red-handed

remembering Charlie

2008-08-29T09:16:00.002-04:00

remembering Charlie, pencil and crayon on Moleskine watercolour paper, 5.25 x 3.5 inches, illo for T.N.V. (And Illustration Friday, which I almost forgot existed.)

vacation thoughts

2008-08-28T14:07:00.015-04:00

Windward Cottage, the view out the front window.

Top of the stairs leading down to the beach, looking right along the coastline.

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So we went to Murray Corner, on the west side of the Northumberland Strait, for two weeks. The lights of PEI in the distance. It was a good vacation in spurts, on bad-weather days or when C was down and out, but then the chores and the orders kicked in, and the days turned into lists. Just like home. But swimming in the ocean still has its charm, and I did the drawings I wanted to and even read some good books.

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The Bathers; pencil and crayon on Moleskine watercolour paper, 5.25 x 3.5 inches. For T.N.V.

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C on holiday, the down days. I had tons more, but she deleted them. Which really made me happy. Because ... that's so cool. When you're the one taking pictures, and the other person is the one who deletes them.

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The Bryn Mawsr; pencil and crayon on Moleskine watercolour paper, 3.5 x 5.25 inches. For T.N.V.

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Both on the way up and back we stayed at a hotel in Rivière du Loup. It's a sad way to start and end any vacation, but it beats driving all day and night.

the fascines

2008-08-26T13:54:00.003-04:00

the fascines; pencil and crayon on Moleskine watercolour; 3.5 x 5.25 inches. For T.N.V.

juicy

2008-08-25T14:16:00.001-04:00

juicy; pencil and crayon on sketching paper, 9.5 x 8.5 inches, illo for a story.

straw

2008-07-29T13:33:00.001-04:00

Straw, pencil crayon and china marker on Abalene cotton paper, 6 x 9 inches. Illo for a story.

super slider birthday

2008-07-28T10:24:00.014-04:00

Guess who turned five this weekend?

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I wish I had pictures of the cake/candles moment but I was using C's camera ... which amounts to something like waving a light bulb in front an Etch A Sketch.

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On Sunday we tried on some dresses I'd brought, opened Uncle Kevin's present, and went to the park. All of which amounted to nothing compared to a blue Freezie.

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And now: some movies. Again, because of C's camera they have no sound, which makes Stella look like Buster Keaton.

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Have you seen this? It's called Grey Gardens, and it's a 1975 documentary about Big Edie and Little Edie, a mother and daughter who live together in one room of a mansion in the Hamptons (the rest of the house being expropriated by feral six-toed cats and Wonder-Bread-eating raccoons). The mother is extremely narcissistic, the daughter slightly insane. They are the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Little Edie was once quite beautiful, and still has an astonishing flair for clothes (making a hat out of a blouse, for instance, or a skirt out a sweater). If you're gay or a fashion designer or the suffering husband of someone who's interested in fashion, you'll love this film.

sold

2008-07-23T14:39:00.004-04:00

Sold, to a happy soul in Italy.

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Meanwhile, Krista just gave me a lovely shout-out on her site (yes, there are a few cool people here in Kingston, scattered about like iridescent leaves). She's had a trying summer, and needs a break, so I hope getting trashed and attending fake weddings (I wish I had plans like that) does the trick.

hunter

2008-07-22T11:24:00.001-04:00

Hunter; pencil crayon on 50 lb sketching paper, 7 x 5 inches. For a story of the same name.

super trooper

2008-07-21T12:51:00.009-04:00

(top) Widdle Max and Butter Brain; pencil and crayon on 50 lb sketching paper, 8 x 7 inches / (bottom) If it's a gun you want, I've got one; pencil and crayon on 50 lb sketching paper, 8 x 6 inches

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Gawker has redone their artists page ... my own entry is here.

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Parachute Man; pencil and crayon on 50 lb sketching paper, 5 x 6 inches. Redone for a story.

