Travel Blog Link

Hey all,
I will probably be posting more often on mine and Robs' travel blog.
Annyong Haseyo
http://annyong-haseyo.blogspot.com/

Interior of Souris Valley

Hang Mans Hut

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Creek Bed in Souris Valley

Art Series Blog

Hello all my millions of dedicated readers...
I've started a seperate blog called "Between the Covers".
"Between the Covers" is a series of intimate sketches that I have started to do, that are drawn in the pages of old abandoned hardcover books. The sketches are inspired in someway by the book, and depict scenes in life, death and everything in between. It is a continuous work in progress, so keep checking it to see new sketches.

Between the Covers

Towards a Philosophy of Slow

Other people have said it best:

Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobble stones
Looking for fun and feelin' groovy

/ C G Am G / :

Ba-da-da-da-da-da-da, feelin' groovy

Hello, lamp post, what ya knowing
I've come to watch your flowers growing
Ain't you got no rhymes for me
Doot-in' doo-doo, feelin' groovy

Ba-da-da-da-da-da-da, feelin' groovy

I got no deeds to do, no promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me
Life, I love you, all is groovy

Ba da da da da....
-Simon and Garfunkel


"willing slaves...somehow we have gradually acquiesced to the work ethic dominating our lives. Somehow we have come to feel that success in our careers is what's most important in life. And, on a deeper level, that 'success'-which often is simply looking like an important person- is what matters most."

"isn't real life a deep connection with another person? Or with a book, music, nature-with an idea? When do we have time for that?"

"we can enjoy work, but we have to remember it's still work, and whenever we work, we're not totally free. Certainly it's easy to see that we're not free when we're in a paid job in the workplace ... and the workplace is getting worse. But it seems that whenever we have a project, we're not really free because it's essentially a utilitarian approach to life. We're not doing it totally because we're drawn to do it, as in true leisure."

quotes from "slow is beautiful" by Cecil Andrews

Self Portrait wearing hat

hahahahahahahhahahahahahaha ha ha ha

THE GARAGE SHOW!

Transforming the back lanes of the cathedral village... 12 artists, 12 garages."
Saturday September 8th, 2007
11:00 am - 5:00 pm

Get your passport & maps for the garage show at 2349 Retallack St. Regina, SK.
The Garage Show is Lane Level Project's first. Lane Level Projects is a Regina
based artists’ collective. Our mandate is to introduce the work of local
contemporary installation, multi media and performance artists into private and
semi-private venues - homes, garages, yards and gardens. Our inaugural project,
The Garage Show, will culminate in a one-day exhibition/performance event in the
garages and alleys of Regina’s Cathedral Area. 12 visual and performance artists
will create site-specific installations and/or performances in response to the
private spaces of people’s garages and the public spaces of the alleys that feed
into them.

Lane Level Projects
with help from ArtsAction Inc.
Saskatchewan Arts Board

And YES I am one of the 12 artists. Get off your asses and see some art!

More Landscapes of the Churchill River!

"Little Stanley Rapids" acrylic on wood

"Morning View from Love Island" acrylic on wood

"Robertson Falls" acrylic on wood


Please keep reading and commenting on the Oil Sands Debate below...

Saskatchewan Tar/Oil Sands: Let's Start A Debate!

Here is an environmental issue that I don't know a lot about, but I feel a nagging suspicion that it is not a good thing. My suspicions were planted with this news tidbit from www.mysask.ca

"Oil sands exploration charges ahead in Northern Saskatchewan"
Tue, Aug 21, 2007 04:10 PM CST MORE MONEY IS BEING INVESTED TO INCREASE OIL SANDS EXPLORATION IN NORTHWESTERN SASKATCHEWAN.
OILSANDS QUEST, AN ALBERTA-BASED COMPANY, HAS SPENT TWO AND A QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS ACQUIRING FIVE MORE OIL SANDS EXPLORATION LICENSES. THE NEW DRILLING WOULD TAKE PLACE SOUTH OF THE CURRENT EXPLORATION PROJECTS IN NORTHERN SASKATCHEWAN. THE COMPANY'S CURRENT LICENSES WILL REMAIN UNDER THE PREVIOUS AGREEMENT THAT DATES BACK 43 YEARS. ONE OIL SHALE EXPLORATORY PERMIT FOR THE PASQUIA HILLS AREA WAS ALSO PURCHASED BY THE COMPANY.

Now what bugs me about this, is that they will be looking for oil in the Saskatchewan Athabascan area. Much like in Alberta, this area is boreal forest, muskeg, river system, and from pictures i've seen it also has stretches of sand dunes. I've also read that when the companies reclaim the land, the government considers farm land equal to forest land. Maybe they see this equality in economic form? Because the boreal forest is very different from farm land. How could all those forest plants/animals live without the trees to keep them shaded and wet? Not only that but the Athabascan area is very unique. Happily there is a protected area, the Athabascan Sand Dunes, where there are found 10 species of endemic (not found anywhere else in the world) plants. But this doesn't protect the boreal forest. I wonder how much of the forest is actually protected? I'm still researching this topic, so I am still not clear on what exactly is going on. But I thought I should maybe start a conversation about this topic. Here are some sites to get you going.

