Christmas Card from Walters Falls

now that winter seems to be here to stay
having finished shovelling and blowing the lane
I sat down  to look at a painting outside
it reminded me of ice fishing

equinox

today

among the snow bombs

deer in evidence 

close to the house

an open spring 
a distillation

of recollection

of imagination

in transition

between 

dimensions

cross fade

still

a number of paintings 

in their interaction describe

a place in perception wherein

the peripheral of vision 

discribes

different realms  

intersecting 

at right angles 

vaporized 

as the earths crust 

ignites in the 

change of state 

from solid to lava

molten shell cools around

solid surface remnant

containing

bacteria

and RNA 

in prion form

like a 

message in a bottle

Video: Kenny Baldwin at Peter Beckett Gallery 2008

Recollections from my “Accidental” Art Gallery– 2007-2008

 I had no intention of opening an art gallery. It began as a one month solo exhibition. The Leftside Gallery was  well suited to exhibiting large paintings, Unlike stage actors, painters are usually a few steps removed from their audience so I decided to start paying the rent to see what would happen.

Observations: Cultural Anthropology and

Field Notes, Winter 2008

My initial exhibition included paintings and artifacts that related to sailing and wooden boat building –I had been living aboard a wooden ketch on Martha’s Vineyard during the previous winter.   The work in the windows has more to do with free-jazz and the winter landscape but for some reason the art gallery still attracts a disproportionate number of sailboat enthusiasts. Perhaps it’s their spirit of adventure.

I had been doing  free-jazz-painting collaboration in the gallery with Kenny Baldwin and Roger Martindill. I went to art school with Roger.  Kenny played music with Graham Caughtry – who was one of my favorite Canadian abstract painters from the 60s– so we were all familiar with improvisation in both languages. Some of the paintings were continued outside in the woods to include quieter voices. These paintings were the basis of the final exhibition which ran until March 15th 2008.

WinterJazzLandscapes 66 x 80 in.




















"To have a jazz trio rehearsing in the gallery on Friday afternoons

was a pleasure. It reminds me of my artist-in-residence days in Santa Fe– painting with piano and opera soloists rehearsing next door."

.

art supplies
collaboration
and a birthday
in Blississauga

November 19th

Reverberation

re. the chorus of the universe

of course there is an orchestral conductor 

but no, not the entity, 

but rather 

the cumulative simplicity of 

the laws of physics

from the swaying trees 

into the wild gestures of their extremities

of course i'm at odds with the pulse of the 

designer mainstream -group- think -consumers

turning their backs on 

the rhythms of nature- 

having erroneously assumed 

dominion over nature 

denying a connection 

to that which you oppress 

being "natural"

what bad habits of logic 

you humans have acquired, 

said the Orca, 

shaking her head- slowly 

in comparison with 

the beating wings of a 

humming bird

their hearts of course

beating 

to the rhythm of 

the task at hand

and that's why

ballerinas are advised against 

driving

November 17th

new MVfluid dynamics
of multi-dimensional plaid 
48 x 66 photo to follow

as the bare branches 

shake the last of the 

seeds free to 
hit the metal roof

so chickadees and nut hatches

can help with the planting

and swaying in the wind 
 rattling twigs 

sing a rhythm

outside of time

dancing the transition

fragrant heart-wood 
drying in

recollection of

a hundred summers

into letters to a young poet

in case a listener is waiting 

in the wings

two dozen curious 

wild turkeys

started in the lane while 

i was loading slabs on the truck

and stuck around to supervise 

hanging the blade on tractor #2

and

in moonlight 

the howling

returned

Nov 16th

while driving around

through the eye of the storm

with cainsaws cables and winches

i took down  dangerous trees

for the safety and the challenge

at Baldwin's and the McGee's

Nov 15th-2013

Under  the Coyote Moon
36 x 60 in.

