would love to get a Velociraptor & Tyrannosaurus. Maybe even Parasaurolophus.
;-)

Remember, these are for business purposes.

New Tric

2009-06-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

Training ...

Bloggery

2009-03-20T10:56:00.001-07:00

I should blog more.

Cam-stract Art

2009-02-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

My first(?) intentional abstract (on canvas.) Most of my work starts fairly abstract, then I attempt to arrest control and impose a concept on a work. I've decided to let it go for now and not imprint a personal archetype (i.e. dinosaur) onto the work. It doesn't mean that I'm going to stop that altogether - both means have a value - but it's a good exercise to let things be sometimes. Or perhaps a divergence is emerging in my work as I've been experimenting with dinos on wood lately. Either way I'm learning about how I work. The abstract was done in the evening & I'm not one for working in the evening, I'm much more of a morning person. When I was in university I was never one of those students who burned the midnight oil in the studios at night, I preferred to get in early in the morning before classes to start working.

At the time I was working on the abstract I figured that I'm better for works that require more concentration (accuracy in drawing, composition) in the morning. The abstract doesn't require concentration in the same way, in fact it's more of an exercise in observation: seeing how the paint moves and mixes and making slight adjustments. So it's an exercise that I can do at night, an exciting development because it expands the scope of hours I can operate artistically.

Beyond Minimalism

2009-01-23T11:11:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I took part in a show: 5th Annual Winter Art Stroll, in conjunction with the Triangle Gallery. The title of the show was Beyond Minimalism and was an extension of the Triangle's Neo-Minimalism exhibition exploring new Canadian minimalist art. I submitted Pachyrhinosaurus:

"The image of the ceratopsian dinosaur Pachyrhinosaurus emerges from the stains and washes on raw canvas. The liquid residue evokes one of the many flash floods that struck the lands in Late Cretaceous Alberta 70 million years ago. These watery calamities preserved the remains of many ceratopsian dinosaurs, providing the fossils of bones which paleontologists – and artists – use to piece together the appearance and deduct the behaviors of these extinct animals. Through these minimal remains an ancient world returns to life in our imaginations. The washes and stains also denote a beginning for the artist: the first stirring of creativity as the liquid and color coalesce and life within the painting bursts forth in the form of a Pachyrhinosaurus, echoing down the years to the earliest creative expression of the artist. "

I also included Stegosaurus, it's a work that fit the theme of the show.

Holidays & unpacking

2009-01-05T11:52:00.000-08:00

Must say we had a very nice holiday season. Ample time well spent with family: food ... playing with kids ... food. Really felt wholesome to be part of a family. Why don't we have more holidays like this? People would be a lot better off for it. Particularly in N. America ...

Been on kind of an art-making hiatus these last few weeks. With time spent on working, holiday events, art exhibition (during a snow storm and nasty cold snap) and gallery-sitting the time for making art has dwindled. It didn't bother me too much until the end of holidays - sometimes I need that 'fallow field' period in my creative life - but I'm feeling the creative needs again and since it's been awhile since I've engaged that part of my brain it's hard to start-up again & jump into new (and finish old) projects ... so I'm starting to get antsy. Will have to work on time management and get rolling again. I'm also musing on taking different directions, will need to think about that as well.

No Line On The Horizon

2008-12-18T13:57:00.000-08:00

No Line On The Horizon, March 2/3 2009

I've been thinking that I want to be surprised by this album ... I don't want to listen to any leaks/promos, etc. I don't even want to hear the first single (if that's at all possible) and just listen to the album in it's entirety when it drops. Wishful thinking? Maybe. It may help that I'll be away from computers for a good chunk of February.

Be There

2008-11-21T13:48:00.001-08:00

Here I Am

2008-11-21T12:50:00.001-08:00

Here I am at Burst and Bloom Gallery. I guess I never really told the story of how I end up here.

