reading out loud (into a microphone)

C and I went up to Ottawa on Friday night so we could both read at an event for The Puritan magazine. The two editors had fun with the format, staging it like a wrestling thing, and while I couldn't help but shake my head and smirk when given a high-five at the microphone, everyone had a great time (at one point, somebody got hit with a chair). The other readers were Jeffrey Ross, Amanda Earl, Steven Zytveld, Matthew Firth (who published C's chapbook Nemesis Girls), Kate Heartfield, Rob Mclennan and Nathaniel G. Moore. The clip above is short and sweet, with truly terrible production values.

holiday drawings

One thing I promised myself to do while on holidays -- because I don't make enough time to do this -- was to create a drawing every morning. Which I did, hunched in the corner of our hotel room, in dim light, the curtains open just an inch, trying not to make too much noise, while C slept away.

my head is a storm, pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 8 x 7.5 inches. Krista might like this one.

somewhere back there between the trees, pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 6 x 7 inches.

no, not now, pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 5 x 5.5 inches.

when it rains, there goes my hands, pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 5.75 x 8.5 inches.

you're not doing me any favours, pencil crayon on 50 lb Canson sketch paper, 7 x 10 inches. Kensey with the eyes.

land of the living skies

Just returned from a see-the-family vacation in Saskatchewan and ... wow, this post is going to be a long one. Because if we (the collective 'we', as in you and me) don't take a ton of pictures to document our existence, we might as well die (or have never lived ... then again, the aborigines believed the opposite).

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My mom and I ... some of us get height, some of us get wisdom. And jack-in-the-box grins.

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After much joyous but bittersweet pillaging of downtown shops ("All these dresses are made for tall skinny girls!"), I took C for a walk along the Meewasin Trail, with stops at the Mendel's conservatory, the Pelican-happy weir, the pedestrian and railway bridge, and the University of Saskatchewan.

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One day we drove down to the mineral springs at Watrous (which C pronounces "Wah-truce") ... a 'resort' with the look and feel of something from the Soviet bloc, right down to the pink stucco and octogenarian crowd ... I thought it would be heartening for C to be around people her own height, but all those minerals made her a little salty ...

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Shawn loves sunglasses, trucks and the action end of a hose ...


Oh yes: and watering cans. And flowers. Or anything that looks like a flower.

Tanis and Colin, who graciously hosted a barbecue ...

Mary Ann, Jennifer and Tanis, getting the troops together ...

Everyone (sans me), then the boys, then the ladies. C always loves the gas-passing anonymity of a crowd. Sneaky!

C and Shawn; Jon and Jenn (Jon's just happy not be sleeping in the park these days); Tim, Shawn and Mary Ann; Colin, Landon, Tanis, Ryer (with Ryer and Landon thinking: when can we get back to Halo?).

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On our last full day we drove out to Perdue, the village I grew up in. By emphasizing its smallness, I guess I led C to imagine it as little more than a diner at the side of the road, and she was a quite shocked to be confronted by actual intersections, let alone a post office. At the same time, she found the sky to be a bit too immense ... oppressive even, with so little between one and the sun. Hey, that's how we keep things honest. From top: C hamming it up at SOK 3CO; C at the side doors of my highschool, where my principal used to wait for me just to tell me if I made it on time (if I didn't, I got the day off, which wasn't a very well-thought-out punishment); mom and C in our front yard; the sign for Biggar, just 20 miles down the highway and, as far as I could ever tell, the end of the world.

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Getting home. Why do we attach so much glamour to travel? To me it's like some kind of punishment. And this from a guy who's never used a bathroom on an airplane. Never. They could have lions in there for all I know.

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And then: a book for the airplane. Like most translated books, Night isn't the best written, but the message within overwhelms everything else. I read it in one go (an event unusual enough to make note of it). A personal narration on the horror of Auschwitz will put the cramped quarters of a West Jet flight into sharp perspective.

glamour, by extension

C is friends with the fashion stylist Rebekah Roy (left in both pics above) ... one of those people who personify calm and smiling success. On her blog she presents glamour in this very sincere, straightforward way ... whether she's taking pictures of people on the street, talking about stain removers, her favourite videos, or attending some glittering party. One minute she's ruminating on hair extensions, and in the next she reveals how she's been featured on the Vogue UK site. A real disarmer and charmer (and this without meeting her yet, although I feel like I know her because we both did our time in Winnipeg).

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Coming home from Russia, we did many bad things.; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. In my own life, the glamour is wholly imagined.

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witches, smoke; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. My second go at this one, and for some reason I'm painting a lot of smoke lately (note to self: tell C that I want to be cremated).