Wikipedia: Athabasca Tar Sands
Climate for Change: Tar Sands Resources
Athabasca Sand Dunes

Little Landscapes

Its strange to be back in the world of fast food, fast cars, and fast living. I must admit (and how surprised are you really?) that I was more than happy to disapear for awhile. Leave all of this non-sense behind, and commune with nature, to simply enjoy the vast land and silence. It was nice to tend only to immediate needs, to use basic survival skills, to not have a roundabout way of obtaining what is necessary. The one thing I completely despise about our culture is how we are forced to work at jobs we don't really enjoy in order to feed and clothe ourselves. It is true that the lives we lead in Canadian cities are relatively safe and easy and fun, as compared to hunting and gathering all day every day. And I must also admit that I so very much appreciate hot water from the tap and a flushing toilet. After spending almost a week in a tent, I have really come to appreciate the comforts of home. Certainly when I fell ill in the second week I was grateful to be staying in a cabin. I often wonder, though, if something isn't lost when we distance ourselves from the real and chaotic natural world. I just read three thought provoking essays on the subject of Nature by Aldous Huxley. He discusses how often we look to nature as a place to renew our spiritual selves, but he also states that as we personify, humanize, and organize nature through spirituality, religion, and science we forget that the world is not united under human innovation, but is seperate, diverse, and chaotic. "Our direct intuitions of Nature tell us that the world is bottomlessly strange: alien, even when it is kind and beautiful; having innumerable modes of being that are not our modes; always mysteriously not personal,not conscious, not moral; often hostile and sinister;sometimes even unimaginably, because inhumanely, evil." He goes on to state that we need to leave the wildness in nature , to not try to make nature conform to human rules and regulations. Instead we must embrace the "Jekyll-Hyde of nature", and because we are of nature, also of ourselves. I believe that we learned this lesson during the last few days of our trip, when we were confronted with the threat of monstrous thunder storms. It made me think how often some people rely on dumb luck to get us through to the next day. Could you survive if the comforts and relatively easy living of city life were taken away? How would you eat? How would you keep warm? What if you were sick? This is why we live in cities with electricity, grocery stores, hospitals, and people who specialize. In the city it is easy to get help,especially if you have the money. Whereas, in the wild money is useless except as kindling to get a fire started.

Anyway, here are a few "Little Landscapes" that i painted while up north.

"Love Island" acrylic on wood, 5in X 7in, 2007

"Green Rapids", acrylic on wood, 5in X 5in, 2007

"Fisher Rapids", acrylic on wood, 5in X 7in, 2007

aren't you a part of society?

i wish not. but here i am using wireless internet from somewhere nearby to make a blogpost. im a slave to blogging. enjoy these pictures of our canoe trip thus far. heading back out august 1 for five more days!

From my sketch book...

I went to Moose Jaw and Saskatoon today, with my fellow Dunlop co-workers, to visit some of the other fine art galleries in Saskatchewan. It was very interesting, and I discovered that I would really like to work at the Mendel. It is a beautiful gallery, and has many great programs for the public. Anyway, on the way back home I did some sketches of the landscape, this one is my favorite.

Rooster in Flight

Since I started on this rooster commission I've become aware of the various barnyard animal decor available- and there's a lot of it. It's like this weird barnyard decorating cult. Cows, pigs, sheep,and roosters are the four most common animals. You can buy almost anything imaginable with the barnyard animal of your choosing stamped or painted, or molded into the shape of it. I draw the line at barnyard themed wallpaper... thats just unforgivable. Well, I guess this is my contribution to the fine art of Rooster Portraiture. Actually, I would really like to have a real rooster as a pet, along with a few hens, they are pretty interesting creatures. Or maybe I'll just get some of those rooster and hen lawn ornaments instead, with the solar light panels so they light up at night. yeah!

Its a triptych, so here is the left side

middle

rightside

Dream of Losing my Right Eye

In my dream I woke up one day with painfully infected eyes. The skin around my eyes was dark, discolored, and puffy. I examined my eyes in a mirror, opening my eye wider by pulling the top lid up and the bottom lid down with my right thumb and finger. My eye socket became the sole object of focus, and became a cavernous cave. There was horrible brown stringy goop in my cave like eye. When I leaned in to look closer, my right eye fell out into my hand. I was very scared at this point and asked Rob to take me to the hospital. Somehow we were transported there immediately. While waiting for a doctor to look at my eye, I decided that I didn't want my eye to dry out, so i put it in my mouth for safe keeping. Apparently that wasn't a safe place as it squashed in my mouth, pushing out a yellow goo that kinda tasted like egg yolk. I gagged slightly, spit it out, and then it was forgotten. Even though I no longer had a right eye I could still see. My perspective was a little flattened, yet sharper and brighter. The doctor finally looked at the empty eye socket and determined I had gotten some sort of bacterial infection in it. We determined I had picked it up at Regina Beach in the sand.

what the hell? is this supposed to mean something? or is it just a really weird dream...

photos of the storm at mom and dads

the colours of the photographs are real. it was an amazing storm that happened as the sun was setting.

meditation in the park

every sunday (i accidentally wrote sinday, is that a freudian slip?)there is this group of people meditating in vic park. i like to draw them, cuz they sit still for long periods of time and they don't notice that they are being drawn. hee hee hee.

blogger is dead

Hello? lo? lo? lo?

well --
i do believe the blog-o-sphere has been abandoned. where did everybody go? poor old blogger, left for dead, as we chase the latest online fad. but i have not yet given you up. hip-hip- hooray! here are some images of Meenos and Jane, and a site-specific painting!

amy's tattoo

amy's tattoo is still a work in progress, but i rather liked these designs...
spent most of today in the studio, yAy! soon i will post pics of my studio and the sculptural installation i am working on... hurrah for art, boo-urns to crappy jobs...

goddesses

and so it seems

only in dreams

sigh...

Psychedelic Trees...

Vision seedling...

In other news, if any of you have never read the original Winnie-the-Pooh books, you really should. They are hilarious and poignant observations of life, through the eyes of stuffed animals. You should also read Tony Millionaires' Sock Monkey.

Study of Cherubim