I was looking in the weekly FFWD newspaper and I did something I rarely do: I read the classified. I suppose that I've been musing about a 'career' change recently but that has to do with my day job. Anywise, doing something I normally do not I came across an ad for Burst & Bloom @ Art Central. They were looking for another director for the gallery. I decided to inquire about it and what that meant was another partner for the gallery, which meant an opportunity to display my art. I was aware of the gallery previously with Tamar, whom I went to school with, who was displaying there. I decided to jump in: it was a great opportunity to have some work displayed (which I had not done in nearly a year) in the downtown core. Yes there is some financial risk (as a Taurean will remind me) - but opportunity as well. Meetings with the other artists have yielded the the desire to seek a larger gallery space in the future and branch out to en devours outside the normal gallery setting - be more than just a place that sells images and reach out to the community and make connections with artists & galleries outside of Calgary.

My first painting goes up on a wall in December ... now it's deciding what to put up! (I foolishly tried to create something new for the occasion, in other words tried to force/rush a work. Not the best idea ... I just hope I can recover for a future exhibition.)

Birthday

2008-10-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

I had a really good birthday this year.

Their was nothing extravagant about it - was fairly low key. It wasn't a major milestone birthday. I did receive some very nice, thoughtful gifts: a stylish new winter jacket, a Buddha Board, delicious Rain Coast crackers & brie cheese and CDs. A very nice lunch with Michelle @ Mango Shiva.

The weather was very pleasant on my birthday too - something that is rarely the case this time of year.

I also made a major step forward in my art career, made (more or less) official on my birthday. It's been a year of real lows and great difficulty for family - but now things are starting to feel like they are turning around and heading in a more positive direction - like I'm finding more purpose in my life again.

What really made the birthday was family & friends. Very heartfelt (and wordy!) cards, greetings & time spent together that really made me feel loved and appreciated. I am very fortunate & I need to take the time to remember that more often.

Revealed: The leftist plot to control the White House(!)

2008-10-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Ed Pilkington in New York
The Guardian,
Friday October 24 2008

Amid the many conspiracy theories swirling around the US presidential race - Barack Hussein Obama's Islamist takeover, say, or John "Bush" McCain's plans to steal the election - a truly sinister confluence of events has largely gone unnoticed.

Some see the devil's hand at play in an election that, whatever the outcome, will see America make a a fundamental shift, not from right to left, but from right-handed to left-handed.

Both Obama and McCain are sinistral - lefties to you and me - in contrast to the present incumbent of the Oval office. One of them will be the fourth left-handed president out of the five past holders of the world's most powerful office, a fact that has intrigued neurologists and confounded probability theorists.

Obama or McCain will become the 44th US president, and within that distinguished company will be the eighth known to be left-handed. The victor will become the sixth lefty out of 12 presidents since the end of the second world war, stretching back to Harry Truman.

The other postwar lefties-in-chief are Gerald Ford, the ambidextrous Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr and Bill Clinton. Since 1974 the only right-handed presidents have been Jimmy Carter and the outgoing Bush.

Roughly one in 10 of the population is left-handed, so to have four out of five recent incumbents in the top job drawn from that group is striking: the probability is 0.00009. [more]

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I didn't know either of them were left-handers ... interesting.

Teasers

2008-10-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know who made these ...

2008-10-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

... but I'd like to see them on a t-shirt.

The Beard Blog

2008-09-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

I've been growing a beard lately.

I can't say why exactly ... it started at the time wife shaved her head. It's an effort to change my look a little bit too ... I suppose a way to disguise oneself ... at least until it becomes the norm. In some ways it's an assertion of masculinity brought on in some small way by that event. It's something that I've been thinking of doing for awhile anywise. I've never done the beard and the long hair combo before ... could make for a good Halloween costume this year.

I'm hoping it may have a therapeutic function, after all it will be the shedding of the beard that will important as well. It's been a tough year: too much time in hospitals, cancer, heart attacks & death. Too much work. Not enough art. Politics. As I go into the final quarter of this year I look forward to collecting the experiences of this past year, good or ill, and gleaning whatever wisdom I can from them and discard the negatives. The beard charts my aging, something I've developed mixed feelings about. In some ways I embrace it: the wisdom it can bring. But I'm not sure if I'm aging well ... there is a difference between aging and growing old. I'm aiming for the former. Some people shave beards in times of mourning ... I'm hoping for the opposite: to shave for a new beginning. I hate to use the term 'born again' ... rather it's more of a detox or polish. I don't want to be born again ... I've already been born & I don't think I could stand the diapers at my age.

Now, what about Halloween?

