SO YOU WANT TO BE AN ARTIST, EH!

I'm impatiently awaiting spring. It's not that I don't have a lot to do, and, if I wished, could add to my long list of things that need being done. It's just that I recently decided to put a number of projects on the back burner, and gamble that I'm still in good health next winter when I might have the time and energy to possibly complete these projects. You see, I've decided to get back to doing some sketching, and painting, resume the artist thing so to speak. These past couple of years I set aside actually making art to do some writing. Now, after writing and publishing 10 books, I think that it's time to get back to my passion for making art, after all this is what I left a fairly successful profession to do some years back. About this, I had hoped to become a respected person in the art community, but had to settle for just being a run of the mill artist. You see, this thing about becoming a recognized artist, especially in Canada, is a highly political thing. You've no doubt heard the saying, "it's not what you know, but who you know" that leads to success. Well, it's very true. It's as I explained to a talented young photographer recently who is searching for a means of recognition.....

There are three approaches to making art:-

ONE

Have fun, treat the making of art as a social hobby. Join a club of like minded individuals, and exhibit periodically creating an outlet for your ego. Realize, however, that association with amateurs destroys all possibility of academic recognition. 

TWO

Make art commercially. Carve out a niche market and create product. Academic recognition is overshadowed by the commercial aspect of your art. Expect to receive no support from friends and family, and to struggle to make a living throughout your entire career as an artist.

THREE

Study art. Become an academic. Pursue acceptance by making art for “art’s sake” having a bent towards historical significance.  Associate with local academics, but only to create contacts as most local academics associated with local endeavours, are for the most part failed artists, and or art teachers. Also, enter national competitions,  pursue project grants through the various Art Councils, and most of all expect to never be recognized in your lifetime.

I also thought it necessary to point out that there is nothing romantic about making art. The romance of art only exists in the minds of history teachers, and in historical publications written by failed artists, and academics. Art is all about frustration, disappointment, and an insane need to express one’s self. 

Now, some might take exception to what I'm about to say, but during my 35 years spent working at becoming an artist I personally knew a lot of artists, really good artists. With but a very few exceptions, however, none made a decent living, and most were dependant upon support from a relative, patron, or worked part-time at something other than art.

There's a lot of art being made in Canada, mostly by amateurs influenced by romantic notion spewed by academics writing endless books dealing with the life and times of the Group of Seven, Tom Thomson, and their contemporaries. Somehow, if one wishes to be an artist here in Canada, one must turn a blind eye/ear to the romance and just get on with it, believing that there is relevance to what you're doing, and that perhaps, just perhaps, long after you've departed someone might understand and appreciate your efforts.

The Artist  

What if

one day

having grown old with not much left 

you discover that  your life had been,

ill spent,

wasted,

on an impossible dream?

How would you feel?

How would you respond?

Would you be upset?

Would you be sad?

Would you waste time feeling bad?

Would you be ashamed,

embarrassed,

realizing that others knew,

but didn’t share

what everyone knew?

Or,

Would you continue the impossible dream, and

and continue to live the life of a fool,

believing

fullfillment

after your death?

(Does it matter?)

EAS 

MARCH 2018

There comes this time each year, between winter and spring, when we look forward to summer with anticipation, but the winter seem to drag on slow to let go, and allow the warmth of spring to take over. It's a time of frustration, there's not enough snow to ski, the ice is too thin to skate, and the ground is still frozen preventing the spring garden cleanup. I, however, don't really mind, at least no more being ancient in the eyes of some, so I read, plan, write, and sometimes go out and make a sketch, or two.

Winter Be Gone

I went sketching the other day,

not far,

a few blocks away.

I walked down the street to Seventh and Ottawa,

and stood on the corner gazing out onto the Bay.

Although late into March,

winter

with all of its cold,

lingers, 

laughing at spring. 

Balancing pencil and paper

I began a quick sketch, 

while standing 

high up on the hill, 

looking out on the Bay,

all frozen and white.

My fingers are soon frozen and numb.

I’m dreaming of summer,

yearning for green,

and warmth for my bones.

A robin came early,

its song so forlorn.

No doubt it’s wishing,

winter be gone.

I finish my sketch,

hands in my pockets, 

I hurry on home 

wishing,

also,

winter be gone.

EAS

The Bay - Midland Harbour    Pencil Sketch

Read "The Sixth Extinction" by Elizabeth Kolbert

Finally, I understand.

So, the other night I was watching an interview with Stephen Hawking who, when asked the future of mankind on planet Earth, hinted that our future lies in the stars.