the distant song 

in the moonlit calm

after weeks of blowing 

snow and rain

the lumber stacked 

with care and strain

prepared again 

for winter 

November 9th, 2013

the sounds of 
things 

falling

leaves and keys

and branches and trees

in the sounds of rain

as it shifts back and forth 

from water to ice

as the lumber falls into

layers of species 

and dimensions

finally under

cover woven

in the race against

snow another

permutation of

multidimensional

plaid overseen by 

chipmunks and 

chickadees

nov 1-13

His grandmother said' " let me see your hands"… then snorted,

"you haven't done an honest days work in your life"

the value of contrast; 

to find your self 

giving 

your head 
a shake

the pleasure of work         

which arrives

when it's over

but when, the work is out-of step 

with the main stream dream

like air-drying the trees 

that have succumbed to

the changing and 

doing one's best to be

filling the forest's dreams
for example,

one might wonder 

if a Sitka spruce

bound by imagination

over-looking the Pacific might be

longing to be a mast on a sailing ship or to

travel the world with a view from the 

top a guitar
but, closer to home
if the red elm that died of thirst
becomes the rail of a boat under sail
and crosses an ocean to a continent that
was once connected
is that not a 
transcendence of time?

having accomplished a string of physical necessities…

chain saw gaskets and carb kits

brakes,  a "U" joint,  and snow tires

tractor hydraulics and batteries….

Eric and his sawmill finally rolled in the lane

in a confluence of lucky accidents

a number of treasures that have been 
languishing here since I arrived

thirty years ago have stepped forward 
to be part of this

on-site sustainable harvest... 

milling, air drying and

imagining what the 

wood might like to be. 

fifteen 7' aluminum 2"x"6 extrusions

lay on the gravel, graded with the blade

that came with the second 

seventy-five year old tractor

to be covered with the galvanized

industrial roof steel off-cuts

portable sawmill days,  Oct 29 and 30-2013

Sawmill Day

after weeks of rain

anticipating the second

sawmill day 

the magnificent elm

offers bulwarks to 

the Seawind.

the Ash,

strapping for the 

tractor shed

and table tops and beams

and dreams live

in the live-edge Cherry

Grass Roots Forest Management, Day Two;

Tractor #1 one 

dragged the trees with-in reach 

of the mill's hydraulic arms

the set-up worked

in a sequence to 

fill the improvised skids and 

to allow an escape route

the "character" logs -

the figured and the spalted

were left to the end

three of us ,

our senses honed through anticipation

to into focused collaboration of

an improvisation dance, so

what if  dance 

is a bridge back to

some timeless necessities

and the maple that was sprouting

fall Oyster Mushrooms when

i went looking for some

"dirty" wood were eaten that night 

( spagetti recipe )

my arms are remembering working

in a pleasant harmony of

tingles, numbness and pain

after a day of  grading, 

loading and stacking

in the wind and rain 

the last log 

a maple that has stood

too near the back corner of the studio

knowing for thirty years that 

it was  destined to go

farther a field than

firewood

the other two pieces were quickly cut and 

dragged down the lane with unanimity

at the end of a very long day

changing season

oct 21 -13
Swaying trees and

the sounds of rain

falling leaves in

a gust of wind

the Beech leaves 

more orange/brown 

than the school bus and green 

of the Maples

The weather today reminds me of a visit to Belgium in winter.

The Beech leaves 

that cling through the winter 

rattle a familiar 

recalcitrance 

to the 

cross-country skier

One of the benefits of the computer's page of thumb-nails; 

the documents of paintings evolving

falls within the context of the surroundings.

Time,  the spiralling outward of the seasons

and the gathering of experience as opposed to the 

chronological ticking of mortality.

One of the benefits of difficulty reading,

juxtaposed experience

becomes the source of opinion

collaboration, 

more familiar to musicians than to painters

brings the structures of bridges to mind

thirty paintings camping out

I'm going to go out to see 

if any of them

are playin' tunes

from forest studio tour weekend to blowing snow