The 11th Hour

2008-09-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

Finally saw this film this week. Thought it was quite good - not necessarily the most flashy and entertaining film on the subject, but rather packed with lots of experts and information. I liked it for that: it was more like a text book on the subject in which you can go back again & again for research (like The Corporation.) There was lots of quips and quotes I can draw from the film but perhaps the most memorable included those on the legal definition of nature: it is not 'person' in the eyes of the law and therefore has not 'rights', but is rather seen as property. Now it's a tricky area to get into assigning nature legal rights - but perhaps the time has come ensue some legal means to protecting the environment. Not sure how that would happen - I'm no legal expert - but when you look at the great social movements of the past, in particular the abolition of slavery and the woman's suffrage movement the major breakthroughs occurred when people (ie. women and slaves) were no longer seen as property under the law but as persons. Nature is currently de-personified and is abused as property. Like the legal definitions that created and empowered the corporation in our world (with help from government) perhaps nature should be recognized in a different legal light - other than property.

David Suzuki had some interesting quotes in this film, in particular to the case of the economy being a sub-system of ecology. It seems whenever environmental protection action is proposed opponents cite the economy as the most important thing in the world and that it will suffer. In the film it was figured out how much the dollar worth of the services nature does for humanity in cleaning the air, soil fertility, water management, etc. The dollar figure was 35 trillion dollars for services rendered per year. The total worth of the global economy in one year is about 16 trillion dollars. That puts things in perspective.

In all the first 3/4 of the film is pretty depressing - environmental doom & gloom but the end does go into solutions and showcases the intellect & technology that can make a huge difference if humanity chooses to act soon. Once again it seems that it is our governments, acting at the behest of corporations, that are stalling and standing in the way of progress.

It's an idea

2008-09-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

Contemporain

2008-07-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of seeing the La Triannale quebecois when I was in Montreal in June. It was exciting to experience a large contempory art museum that not only gets national artists but great international shows (I recall there was a Kiefer show there last year.) La Triannale was very good to see, a great cross-section of art from installations, paintings, sculpture and photography. I couldn't take any pictures inside so I've more pictures of the outside.

One of the hilights was a video display by Gary Hill . It was pretty neat: two 'portrait' of a woman where while one was looking out at the viewer the other would look at the other portrait ... and then switch.

It was also a thrill to see one of favourite artists: David Altmajed. He was Canada's representative at the 2007 Venice Biannale They had some of his giant mythological sculptures on display - the scale and complexity of his work was quite amazing.

Rise of the Spinosaur (and other occurances)

2008-05-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

Back in March of this year I started working three days a week at the office job in order to devote more time to my art practice at my home studio. After some eventful months I'm starting to get back into creating more art. I've a large work occupying my living room right now: Spinosaurus!

Right now I'm trying to compose the octagons and I've been playing with many different arrangements. I'm leaning more to off-centring the cluster now --- once I figure out that I think this one will be complete.

(There is a bit inspiration from my wife Michelle and I's honeymoon --- in particular a passanger we picked up in Tunisia.)
Another work that I've started is Stegosaurus. It's on a little more sane scale, but I think the composition I've envisioned for it works for that and shape of the canvas. I'm experimenting with kind of reversing my usual process so I'm curious to see where it ends up.

Greener Pasture

2008-02-21T19:37:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of reading into the environment and sustainable technologies of late, it's really becoming quite the habit of late. I go through periods of intense interest in certain things, some come and go and some really seem to stick around. This seems to be one of the latter. I'm really thinking more and of environmental design as a potential future study. I haven't given up on art, but rather it would be interesting to see how ED it could feed into that. I'm in no shape an engineer or an architect ... but maybe there is a way I could contribute to the field.

I'm reading Geography of Hope by Chris Turner. It's an encouraging read. Rather than hearing about all the approaching environmental Death Star scenario (planet destroying ... like Alderaan - nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!) the book is a guided tour though places in the world where people are coming to together to implement change in how we live, build and consume/generate energy. Through this I've discovered Earthships.