A recent article/ news release by the organization IPBES would tend to back up this opinion.

https://www.ipbes.net/news/media-release-worsening-worldwide-land-degradation-now-‘critical’-undermining-well-being-32

So, I’m beginning to understand the rush by NASA, Elon Musk, and several nations, to leave Earth as soon as possible. I really don’t like the idea that Elon Musk is using us to finance his  dream through the promotion and production of electric vehicles, etc, but I’m beginning to understand that global warming is only a part of our problem, and that before things get chaotic it might be best to catch a rocket to Mars…even if it’s a one way ticket.

It’s sad when you stop and think about it. All that we have to do is make having children a privilege, instead of a right, and we might save this lonely blue planet. Of course this would stand in the way of the righteous who welcome Armegedon as a means of getting to God knows where.

Now, I’m what younger persons would call ancient, so why should I be concerned what hppens in the next few years? I suppose that I’ve become accustomed to this place, compounded by the fact that a one way ticket to the stars will not be offered to the likes of me, nor will it be offered to any who might read this article, including their children, and the children of their children. I’m afraid that it’s going to get a bit messy here on planet Earth, unless there’s a great deal of personal sacrifice, which we know isn’t going to happen.

So, to steal a line from song in the film The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “So long and thanks for all the fish”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_dUmDBfp6k

 History, if we’re to leave some record, will reveal that we were the shortest lived species on planet Earth, and we will have the distinction of being the only one that deliberately caused their own extinction.

We, of course, won't be alone as we become extinct. First to go will probably be some of the following species, their habitat destroyed in mankind's scramble to survive.

Drake Bufflehead Duck    Watercolour Study

Barred Owl     Etching

Mates - Canada Geese  Watercolour Painting

Drake Wood Duck  watercolour Painting

Stormy Sky - Canada Geese    Watercolour Painting

Spooked - Drake Mallard              Watercolour Painting

LIFE EVERLASTING

Stephen Hawking, 

theoretical physicist and cosmologist, 

died on March 14th, 2018.

WHAT IF? 

      What would have happened

            If I had turned left, 

instead of right, 

   If I had run,

    instead of walked, 

         If I had said no,

instead of yes,

                         If I had never been born,

Would the world exist?

Over coffee at Timmy’s George was metioning that he had a dream the other night. In it he was hurrying to catch a plane. He wasn’t in a terminal running to the boarding gate, no, it was about his acquiring an illusive ticket. It was one of the nightmarish dreams that he experiences from time to time, a dream where he finds himself searching for his car, or is lost on streets that seem to go nowhere. The dreams always end with his surrendering to the fact that he’s never going to get to where it is he wants to go, and he wakes up. He went on to say that the dreams themselves were not important, it was the fact that the characters that he meets in his dreams are known to him, which is fine, but they’re, most always, deceased persons, and it’s the fact that he engages in conversation, sensible, meaningful, conversations with these people that’s troubling. It’s as if he's a part of the dream, actually exist in that time frame, and is always searching for something illusive that is just beyond his reach. As he was looking a bit down, and as he was obviously concerned about the meaning behind his dreams, I told him about a program that I’d watched on BBC television station where a cosmologist had discussed the multiverse, a cosmos in which there are multiple universes. And by multiple, they mean an infinite number. These uncountable realms sit side by side in higher dimensions that our senses are incapable of perceiving directly. George, who’s not up on these things, looked even more concerned. I explained that our dreams might be a portal into a multiverse, parallel worlds, where we carry on, and live an infinite number of lives. I tried to explain that  everytime that we make a decision, say to go left instead of right, we split into two, and the result is a parallel universe where both lives play out in real life, experiencing what might have happened had we turned right. In doing so, over the course of a lifetime having made many decisions of this nature, we exist in an infinite number of universes. Of course, we’re only conscious of one universe, and although we might die in one of these universes, our counterparts continue to exist. Life everlasting? George looked at me with a blank expression, drank the last of his coffee, and without saying goodbye, got up, and went home. I watched through the coffee shop window as he walked down the street. I couldn’t help but notice that at the end of the street George paused, and rather than turn right as he normally would have, he turned left and took the long way home.

Drake Wood Ducks   Watercolour Painting

Global Warming Solved?

