This was the scene a few days ago at the Nanaimo Art Gallery in - just as you would expect - beautiful downtown Nanaimo BC Canada. The occasion was the opening for a group show opened called "Art and the Message". I had been invited to participate and I was very happy to offer up for the occasion, four of my favourite freudian slips.

Not all of the work I do as an artist is intended to have a 'message', even though text can be found reliably strewn about. Sometimes I am quite simply having the time of my life. Sometimes the message is meant for me, and viewers 'overhear' this conversation I am having with myself. At still other times, my feminism rears its strident little head and I clearly set out to make a statement. This one (below) represents all three of these conditions. You probably can't make it out, but the little note collaged onto the canvas bears the lyrics to Brenda Lee's "I'm sorry". I am sure he is.

still life imitating still life

I was preparing lunch yesterday when my compost container caught my eye. It was so beautiful an arrangement of vegetable waste, I thought for sure it had been created by an elf, or sprite. Perhaps the angel of everyday kitchen miracles. See for yourself.

Artist's Work Dazzles Critics

I have just been paid the highest compliment on record, as regards my ability to render. And I don't mean to reduce, convert or melt down fat. Nor do I mean to deliver or pronounce formally as in "the jury rendered its verdict". I am also not referring to rendering assistance, rendering thanks, or rendering an apology. It's not that I haven't rendered in all of these ways. I even served as a juror once. We found him not guilty in case you are wondering.

I mean render as in "to represent in a drawing or painting".
Let me explain.
I was busy in the studio yesterday evening when a great ruccous could be heard originating from the living room. I had just given my dog Rosie her all-time favorite treat in the entire universe: a green plastic ball into which a collection of tiny kibbles had been inserted. That's my job, inserting the kibbles. Rosie's job is to then move the ball about the house in as strategic a manner as possible, so as to eject the tiny morsels and make them available for her consumption. Sometimes the ball gets lodged under a piece of furniture or it rolls into a tight corner, at which point Rosie begins pleading her case in a very vocal way. It's a very specific, "Timmy's in the well" , "something's gone horribly wrong" kind of thing. So like the thoroughly-trained woman I am, I went in to render my assistance. What I found there is what you see below.
















Rosie is not visible in the photo because she was at the time, maintaining a generous margin of safety between herself and the offending other 'dog' who she believed was real enough to be a threat.

Now that's rendering.
And they said I couldn't draw.

The Blank Canvas

Well....here they are. A fresh batch of tabula rasa, or maybe the plural is rasai. I have a 3-person show coming up in June at Canada House Gallery in Banff and I am expected to provide 12 new canvases. Here they are, lined up nicely, posing for the camera. I suppose this could be considered the 'before' shot. Each one will undergo a makeover of sorts. It's always an exciting time for me since I don't know what I will do with them until I get started. I don't know what I will say to them, or - more importantly - what they will say to me. I suspect birds will be involved somehow. They are never very far away.
I've been thinking these days about the expression "having her work cut out for her". Apparently it goes back to the early 1600s and is connected to tailoring. So I guess it's true. Afterall, these canvases are cloth and somebody cut them out for me.

Canine Positioning System

This is me and my left hand, heading down the highway today with my CPS (canine positioning system) clearly working for me, scouting out road conditions from its location there on my dashboard. Sometimes the vibration (the ride in my 1985 Toyota Tercel leaves something to be desired) causes the little china figurine to slowly swing around so that occasionally the dog is looking at me and not the road ahead.
Oh well, it is a fairly primitive system which unlike the more precise GPS, doesn't have 24 to 32 satellites in medium earth orbit. Nor is there a Master Control Station, an Alternate Master Control Station, or a host of dedicated and shared Ground Antennas and Monitor Stations providing positioning, navigation and timing services to users on a continuous basis in all weather, day and night, anywhere on or near the Earth.
I like to think that my system involves the spirits of all the dogs big and small, biters and droolers alike, who have come and gone on this earth, and now enjoy their celestial retirement, offering casual guidance and road-side assistance to motorists who are open to receiving what they have to offer. I am someone who is. I take my help wherever I can get it.