welding uphand

2010-04-17T18:16:00.002-03:00

2010-02-24T10:33:00.005-04:00

Ivy Walker, her kids , grandkids and great gandkids hung out in High River for a week celebrating Ivy's 90th Birthday.
Her sister Violet, from GB was also there.
Vi's daughter Rosemary was there too. These are the transparencies we did of each other.There must have been two dozen of us. Some of us were sober.

2010-02-18T18:36:00.007-04:00

after the snow

2009-12-25T18:31:00.002-04:00

From my favourite scholar on things meaningful : Edward Edinger

2009-12-19T21:21:00.002-04:00

I do not believe we can cherry pick the universe, either a cigar is just a cigar or it is more than a cigar. Not a little pregnant. The thing is that synchronicities , if I have spelled it right, are not open to quick dissection, like dreams and onions they are very layered. The pic of me was not planned, the unusual little package placed anonymously in my faculty mailbox was startling.They happened on the same day as something else which I won't mention but played an important third in this trinity of syncronicities. The shadow knows!

2009-12-11T16:37:00.002-04:00

Denying plate tectonics

2009-12-11T08:14:00.000-04:00

2009-12-11T08:10:00.001-04:00

A small piece of steel I found at the steel yard, like a bone, a femur.

2009-10-14T17:52:00.002-03:00

This piece resonates with the first piece I made in Newfoundland ,1970, in my studio over the Charm Jewellery on Water Street, I had three floors. It is interesting how we unconsciously revisit the same themes.

2009-10-11T12:43:00.000-03:00

2009-10-11T07:41:00.003-03:00

I returned to my old homestead yesterday, made sure it was still there, cap the chimneys,move some sculpture into the house, listen to the old ghosts pleading,"don't leave me".

The place is beautiful in the deep woods on a hillside, I built it for my son and I, then made a studio for Nancy. In 94 I left it.

2009-08-22T13:48:00.004-03:00

ARTIES

2009-08-21T10:51:00.005-03:00

STORM COMING

2009-08-16T18:28:00.003-03:00

I have painted the words on the crumpled paper that is painted, they mean "Help us please".

The piece was born out of my sadness over the American/Mexican so called drug wars which is actually a slow coup de etat that is destroying Mexico and killing thousands of innocents. It is a huge injustice on our doorstep.
An injustice supported by my country and that to my south.
This could be a piece of paper one might find on the Mexican American border.
A young Mexican /Canadian woman, Harumi Montalvo-March wrote the words for me and I painted them as she wrote them, blending them into the wrinkles of the paper.

2009-08-10T08:34:00.004-03:00

"THE FINAL DANCE"

2009-07-16T15:32:00.002-03:00

I am pleased to have this beautiful twisted flat bar in my yard, a steel drawing waiting to happen. Actually it looks like it happened!

2009-07-15T07:28:00.005-03:00

LOOKING AFTER BUSINESS

2009-07-09T16:18:00.003-03:00

THE MEAL #4

2009-07-09T10:51:00.004-03:00

POPE POWER

2009-07-08T12:24:00.003-03:00

THE BEATING

2009-07-08T11:57:00.005-03:00

THE MEAL #3

2009-07-06T16:29:00.003-03:00

THE MEAL #1

2009-07-05T16:42:00.003-03:00

THE MEAL #2

2009-07-04T17:32:00.004-03:00

THE SCREAM

2009-07-04T15:40:00.004-03:00

THE CURSE

2009-07-04T15:38:00.005-03:00

THE BIRTH

2009-07-03T19:03:00.004-03:00

THE SUCK.

2009-07-01T20:41:00.018-03:00

THE BLESSING"

2009-06-23T11:40:00.005-03:00

"THE ANNUNCIATION

2009-06-07T13:41:00.002-03:00

I returned to my old homestead yesterday and found this from my old Bag Series I did in 1974/6.

It has weathered beautifully.

2009-05-23T11:31:00.001-03:00

Every spring I take the quilts out , put them in a big fish box and stomp them with soap and water.I do it a few times until my feet get unbearably cold.

Then they are clean.

Following that I hang these very heavy quilts between some very heavy sculpture and apply the final rinse cycle, the garden hose.

The drying cycles commences after that.

2009-05-22T18:10:00.001-03:00

In the same sketch book are also some drawings of my Trikes that are going to an exhibition in a couple of weeks.

2009-05-22T18:08:00.000-03:00

I found this drawing of my sad wife, no longer in my life

2009-05-21T15:14:00.002-03:00

Not having to teach this term liberates a whole bunch more time, and I only teach part time!

This is " No Cloud, No Silver Lining," about 5 foot by 7 foot, oil/acrylic and charcoal.