From this, and watching Who Killed the Electric Car (plus a recent doc on TV about the evils of the plastic bag) it becomes evident that there are plenty of people and ideas on how to change how we live on this planet. Certainly no shortage of ideas. Technology too - the technology largely exists now for our species to turn the corner on climate change and environment deterioration. It's really a question of will, particularly political will. When our own government can't be bothered to stand up for Canada and step across the hall to raise a glass of punch to the Canadian scientists who won the Nobel Prize for work on climate change it's troubling.

Sometimes I want to move to Denmark ... or France ... or Norway ... or Germany ... or Iceland ... or Spain ... or de Netherlands.

Keeping Quiet

2007-11-11T14:19:00.001-08:00

"Keeping Quiet"
by Pablo Neruda

And now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still

For once on the face of the earth
Let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas,
wars with fire,
victory with no survivors, would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
(Life is what it is about,
I want no truck with death.)

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve,
and you keep quiet and I will go.

The Edge of a new sound

2007-10-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

“I can’t wait for this record to come out. I think we’re on the edge of a new sound.” ~ Daniel Lanois

"I think we're about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world. I just bought this record the other day, I don't even know the name of the artist, because I can't read Arabic. I heard it in a newsagent around the corner and thought, wow, this is the most sophisticated production. It's completely commercial, totally Arabic and totally viable for this world, just like the blues completely suffused the music of the early 1960s, woke it up and got it out of Cliff Richard and all this sort of thing and made it kind of dirtier and rougher and more lively and sexy. I think Arabic music is a similar prospect." He grins again. "I'd love it if American kids were listening to Muslim music. Wouldn't that piss their parents off?" ~ Brian Eno

Ceratopsian Symposium 2007 [parting shot]

2007-09-28T06:01:00.001-07:00

A herd of ceratophiles (Where's Waldo?)

Ceratopsian Symposium 2007 [outtake]

2007-09-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

Silly Spinosaur...what were you doing at a Ceratopsian Symposium?

Ceratopsian Symposium 2007

2007-09-24T11:55:00.001-07:00

I had a wonderful opportunity this past weekend as I was invited to attend the Ceratopsian Symposium at the Royal Tyrrell Museum and exhibit some of my paintings.

Michelle & I loaded up the rented van on Friday and set out to Drumheller. We set up the paintings in the Specimen Room, the Poster Room & hallway of the Learning Centre (which were just open for symposium attendees.) That night the museum hosted a icebreaker where there was some social mingling and 'backstage' tour of the technician labs where the fossils are prepared and studied after being brought in from the field. I've always wanted to go back there!

Saturday & Sunday hosted presentations throughout the day, in between which people could view the Specimen Room (and some of my artwork.) I had a lot of very positive feedback about my work. Many comments about them being beautiful, creative---yet staying true to scientific inquiry. A lot of business cards were taken so it was very successful from a networking point of view. It was interesting to meet palaeontologists and other dino-enthusiasts and receive their impressions and make contacts.

I have to thank Dr. Brinkman who invited me to join this symposium and Tyrrell staff who were very helpful.

I also have to thank my beautiful wife Michelle for doing so much to help me prepare for this show, load the paintings, drive out to Drumheller, set up the show and then do it all over again at the end of the weekend (plus watch me go all dino-nerd.)

Das BOOM

2007-09-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

Baghdad Burns, Calgary Booms
By Naomi Klein - May 31st, 2007

The invasion of Iraq has set off what could be the largest oil boom in history. All the signs are there: multinationals free to gobble up national firms at will, ship unlimited profits home, enjoy leisurely "tax holidays" and pay a laughable 1 percent in royalties to the government.

This isn't the boom in Iraq sparked by the proposed new oil law—that will come later. This boom is already in full swing, and it is happening about as far away from the carnage in Baghdad as you can get, in the wilds of northern Alberta. For four years now, Alberta and Iraq have been connected to each other through a kind of invisible seesaw: As Baghdad burns, destabilizing the entire region and sending oil prices soaring, Calgary booms. [more]

How Canada Went from 21st to 2nd in World's Oil Reserves
By Dan Woynillowicz, World Watch. Posted September 17, 2007.

In 2002 the Canadian government ratified the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, legally committing to a target of reducing the country's greenhouse gas pollution by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. But the rapid growth of tar sands development and oil industry lobbying have undermined efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution for over a decade.