I find, despite my probably not being around to experience serious weather problems attributable to global warming, that I'm interested in the struggles of politicians to convince their constituents of its reality, and the need for immediate action. Most of us believe that there is a problem, but apart from sorting out our garbage, few are willing to make a personal sacrifice to their way of life. A carbon tax is now the big thing. Tax fossil fuels to the point that such things as driving a car, heating your home, and running your appliances on electrical sources fuelled by fossil fuels, becomes so expensive as to force consumers to buy into green energy.

In Canada the carbon tax debate is heating up with several of the provinces opposed. I personally don’t see that it will work. It's proposed that all of us will be taxed by the federal government, and then the federal government will give the tax back to the provinces to be used to fund technology designed to fight global warming. I question whether it will work  as it would seem to me to weaken, or limit, any solution that might exist. In my mind, however, there really exists no solution, save the obvious, and this involves a social change of global magnitude, which would never find acceptance by the major religions, and that is population control. Everyone seems to think that if we bring the CO2 emissions under control, and come up with a clean energy source, that everything will be hunky dory. It’s a dream at best. It may work for a few days, but an ever increasing population will so strain green energy, that within a few decades the problem will be back on the table. Already, sources of potable water are at a crisis level, food supplies are dwindling, and we continued to compete with rabbits for bragging rights to breeding. 

 It would seem that humans are flawed when it comes to accepting the obvious. Perhaps, it’s this thing about everlasting life, perpetuating the species, or in the case of governments and various religions, the creation of power, armies, through an ever increasing population. We  humans are much like an untreatable virus, a virus that must run its course until it destroys its host, which in our case is the environment in which we thrive.

We'll see, won't we?

So, after this rant, it's probably time now for a little art.

In putting together another book I came across a box of tracings, and drawings, that I used to make my etchings and paintings. To explain, I used tracing paper to save the parts of drawings that appeared to be correct, transferring these parts to another sheet of paper to be worked upon further, until I arrived at a point where they could be transferred to a metal plate, or sheet of watercolour paper to make a composition. I prefer this method to the use of an eraser. I would also point out that it was necessary to produce detailed linear drawings. If one paints with oil or acrylic mistakes are easily worked over. However, mistakes are unforgivable when making an etching or painting with watercolour.

 Bufflehead Ducks

Drake Bufflehead Duck

Drake Mallards

Drake Wood Duck

Drake Wood Duck

Drake Mallard

Mallards Landing

Drake Pintail

LIFE Part II

Life Part II

I’ve given it some more thought; there really is no purpose for our lives as individuals. There it is, and if you don’t believe me, how many of you remember Valentine Mohan, Onesime Saulmier, or the contribution to the future provided by Corporal Dubreille while stationed in New France. I’ll bet that you’re all shaking your heads, and that no one remembers. And why should you? Their actions, or lack thereof, never touched you personally, or did they? You see, if there’s a purpose to our lives it’s that collectively, unknowingly, our actions significant, or insignificant, alter the future of mankind, on all life on this planet actually. So our value, the value of our lives, of life, is not as individuals, but collectively , which leads to the question of the purpose of the collective? Is the purpose of the collective to ensure the survival of mankind, and if so for what purpose? Sir Isaac Newton once stated that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The collective thought therefore is in perpetual motion. Makes sense, but it still doesn’t answer the reason for life, for our living and dying? Is it all for naught?

Since I was getting nowhere with my thinking on this subject I decided to ask my good friend George what he thought. We met at the local MacDonalds. Normally we would have met at Timmy’s, but MacDonalds was having a special on their coffee, any size specialty coffee for a dollar. So MacDonalds it was. Between sips of a double-double I asked George his opinion about the purpose of life, and whether he thought that there was a hereafter, life everlasting so to speak. George isn’t known for being wordy. Generally his replies to questions are limited to grunts and guffaws unless really pressed, and then he may commit to a yes, or no. Today, however, he actually perked up at the question and replied that he didn’t really know, but he’d been giving it a lot of thought lately, especially after watching the Alien film series on one of the late nght channels. I was amazed when George went on to explain that he believed, after watching the first Alien film starring Sigourney Weaver, that planet Earth was a prison planet, and that we, or at least our ancestors were dangerous Aliens abandoned by a superior species on this isolated planet we call home, and that our purpose was simply to evolve and collectively determine a way to escape, and find our way to our real home. He went on to explain that it all made sense considering that our species was a violent, dangerous, species, that no doubt needed to be isolated for fear of infecting and destroying the paradise inhabited by the superior race that had abandoned us eons ago. George explained that the evidence was all there. Consider that killing one another has been honed to a science, and that we do so with no real remorse. Elon Musk, NASA, and the urgent need to create artificial intelligence, George pointed out, were obvious examples of our goal to escape, as he called it, " this prison planet.” I was flabbergasted! George rarely carried on about anything, and here he was talking loudly and gesturing wildy with his arms, and hammering the table with his fists to make a point. George explained that the reason that we had never been visited by so called alien visitors, or been able to make contact with other worlds, is that they’d all been warned about us, and besides we were abandoned in a remote corner of an insignificant galaxy, hidden away so to speak. With that George sighed and sank a bit into his seat and returned to being “quiet George.” We finished our coffee in relative silence, shook hands promising to meet again soon to solve the world’s problems, and he went one way, and I went another. Interesting, I thought. Perhaps, there’s something in what George said. Maybe this is a prison planet? Maybe we’re not meant to leave? Maybe beyond devising a way to leave there is no purpose to life, at least to our individual lives? Maybe we dreamed up the theory of a heaven and everlasting life to simply give purpose to living? So much, I thought for talking with George, as I’m just as confused as ever.