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Now, just for a laugh, watch this.

home surprise

The two pieces above are the work of Amanda Fasken, who has reminded me, once again, that Kingston contains some great artists.

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Widdle Max and Butter Brain, pencil and marker on Albanene cotton fiber paper, 8.75 x 5.5 inches. Illo for a story.

things, all red

A drawing for a short story -- writing group tonight, every week it's a new illo, new story -- about a life obscured, outside and in.

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And then we've got this guy, who doesn't have a name either, and came to me by way of C after she took an encaustics workshop this weekend. How couldn't you like something that combines a larger-than-life owl with the Cheshire Cat?

and then I deleted it

smoke storm, mixed media on canvas, 16 x 10 inches. Because I need more nudity in my work.

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I had big, wide-ranging post to go here, sourced from a text file that I'd been nurturing all week, full of sound ideas and rewarding links ... but I threw it in the trash (or "Trash"). In an accident. And now that it's gone this digital note seems like something wonderful, like some bit of on-the-train genius scribbled down and stuffed in a pocket and then lost in the laundry. Only now I don't have to go through the disappointment of finding it and oh-so-carefully unfolding it and seeing just how ordinary it was, because "Trash" takes care of that for you, in that special forever kind of way.

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One thing I can retrieve from the mental trash/memory bin is wanting to say something about Leon Golub, whose work I have just recently rediscoverd. He painted narratives about power. If you know me at all, you'd guess I'd dig that. His stuff is formidable.

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Speaking of power, I let these two little mercenaries into my studio recently so they could try their scratchy hands at a canvas. They each did a side, and shared quite well, and made a mess and got dirty and painted something unique and lovely.

oceans

the spanish ocean; mixed media on canvas, 8 x 10 inches. Dark shadows in hard sunshine.

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Last night we watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. C thought it was a war movie, and kept asking when the hellfire killing would break out, when really it was the inner, deep-water passage of an almost completely paralyzed man (Jean-Dominique Bauby, left with only the ability to blink one eye) trying to tell the story of his life before and after the stroke which felled him. Shot almost entirely from his perspective, with its fitful view and hushed inner voice, this movie often had the tranquil quality of reverie, rendered through filtered sunshine. I enjoyed it a great deal, although C complained that it could have used a vampire or a car chase.

bee {mine}

collapse, pencil and marker on Albanene cotton fiber paper, 8.5 x 8.5 inches. Same old story (an illo ... for a story).

Run Forrest, Run

C ran the half-marathon in Ottawa this weekend. Really, it was a lesson for the kids ... the lesson being that you can get what you want without having to work for it. In over four months of training time, C laced up her running shoes exactly five times. Still, we're all very proud. Or something.

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Meanwhile, someone (read: me) actually was working, playing under the hot (read: burning) sun with a not-easily-pleased pair of nieces (also: not even my nieces). At least it made me one fan (below).

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There's another Narnia movie out? C said the first one was boring. Of course, she hadn't even seen the SNL send-up (here).

dipsomania

C was bugging me to come up with something "to do" on the long weekend (all demands, no plans) so instead of enduring some spa and spending about a million dollars, I suggested a day trip to the wineries of Prince Edward County. Since this would involve C's two favourite things (drinking and wine), she said yes.

The best thing about Napanee: smoke stacks. Check out the weird clouds.

Lake Ontario. It's clearest when all the fish are dead.

This guy could be a male model. Or something.

Crazy but not yet drunk.

Ferry rides are therapeutic for crazy people.

Sometimes the only thing you can do with a crazy drunk person is put them in a headlock.

A vineyard. C likes to wander when she gets a few drinks in her. Not long after this I took the keys away.

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the red russian; mixed media on canvas, 8 x 10 inches. Meanwhile, I cling to my frayed, sober soul by the ragged strings called the process of art.

lucky

lucky, pencil and marker on Albanene cotton fiber paper, 7 x 7 inches. This is what C wears to bed when she wants to ... {kidding}. Actually it's an illo for a story by the same name. And yes, Jeannette, the balloon does look familiar (think of yourself as a trailblazer).

and then came the fat kids

These fat little girls are an illo for a story ...

cleanliness is next to godliness

soap; mixed media on canvas, 8 x 8 inches. The text is unimportant, because what we have here is a failure to communicate.

sheri's portrait

sheri by the sea; mixed media on canvas, 20 x 16 inches.

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My friend Sheri and I are doing a portrait exchange. Her version of me has some wonderfully dark drama to it, so I wanted this painting to have a narrative as well.

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And then, a wee movie.