Since 1990, Canada's total emissions have risen 25.3 percent, a pace far exceeding the 16.3 percent increase in the United States, the second-fastest-rising nation, according to United Nations data. Regulations introduced in early 2007 are so fraught with loopholes and gaps that greenhouse gas pollution from tar sands is predicted to triple by 2020. Canada's greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are projected to be 2 percent above 1990 levels. The environmental consequences of tar sands development hardly stop with climate change. Nowhere in the world is there a form of oil extraction and processing with more intense impacts on forests and wildlife, freshwater resources and air quality. [more]

Steve is sad :(

2007-08-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

"I've heard it's nothing...a couple hundred? It's sad." ~ Stephen Harper, regarding protests at the Security & Prosperity Partnership (SPP) meeting with George Bush & Felipe Calderon.

Protest numbers are always tricky to pin down --numbers expressed have been 150 'protesters'...plus 2,000 'demonstrators'.

Wanna know what else is sad? Being PM of a minority government for over a year with the polls showing little hope of forming a majority any time soon.

Read about SPP from:

Canada's 'New' Government (Still has that 'New' government smell.)

and/or

The Council of Canadians

21st Century Leviathan

2007-08-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

By Susan Casey, Photographs by Gregg SegalFeb 20, 2007 - 12:03:05 PM

Fate can take strange forms, and so perhaps it does not seem unusual that Captain Charles Moore found his life’s purpose in a nightmare. Unfortunately, he was awake at the time, and 800 miles north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

It happened on August 3, 1997, a lovely day, at least in the beginning: Sunny. Little wind. Water the color of sapphires. Moore and the crew of Alguita, his 50-foot aluminum-hulled catamaran, sliced through the sea.

Returning to Southern California from Hawaii after a sailing race, Moore had altered Alguita’s course, veering slightly north. He had the time and the curiosity to try a new route, one that would lead the vessel through the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. This was an odd stretch of ocean, a place most boats purposely avoided. For one thing, it was becalmed. “The doldrums,” sailors called it, and they steered clear. So did the ocean’s top predators: the tuna, sharks, and other large fish that required livelier waters, flush with prey. The gyre was more like a desert—a slow, deep, clockwise-swirling vortex of air and water caused by a mountain of high-pressure air that lingered above it.

The area’s reputation didn’t deter Moore. He had grown up in Long Beach, 40 miles south of L.A., with the Pacific literally in his front yard, and he possessed an impressive aquatic résumé: deckhand, able seaman, sailor, scuba diver, surfer, and finally captain. Moore had spent countless hours in the ocean, fascinated by its vast trove of secrets and terrors. He’d seen a lot of things out there, things that were glorious and grand; things that were ferocious and humbling. But he had never seen anything nearly as chilling as what lay ahead of him in the gyre.

It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. Out here in this desolate place, the water was a stew of plastic crap. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill.

How did all the plastic end up here? How did this trash tsunami begin? What did it mean? If the questions seemed overwhelming, Moore would soon learn that the answers were even more so, and that his discovery had dire implications for human—and planetary—health. As Alguita glided through the area that scientists now refer to as the “Eastern Garbage Patch,” Moore realized that the trail of plastic went on for hundreds of miles. Depressed and stunned, he sailed for a week through bobbing, toxic debris trapped in a purgatory of circling currents. To his horror, he had stumbled across the 21st-century Leviathan. It had no head, no tail. Just an endless body. [more]

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This has to be one of the most startling articles I've come across lately. The subject matter is akin to what I was orignally considering for my thesis project last year about the prevelance of chemicals in the world, from the liquids we drink, foods we eat, materials we use to build & live with everyday. I never quite figured out how to express it, I couldn't really develop a visual theme for the subject matter. I kind of touched on environmental issues (degradation, extinction) in my eventual thesis, but this article really illustrates a concern of mine.

Call me crazy

2007-08-01T18:37:00.000-07:00

Left-handedness gene linked to mental illness, suggests study

The gene that likely makes people left-handed may slightly raise the risk of developing psychotic mental illnesses, according to an international study.

Nothing that I haven't heard before, but it makes me think of this paper I wrote years ago about left-handed-ism. I'll have to try & find it & post it.