George and I never again met for coffee. Sadly, having tired of watching Alien movies he went on to watch movies made from the Marvel Comic series, and got caught up with acting out the various characters. Spider Man, and tall buildings, proved to be George’s downfall, literally!

Okay, so I'm having fun with you regarding George, and his fascination with Spider Man. But as for my confusion, not really, as I'm convinced that, although there is an answer, It's not for us to know. So, if you're able, enjoy your life as much as possible as we're allowed only one ride on this merry-go-round.

Now, getting back to art for the moment, just to let you know, I'm now working on another book. This one is an attempt to share some of the wildlife drawings and paintings and experiences making wildlife art over the years. It promises to be awhile before it's finished, and like the last book it promises to be expensive to purchase. This is why when I publish on Blurb I take advantage of the ability to produce a PDF (copy) book. The PDF sells for approximately $5.00 U.S., and oh yes, I should point out that I'm not attempting to sell the book as I receive no royalties from their sale. I make books simply as a means to archive my art and experiences,....and to share with persons such as yourself. Hopefully, by doing so I'm acting out one of the reasons for my being.... here.

Blue Jay  Watercolour Painting
One of my first wildlife paintings

Scaup   Hand-coloured Etching

Mallards, Caught Napping - Hand-coloured Etching

Mates (Canada Geese)   logo design   Graphite Drawing

  

LIFE

I’m old, growing older, and have time to think. 

This morning my wife killed our chlorophytum comosum, our spider plant for those of you not familiar with the latin. She salvaged a plantlet, and put it in water. It’ll grow roots, and when it does it can be planted in soil and continue to grow, a clone if you would of the original plant, the original of which began generations ago. Life everlasting as long as we continue to harvest and plant the plantlets. It got me to thinking about “life everlasting”, and the purpose of life itself.

I suppose that if you are a member of one of the major religions you probably believe that there is a purpose for life, for our living, suffering, and dying. It’s beyond my thinking, but if you’re a Christian then you believe in "life everlasting”, and resurrection. As I mentioned it’s beyond me, our purpose. Perhaps, it’s all about the continuation of species, procreation, we’re born, we grow, mature, become sexually active, have children, raise our children, then (we’re suppose to) die. Unfortunately, most of us, unlike many species after procreating, don’t die, we continue to take up space, amuse ourselves, become bored, then die. Death is feared. Probably, because we don’t trust that we will be resurrected, but then who really wants to be resurrected? For what purpose? Even if we were reserected and wen up to Heaven, what then? In my mind it still hasn’t answered the question, “what is the purpose of life?” 

Of late, well actually I always have had, realistic dreams. You know, those kind of dreams where you visit a place not familiar, but realistic, where you interact with individuals who live in your dream. I mentioned that I’m old, and growing older, so it’s not unusual to actually think that there may be something else, and that maybe my dreams are foretelling. Eienstein believed in a multiverse where we exist in infinite worlds. Perhaps, this is “life everlasting?”

Of course, I’ll never know, nor will any of us, as parallel worlds never cross.

Still haven’t come up with a reason for the purpose of life. I’ll continue thinking……..

Oh yes, the reason that I'm here, so to speak, is to tell you that I finished, and published, Part II of my book, "My Painting Places - Algonquin Provincial Park." Hard slogging, 242 pages, and a couple of hundred images. Should you wish to review a portion of the book follow this link:-

http://www.blurb.ca/b/8580825-my-painting-places-algonquin-provincial-park-part