2009-05-20T13:54:00.001-03:00

Steel bar C clamped to front and divers weights slung over handle cross bar, it is important to have balance in ones life.

2009-05-19T14:44:00.001-03:00

Rabbit eating cat food meant for the crows.

2009-05-18T13:07:00.003-03:00

It think sometimes we barely escape from the studio with our life.

2009-05-15T15:21:00.003-03:00

Another unfinished one pulled out of my archives and maybe almost completed on a cold wet atlantic spring day."Narcissus and the Single Eyed Welder", a scent of cyclops.

2009-05-15T12:27:00.002-03:00

I have been picking at this one," An Unusual Rain" for a dozen years, I cannot throw work away, it is always a challenge to find a solution.

I undoubtedly will make the final transition with embarrassments in my studio.

2009-05-11T18:46:00.003-03:00

Completing the Self Portrait

2009-05-10T13:46:00.005-03:00

Before the marketplace, the greeting card industry, got hold of it.

2009-05-07T12:25:00.007-03:00

I have just about done " The Large Sea" .

I started this a year ago though I knew only now the final element needed.
I wrote to my friend Mores,
"On a whim found the little bear in a boat and held it up in front and it was the perfect balance for me, so tiny ,precise, and brave , optimistic, such a sweet little fool in such an inhospitable sea".
I understood that I am that fool.

8'x12' oil /acrylic

2009-05-06T17:22:00.004-03:00

Today was one of those days /daze when I had to check and see if there are still actual humans beyond my trees ,thus I packed my string bags,steel toe boots, tape measure ,welding gloves, grocery list and the keys I had to return to NSCAD.
Off to town an hour distant, do the domestic stuff and then over to the steel yard.
When I am feeling really blue the steel yard is the place for me, acres of beautiful twisted potential.

I found Gordon so I could pay off my steel tab , we shot the breeze for a few moments amidst the fascinating chaos, huge magnet cranes doing their growling dance between huge piles of steel. The men there know I think they are custodians of great beauty, we have mutual respect. Gordon asked" Hey Pete, do you need some big turnbuckles"? Where else can I buy such powerful meds for only twenty bucks.

2009-05-05T15:37:00.001-03:00

Good Old Daze

2009-04-30T10:27:00.002-03:00

As I was crumpling up the newspaper to light the morning cookstove fire I found this:

2009-04-28T13:41:00.003-03:00

Cutting and splicing, adding the ten feet to my landbound Samson Post. I love being amidst my steel, being focussed on the arc, it requires my full attention, hot, potentially dangerous and not easily undone, it requires what pilots call situational awareness.

Every year of so I light myself on fire, welders need a contingency plan to " Put themselves out".

2009-04-27T11:28:00.006-03:00

We need to tread carefully around grief.

2009-04-24T19:25:00.004-03:00

This is my first aqusition from the steelyard this year. It is a beautiful piece of 3/8 steel plate with some lovely compound curves, rents and tears to die for!

My yard is clear of ice and snow and away I go,,sort of.

This year , well today , I recalled the old farmers I worked for as a teenager on the prairies, they were starting to slow down, seize up a little, they hurt from years of hard labour, being thrown by the odd horse, jostled by the odd steer, a rock falling on the odd foot.

So they would hire me to be an extra pair of hands to pick up the slack.

I would watch them move slow , economically, surely, tying the knots right in the right place, putting the tractor in the right spot, being in the right position behind the herd of cattle, backing up the truck exactly right , leaning into the barbed wire gate exactly right so the wire hoop would fall over the post.

They knew how to do it but their body was often too slow to be in the right place at the right time thus I was the hired hand.

There I was , burning my clutch, in the wrong place at the wrong time but I got there quickly by golly.

I could feel the old farmers eyes upon me savouring the agility of my young body.

Now I understand that.

Then I was impatient and I thought I knew a lot.

Now I know I don't.

And now my body is slow and it hurts.

Just like theirs back then.

Funny eh?

So today I am moving some steel around, getting ready to make my crane six or seven foot higher so I can comfortably work on something twenty foot tall, comfortably pick up a ton at the end of the arm.

And it is spring.

Father Jim Hickey

2009-04-23T20:35:00.013-03:00

A couple of weeks back I was reminded of how we pass things on, darkness and lightness.

The lightness looks after itself, joy is not a problem.

Receiving unacknowledged darkness can be uncomfortable though.

A few decades ago I had the fortune to interact with a well established religion in a way that awoke me to this common dynamic.

We know it as Scapegoating , it is very common, women ,gays, blacks, children,minorities everywhere have felt it.