Bust a Cap

2007-07-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

Cap on wind power riles critics
Alberta limiting production of green energy
Jason Fekete, Calgary Herald, Published: Monday, July 30, 2007

The Stelmach government foresees nearly doubling the amount of wind-power generation allowed in Alberta, even as the province remains the only jurisdiction in Canada to cap the production of wind energy.
"There is every possibility that (the cap) could move to, in the interim, someplace around 1,500 megawatts," said Energy Minister Mel Knight. "As we move along and Alberta's system becomes more robust, and we're able to integrate more wind, I can see it moving beyond that."
The wind power industry is demanding the province go further than raising the amount of production permitted and remove the cap outright. [more]

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Aside from the bizarre assertion at the end of the article (with no explanation) that nuclear energy is somehow 'greener' than wind (alas, it is the Calgary Herald after all) it brings to light a simple: whaaaa? How is it possible that we're restricting the development of renewable energy in this province (rhetorical question: I know exactly why) whilst there is seemingly no (little) restriction on oilsand development.

It may simply come down to energy centralization. The energy companies want society to rely on big, centralized energy sources that take great amounts of capital to create & maintain (nuclear, oil/gas) rather than sources of energy that, conceivably, individuals or communities could establish themselves (solar, wind.)

Awesomesaurus

2007-07-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Michelle suprised me (well, as well she can suprise me ;) with tickets to see Walking With Dinosaurs: The Live Experience this past Friday in Edmonton. It was pretty awesome. It was amazing how they got the dinosaurs move in such a seemingly naturalistic way: the way their head bobbed, tails moved, the leg locomotion, eyes blinking, skin texture & snotty noses. Of course as an adult I could make out how it all working but when I just looked up and gave into the moment it all seemed like a day-dream. I was really reminded of why I did my thesis project last year.

Greencity

2007-07-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

Do You Live in One of the World's 15 Greenest Cities?

And the winner is....

1. Rekyjavik, Iceland
Remember the grade-school memory device "Greenland is icy and Iceland is green"? It's truer than ever thanks to progress made by Iceland and its capital city in recent years. Reykjavik has been putting hydrogen buses on its streets, and, like the rest of the country, its heat and electricity come entirely from renewable geothermal and hydropower sources and it's determined to become fossil-fuel-free by 2050. The mayor has pledged to make Reykjavik the cleanest city in Europe. Take that, Greenland.

One reason I've always been very curious about visiting Iceland...

There are cities promoting 'car free' days...could anyone imagine Cowtown doing that? People would have fits...not to mention our 'mass transit' would completely self destruct. It's funny...I've been getting more & more interested in urban planning. It's probably a field that is way over my little BFA head but I seem to think it is a way to make a difference in the world & influence how people impact the environment & each other. Honestly, most Canadian cities need it (although one made the list above & another got a honorable mention.)

Potties for Potter?

2007-07-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

I noticed recently that there are a row of port-o-potties in the parking lot of the shopping sqaure near our house. They're close to the Chapters book store in fact. I've two theories about this:

a) There is going to be a Stampede breakfast in the parking lot.

b) Or...the bookstore is prepared for a line-up of people waiting to buy the new Harry Potter book.

Important Lesson

2007-07-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

My beautiful, smart wife taught me a lesson last weekend.

As I was going about trying to create some art I was taking taking pieces of artwork that I'd started and trying to embelish them with new details. These were pieces that I really should have left alone--they were probably at a state of resolution. So I think I may have ruined some pieces (maybe ruined is too harsh--I didn't necessarily improve them.) I felt uncomfortable with the work I was doing and Michelle told me exactly what the problem was: I need to have sizable, blank canvas ready to go if I feel the itch to work so I can roll over to new works, a 'blank slate', rather than trying to get additional ideas onto previous works.

Hoping to get out tommorrow to get some new stretching bars to have some fresh canvas ready to go.

Neither man nor beast

2007-06-30T17:09:00.001-07:00

And this is pretty funny...

