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15 Oak Manor Drive E4G1L1 Sussex, NB, Canada

This painting "Premonition" was created after our trip backpacking through Asia, Southeast Asia and the Southern Pacific. We had arrived in Sydney, Australia to meet up with some friends that we had met in Thailand and had started a hearty Scrabble competition with. We hadn't seen them for some time and we were excited to spend some time seeing the sites in that area of Australia with them. They were living in a small apartment on the third floor of an old Victorian home near... Kings Cross in Sydney and this was where things were very interesting in that city. We were given a dormer to sleep on the floor and it was incredibly hot while we were there. I did not sleep much and would watch the lights changing in the dormer. The street noise and humidity just added to the effect. I set up my camera on the tripod and went about experimenting with different time exposures to capture the light that I was enjoying. There is a mood captured here that I always found moving. This painting was accepted into a juried exhibition in the 1plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota. I was very proud to have my work accepted into a museum in the USA even if it was only for a brief period of time. It was truly an honour. It now hangs in the home of a collector in Winnipeg. Another piece that I really miss. Size is about 54" in height by ?. My memory sometimes... See more

My art piece for today isn’t a painting but a photograph that I shot in Bali in 1991. This creature is a Garuda. The Garuda is believed to be the symbol in the Hindu belief to ward off evil and I loved the many interpretations of it that we encountered while spending over six weeks during our year of backpacking the world. We left Winnipeg on September 9th, 1990 and returned home in June of 1991. This Garuda was amongst a huge number of various sizes all carved and painted b...y an artist that we paid a visit to. The small Garuda at the top of the frame was purchased along the trail in Ubud where many merchants sold their wares. I had a plan for it in my mind already. Upon our return to Winnipeg and I settled back into my studio I had Custom Images print the photo on Duratran from a slide. It’s translucency was perfect for my concept and I created the frame with the curve to recreate the three dimensional aspect of the sculpture. It is backlit with a fluorescent light inside. The depth of field of the photo makes it look like there’s slight movement of the carving. It has always had a place in the house but now it resides just beside my bed. Helps me dream pleasantly. It creates a nice ambiance in the room. See more

Today's painting moves us back out to the prairie. I was asked to put together a presentation for the now defunct Canadian Wheat Board whereby a number of paintings were to be created to hang amongst the halls and boardroom/offices within the building on Main St. in Winnipeg. Myself and two other artists were given the opportunity to put our concepts forward to a committee. I did all of my images on paper and then photographed them as slides that were then projected t...Continue reading

One of the features of living in the eastern part of Canada is being okay with foggy and misty days. My discovery of this came after our return to New Brunswick. Frankly fog had not been my favourite part of growing up in Saint John. The way fog creates an air of mystery and the way it refracts and absorbs light is unbelievable. The coastal villages represent a wonderful display of colour and such beautiful scenery. The smell of the air filling your nostrils is a treat. One d...ay while visiting East Jedore outside of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, to buy lobster straight off the boats, I couldn't help myself to ignore the task at hand and to take in the wonderful stillness of the heavy atmosphere. It drizzled periodically and the colours were saturated by the flat light. I wandered the docks and shot dozens of photographs recording this beauty. This canvas is 56" x 56" and seemed to be very fitting for what I wanted to emphasize within it's frame. The muted greys and background were in such contrast to the vibrancy of the boat that I wanted to play with that. I had considered stripping the boat of it's mechanical features at first but while I was painting something kept telling me to put them in and make this a modern image. The importance of the radar and all of the included pieces were, I knew, what assisted the fishermen to harvest their catch and make it home safely. I saw that as an added bonus to the story. This painting did hang in New Hampshire in the home of a very dear friend for quite some time but I believe that it is now prominently displayed in their summer home on the coast of where the image originated. This was another of those paintings that, when the buyer saw it for the first time he exclaimed "I'm buying this!". Was I a happy camper?...you bet. Enjoy. See more

Today I am posting a painting done while living in Winnipeg. I spent some time in the north with a great buddy that introduced me to the lifestyle of his ancestors in Norway House, an indigenous community above Lake Winnipeg. It sits upon the Nelson River watershed. We were fishing for the winter store of whitefish to be smoked and put away. I was very moved by my experience and also was acutely aware of the hardships of that life. While going through my photos that I fired, ...and there were many, I came up with this image in my mind of the trials of living life off of the land and the pressures placed upon our precious resources by commercial fishing and how the depletion of these stocks were the doings of others while the blame is often laid upon our native communities. The painting is acrylic and eight feet in width. The key is carved from cedar and painted silver. The roll of metal sheet is wrapped around a packing tube of cardboard. The metal frame is a nice finish to give the piece a look of being a metal can. If you look closely you can see the line around the image that denotes the remainder of the lid. It’s chasing the two men, my friend and his brother, off of their ancestral waters and way of life. This painting caused quite a stir of reaction from the viewers at the Manitoba Art Expo until one very astute collector laid her eyes upon it. Her immediate reaction to it was raucous laughter and the statement I’m buying this. It was the kind of reaction that we artists hope for. It has brought many reactions since. Janice Morden. Did I get that right? See more