I have even see it in my goats, if I reprimanded Petunia, now gone, she would go over to unsuspecting Primrose, also now gone, and deliver to her sudden angular momentum, I spoke of this in an earlier post.

I had put together an exhibition in the early eighties that orbited around this darkness using the Icons of a well established religion, one I knew from the inside,as my metaphors.

The result was a sudden polarization not at all in my favour. A wonderful talented actor with great integrity said " You do not know the half of it". I had inadvertently stirred up a very nasty sexual predator ring . I chose to pull the show in the province I lived within at that time though a loyal friend and brave artist gave me his large office space to have a one night by invitation only exhibition of the work.

The exhibition travelled nationally though it was never picked up in my region of the country.

I did receive death threats and a lot of ignorant media coverage.

It was very interesting.

Anyways,a few weeks back I was reminded of this time so I have dug out a few clippings. Some of my critics went to prison, one died there. There victims still struggle I am sure, they blew the whistle and whistle blowers do not do well for their efforts.

My heart goes out to them.

Honesty and integrity are often not good career move qualities.

ps, don't forget you can click on the images to enlarge them so they are readable. If you want to go to a very very uncomfortable but powerful story relating to this the link is :

http://www.viceland.com/int/v7n9/htdocs/likefather.php?source=db

2009-04-23T18:38:00.002-03:00

I lucked out with Jesse.

2009-04-21T19:02:00.002-03:00

I painted her today, she is the 2nd part of the series containing " The Big Poo".

She is four foot by eight foot, charcoal and oil on plywood

2009-04-16T19:10:00.005-03:00

Students make life size paper dolls of themselves with three drawn ensembles of clothing which they,for the critique one student at a time, pin to their drawn likenesses.

Always fun, always descriptive, always interesting. I you tubed it for better size.

Authors are:Hangoma Atiquillo, Samantha Battaglia, Jack Candish, Jeffrey Davison, Siobhan Gallagher, Lily Grimbly, Brennan Heskamp, Clair Hipditch, Elysha Klaiman, Angelina Kuhn, Riki Lockwood, Phillip Malysh, Laura Phillips, Stephane Sinclair-Fortin, Jennifer Tompkins, Louis Susara.

2009-04-07T13:27:00.001-03:00

A cold wet stormy day,

as above so berlow.

2009-04-01T17:38:00.002-03:00

I had to cut a bird out of a piece of sculpture.

2009-03-25T15:36:00.000-03:00

More or less done " The Big Poo"

2009-03-25T12:21:00.002-03:00

Fine tuning things takes a lot of time for me, like finish carpentry when building a house, that is the stuff that eats hours.

2009-03-21T13:44:00.003-03:00

The third panel of the now named " The Big Poo",named by an old friend and artist, Jim Hansen , is pretty well sorted out, now I will go back into them all and ratchet them up.

2009-03-08T17:28:00.000-03:00

I will let this panel sit for awhile and move onto panel #3

2009-03-08T09:11:00.003-03:00

Though winter is wearing on it never ceases to be occasionally pretty .

2009-03-07T16:16:00.000-04:00

A good studio day

2009-03-06T15:15:00.006-04:00

Into town today for some Groceries and a salad at a pleasant little local restaurant.

As I began my salad and a new to me analytic psychology book, looking forward to savouring both, a swarm of jocular lawyers settled at a large table beside me.

I had forgotten my earplugs!

I struggled through a few pages of my book , woofing my salad, leaving early yet not before gleaning an important and pivotal bit of information.

Apparently , in the United States a "Beware Of Dog" sign on ones property is an admission of harbouring a dangerous canine making one more legally culpable in the event of a dog biting a human.

I have on my property the same sign with the D and G interchanged.

I am deeply concerned that if I have , for instance, a visit from a group of travelling proselytizer's and one or all are smote by lightning might I be held responsible?

2009-03-06T09:42:00.002-04:00

2009-03-04T11:22:00.002-04:00

Sharpening my chain saw in front of panel #2

2009-03-01T16:22:00.001-04:00

Beauty is not bounded by banality or grandeur.

2009-02-24T13:10:00.001-04:00

A fellow artist pointed out that his thong was down but the tights were not, potentially yukky for a superhero.

2009-02-14T11:38:00.005-04:00

Happy Valentines Day

2009-02-11T17:09:00.002-04:00

The beginnings of a new group, I think.

2009-02-11T09:16:00.000-04:00

2009-02-07T18:18:00.002-04:00

Tigger found a sunbeam.

2009-02-07T18:13:00.003-04:00

I am gradually completing bits and pieces of the " Narcissus and Echo " Painting.

Perhaps in a month and a half It will be complete. Or perhaps in two years.

Or not.