Works in progress

2007-06-30T16:29:00.001-07:00

After months away art production I'm slowly getting back into the habit. I've some small works I'm finding my way through at the moment. I generally don't do well with small works, I seem more at ease with a larger working area but I can occassionally produce something on a small scale. I've been learning not to overwhelm an area with too many ideas at once--larger works kind of give me the space to move & work out more ideas. Working in series helps too to spread ideas out over serveral works. If I've learned anything about art the key is knowing when to stop. It's lesson I've had to learn because I had a habit of working thing until they were overworked. It's something I still have to keep in mind. It's something especially important considering the kind of material I've been working with: delicate handmade paper (from Nepal.) I find the paper a bit of an interesting contrast with the subject matter in one of the works: the ceratopsian Styracosaurus. With a large spikey frill it seems hardly delicate. However, I've illustrated it from behind the frill to show a more delicate side of the dinosaur (neck.) I've also include flower imagery in the work. Flowers have a delicacy to them & flowering plants first made their appearance towards the end of the Cretaceous Period, the same time as the Styracosaurus. Not sure if this one is done: I think it's close. It's getting to the point now that I'm worried if I do any more it may be ruined. Or maybe it is already. Will have to spend time staring at it.

A part of me does worry about how far I can push the dinosaur thing. I think it's an interesting subject matter & I think I've plenty more ideas in mind to try. Just as long as it retains that freshness, that they don't start looking too contrived. I've been away from large scale works for almost a year so I'm looking forward to getting back into that and seeing what happens.

Klimterobics

2007-06-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

Been reading a book on & getting more into the work of Gustav Klimt. One passage in the book that really stuck with me was a description of his daily routine when he was spending time outside of Vienna in the country:

-early rising

-painting

-breakfast

-swimming

-painting

-lunch

-nap

-swimming or rowing

-tea

-painting

Quite the daily schedule. I had a somewhat similar routine in university (though not as rigorous) wherein I liked to be in the studio early before anyone else & start some work, then stop for lecture, more painting, swim, lunch then more painting (or classes.) I've always been one to stress physical well being in regards to art: when I'm healthy I've more stamina and energy for long periods of creativity. I find this to be a more balanced, healthy and in the long run, more productive means of art creation, rather than leaning on chemical inspiration. I think Matthew Barney also has that peak physical process in his work, the aesthetics of athleticism, although I've yet to apply my physical body to art creation the way he does.

Blessed Unrest

2007-06-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

"I estimate today that there are between one and two million organizations in the world that are addressing social justice and the environment, human rights and ecological restoration. It's not only the largest movement in the world, it is so large compared to any other thing that exists or has existed, that there is really no second place. And I think the reason we don't see it as a movement is because it is so different from anything we've seen before. We see movements as ideological, as starting in some center and spreading out from that place, as having leaders that we look to for inspiration, and who then manage and guide."
Read...

The Tower

2007-01-23T11:44:00.000-08:00

This past Thursday (Jan.18) I was in an art show at the Calgary Tower as a part of The Emerging Canadian Artist Profiling Initiative (ECAP). It was in celebration of their fifth anniversary and the start of an effort to expand the program to other venues in the city. It was a really wonderful event they hosted. I haven't been up to the Calgary Tower in years so it was a real treat for Michelle & I to go up there, look at art, get served wine & great food! (Unfortunately, we didn't bring a camera to record the event)

It was really nice to get back into the art scene, something I haven't felt a part of for a long time. Now I've some pieces hanging in the Tower restaurant (albeit older ones), but any public exposure is a good thing, especially in a high profile landmark like that.

Looking Back at History, from 2026

2006-12-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

A view of our recent past from the distant future -- from the death of the Republican party to the Latin Americna renaissance.

This article posits what our history looks like, looking back from the imaginary year 2026.

The other day, I borrowed some kids to go gawk with me at the one thing that we can always count on in an ever-more unstable world: age-of-dinosaur dioramas in science museums. This one had the usual dramatic clash between a tyrannosaurus and a triceratops; pterodactyls soaring through the air, one with a small reptile in its toothy maw; and some oblivious grazing by what, when I was young in another millennium, we would have called a brontosaurus. Easy to overlook in all that drama was the shrew-like mammal perched on a reed or thick blade of grass, too small to serve even as an enticing pterodactyl snack. The next thing coming down the line always looks like that mammal at the beginning -- that's what I told the kids -- inconsequential, beside the point; the official point usually being the clash of the titans.