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Come and See by Elem Klimov ... a movie about a boy who digs up a rifle and goes off to join the partisans fighting the German occupation of Belarus. Grim forests, cursed characters, casual death and more than enough insanity to go around. For kids six to nine.

itchy

2008-07-14T08:16:00.007-04:00

he's at the door, and laughing, pencil and pencil crayon on paper, 8.5 x 8 inches. Illo for a story about the big, bad wolf.

they're not boys, they're twins, pencil and pencil crayon on paper, 8 x 6.5 inches. Illo for a story that features twins.

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Last Tuesday morning C heard some mewing (mewling?) from the alley. After investigating (of course) she found this creature, alone but hissing and trying to get away. No mother around. So we had a third cat for a day (and a half ... the Humane Society opens at 11 but someone needed cuddling until almost 4).

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On Wednesday my friend Julian took me out sailing. At the last minute we were joined by a Romanian grad student who belongs to the same club. Little did I know that this had all been arranged ahead of time, and that the two of them would take me to Pirate Island, overpower me and ... okay, not really. Actually, aside from two minutes of complete chaos (sails snapping, boat listing, ropes whipping around, the smell of death in the air) we had a nice little cruise out into Lake Ontario.

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The last two days I've itchy and nauseous. With headaches. WTF? It's probably just a tumour or something. Any ideas?

july spoils

2008-07-07T13:30:00.007-04:00

and then despoiled; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. The string series continues.

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Another weekend, another ferry ride, another race that C didn't train for. This one was called the Wolfe Island Classic. Here she is all smug before the action.

And here she is coming up on the 10k finish line. I'm laughing because she's just told me how horrible it was ... the heat was like a gentle smothering. Meanwhile, I sat in the shade and ate a lemon danish.

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Really, the only kind of marathon training I believe in is this.

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Unwilling to confront the sun further, that afternoon I stayed on the couch and watched the end of Unforgiven. The end is the whole thing.

shards of summer

2008-07-04T14:04:00.011-04:00

shards, pencil and crayon on Albanene cotton fiber paper, 8.25 x 7 inches. Illo for a story by the same name.

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Still looking for a great Canadian summer holiday? Windward Cottage still has some weeks available in July and August. On a high bluff overlooking the Northumberland Strait, just minutes from the bridge to Prince Edward Island, this rustic cottage with modern amenities offers all the advantages of having the ocean at your doorstep while being central to pretty much everything in the maritimes.

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C's friend Cara is conducting an interesting experiment on her life ... specifically, she's turning it upside down, letting everything she's built up fall away ... you can read about her trials and tribulations here.

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This little guy I drew for a thank you card ... thankyou, pencil crayon on Albanene cotton fiber paper, 5 x 5 inches.

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Amanda Earl was kind enough to mention our recent reading in Ottawa ... Amanda writes the kind of stuff that makes people sit up and cock their heads and wonder if they heard it right ... and they very quickly find out that they did.

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And finally, this week's IF topic ... because the wonderful artstream studios still have paintings of mine left, and how sour would it be to have them forgotten (like my sad friend here) ...

Big Sandy Bay

2008-07-02T13:18:00.007-04:00

For Dominion Day, C and I took the ferry over to Wolfe's Island, broke into an abandoned whaler's hut and set it on fire.

The background in the second half of the clip is the campus where I work.

Once our pyromaniacal urges had been met, we drove aimlessly around the island, remarking on how it reminded us of New Brunswick.

Finally we ended up at Big Sandy Bay. If you make an effort to hike along a bit, you'll find wide beaches with soft sand, clear water and almost no dead fish.

C packed us a lunch but, being a girl, it was mostly comprised of fruit. Of course, this didn't prevent her from tearing into the chips as soon as I put the bags down.

And finally: some beefcake, monster-style. (And when I got home I found -- despite reapplying the sunscreen throughout the day -- that I had burned, quite nicely.)

reading out loud (into a microphone)

2008-06-30T09:12:00.009-04:00

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

2008-06-27T11:42:00.004-04:00

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

2008-06-26T13:54:00.026-04:00

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

2008-06-13T08:02:00.013-04:00

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

2008-06-11T08:21:00.009-04:00

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

2008-06-10T15:38:00.004-04:00

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

2008-06-09T15:16:00.011-04:00

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

2008-05-29T08:57:00.008-04:00

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}

2008-05-27T16:38:00.003-04:00

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