2009-02-04T10:45:00.001-04:00

"Stupid sunflower seeds, stupid birds, stupid winter!"

2009-02-03T16:18:00.001-04:00

Man, it is still coming!

2009-02-03T14:52:00.003-04:00

Crap , another snow storm!

2009-02-01T20:36:00.003-04:00

Moments of Reflection

2009-02-01T18:10:00.002-04:00

I am picking away at the 9'x 18 ' Narcissus/Echo/Anima on a Horse painting. I make my decisions as if they are logical and rational, aesthetically and intellectually driven according to fine upstanding concepts of composition , good drawing and painting but that is really horsesh*t.

No matter what marks we make we are telling our story, and our stories are not static,not only of ourselves, also of our society embedded within, always a work in progress.

2009-02-01T14:35:00.003-04:00

Feeling the pinch of winter, doubting global wishful thinking, feeling the pull of the rainforest where I can doff the heavy carapace of my northern climate and culture, "My bags are packed and I'm ready to go."

Not!

2009-01-17T16:44:00.003-04:00

An Anima riding across a new Painting

2009-01-17T15:03:00.005-04:00

I bring the girls in for a few moments on cold mornings to make sure they are fine.

Well,,,actually I bring them in for a few moments every day, otherwise I would be completely self absorbed.

Pansy dropped her black beads amidst the raisins and pumpkin seeds I throw on the floor for them.

That confused the party.

It seems a metaphor for something, perhaps Christ getting pissed at the money lenders in the temple. When the marketplace gets embedded in the temple then few go for the raisins.

I throw out dried cat food for the ravens. When a goat has a crap amidst their feeding ground it throws them into confusion.

Or perhaps a cigar is just a cigar. Do christians prefer to be sheep, never goats?

Do they do need goats to scape upon?

2009-01-16T09:07:00.001-04:00

Pansy wrming up in front of the stove , Peony looking for the last raisin.

It is a very cool morning.

2009-01-02T11:39:00.002-04:00

Sorry,,,are you OK?

2009-01-01T13:26:00.005-04:00

Home from the City after bringing in the New Year with someone dear.

2008-12-30T08:59:00.003-04:00

I started these images in Xalapa in 1993 and

finished it around 1996 or so in Canada

2008-12-27T15:18:00.004-04:00

More snow coming in.

2008-12-25T15:24:00.003-04:00

Home for the "Merry/Happy day" Jesse made some music in the Chaos Boat.

2008-12-25T10:42:00.008-04:00

More of my son's work

2008-12-25T10:31:00.002-04:00

Jesse's cast garlic

2008-12-24T15:31:00.004-04:00

An ancient Nordic God gave me a visit.

2008-12-20T12:15:00.002-04:00

The girls are in the studio for a quick cold December warm up

2008-12-13T15:44:00.004-04:00

Some, most pieces get shown just a few times, if at all, then are left behind , in different provinces, different fields, different dumps. These and a few others from 30 years ago I still have.

2008-12-13T11:29:00.008-04:00

The thing about being a visual artist is the solitary nature of the discipline.Playing music and teaching ameliorates this somewhat. Here are some pics of my studio, my steel.

2008-12-09T14:08:00.007-04:00

Pam Paton, a wonderful Canadian Percussionist/Marimba player with whom I had the opportunity to accompany at times, came to my studio one day and percussed my steel. It was fun.

Transparencies, Drawing class , fall 2008

2008-12-09T08:34:00.015-04:00

Each term I do a transparency drawing project which we translate into further projects. The initial drawings, that is everyone draws everyone else, is always fun, a real party favourite, and very beautiful!

Artists are: Jessica Conrod , Alex Cooney, Daniel Gaudry, Brandie Ingraham, Maureen Kay, Lara Lutsenko, Laura Roy, Kate Stinson, Elise Troister, Katie Vautour, Sara Webb and Hannah Guinan. This was a fine class, I learned a lot. I uploaded this on you tube so you can go full screen there. Click on the Green Header above the video.

2008-12-07T17:06:00.001-04:00

Its now thirty five years since I drew this.

2008-12-07T16:51:00.003-04:00

Waffle Icon, I wonder if Carl liked waffles

2008-12-06T09:58:00.005-04:00

No, Descarte, No!

2008-12-05T11:34:00.003-04:00

Canada December 2008

2008-11-29T13:12:00.009-04:00

The single eyed welder and Narcissus

"Hands off, Embrace me not!

May I die before I give you power o'er me"

2008-11-22T10:35:00.011-04:00

2008-11-22T10:30:00.006-04:00

A one foot dump of snow, 1st of the winter.

The girls are not exuberant about this development.

2008-11-16T16:22:00.003-04:00

A gale came ashore.