That's exactly why mainstream journalists spent the first decade of this century debating the meaning of the obvious binaries -- the Democrats versus the Republicans, McWorld versus Global Jihad -- much as political debate of the early 1770s might have focused on whether the French or English monarch would have supremacy in North America, not long before the former was be beheaded and the latter evicted. The monarchs in all their splashy scale were the dinosaurs of their day, and the eighteenth-century mammal no one noticed at first was named "revolution"; the early twenty-first century version might have been called "localism" or maybe "anarchism," or even "civil society regnant." In some strange way, it turned out that windmill-builders were more important than the U.S. Senate. They were certainly better at preparing for the future anyway. [more]

----------------

The future, of course, is not something you predict and wait for. It is something you invent daily through your actions. As Mas Kodani, a Buddhist in Los Angeles, said in the early twenty-first century: "One does not stand still looking for a path. One walks; and as one walks, a path comes into being." We make it up as we go, and we make it up by going, or as the Zapatistas more elegantly put it, "Walking we ask questions." What else can you do?

Perhaps respect the power of the small and the mystery of the future to which we all belong.

Line In the Sand

2006-09-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

Recent show at the U of C with Tamar & Naama Messer. Things didn't go exactly to plan as we were supposed to be in the Little Gallery but got bumped due to a double booking. We did find another room that worked for the most part. Tamar & Naama travelled through Israel whilst the recent war and their art was informed by the experience. My work was concerned with Alberta but we had a common theme: land & identity. 'Line in the Sand' has a double meaning that suited both our works: it describes the geological time, the strata that my work had & it's a phrase that means staking a claim and warning another party not to cross a threshold under threat.

The Happiest Place On Earth (no mouse ears required)

2006-07-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

The happiest place on earth is...Vanuatu!! It's easy to imagine that for a place in the South Pacific.

The Illustrator

2006-06-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

Illustrator is one of my favourite programs recently, I'm finding it an interesting art tool.

Disaster Movies..sort of

2006-06-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

I'm really into seeing documentaries at the moment. Some I want to see:

An Inconvienant Truth

Why We Fight

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man

Revenge of the Birds?

2006-05-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

Maybe a more sensible perpective on bird flu:

"All this for a disease that since 2003 has killed 113 people worldwide. During the same span, about 4 million have died worldwide in traffic accidents. The number of these deaths is rising steadily in most nations, with road fatalities on track to become the world's third-leading cause of death—that is, traffic accidents look exactly like a pandemic. Also since 2003, at least 6 million people worldwide have died of diarrheal diseases, with about 1.5 million of those deaths attributed to rotavirus, which has spread in pandemic fashion. Yet the panic button has been pushed only for bird flu. Why?" [more]

That which remains

2006-05-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

I'm currently part of another show, a joint exhibition between the university and art college. We had our opening tonight and it was really good: the show is really strong and the turn out was great.

Great day overall for me: found out my grades and they were really good. (Michelle treated me to a wonderful Indian dinner as well!)

The Truthiness

2006-05-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

I love The Daily Show w/Jon Stewart and the spin-off Colbert Report. Stephen Colbert recently gave an address at a Press dinner in front the President & all other powerful people--and wow, did he zing them. What were they thinking having him speak..? Check out a transcript here. Review here. Daily Show people + live, unexpecting audience = hilarity..this is the funniest thing since Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and proverbially pulled their pants down on live television.

"I stand by this man [President Bush] because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers, and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message that, no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world."

--Stephen Colbert

Exciting Times

2006-05-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

I think I'm still coming down from a series of exciting events:

My Engagement!

Michelle & I are engaged to be married! We've a blog that will chronicle our path to the wedding day here. We're both very excitied; after being in love for nearly two years we thought it is time.

My Grad Show!

A very special night at the Opening. Lots of very positive feedback from everyone. Very happy with how the work turned out, it all really came together. It was a lot fun to do (the studio part..written..urg), felt like I was playing, a sensation that I haven't experienced for awhile. With these I think I found a way to work off my strengths, yet push myself in a new direction. I'm really looking forward to developing this line of thought further.

Through the blogging glass

2006-05-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

I know a few people who use this blog & I like the look and options it seemed to offer so I thought I'd start my own. I love that I can insert pictures, audio files, etc.