From the Archives

The Old Saint
Mixed Media on Canvas
2009

I painted this last year for a friend who really loves art, collects art and is just a good all round guy.

It's an old spiritual man, a saint, listening to the whisperings of the spirits of the land. In Old Europe, Christianity was pretty much the only option for spiritual expression, so I really respect these old saints who tried to do what good they were able in their time. They were deep thinkers, clear writers, and really did their best to peer past the world we take for granted to understand the wonder that connects it all.

In front of him lies an illuminated manuscript. As Stephen King has said, telepathy exists and we call it books. We can literally read the minds of those who wrote their thoughts out for us.

I believe everyone has something to offer. The problem is we think we have to be experts or create the Most Amazing Thing Ever! If everyone who put themselves out there thought that, we'd live in a truly desolate creative landscape.

Whatever you have to give, give it now. There's no better day to offer your gift than today, and whether the audience is great or small doesn't matter. The truth is, whatever you do will pass through the years, through the generations and one day just might be the thing that changes someone's life. We can never know what it will be or when it will happen.

So just create!

Offer what you can.

And let it go.



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Miracles

Moon Song
9" x 6"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

Go into the wild. Don't let yourself be trapped by city lights like a deer in the middle of the road. Get out, get away, get free.

If we are separated from the land for too long we start to lose our true, wild selves in gray and steel. We lose our connection to the earth. That means that we lose our connection to nature and each other.

My sons asked if miracles happen.

We are surrounded by miracles!

In this endless universe we are the only conscious life we have ever known. This planet is a rare and precious thing, the only living planet we have seen! With telescopes we cast farther and farther, looking for a duplicate, a sister, to this Mother Earth.

There is none that we know of.

Every breath we take, every seed that grows, every new life - all are miracles.

Never doubt that you are special. Because we are each of us a part of billions we forget it. We forget because no one reminds us. I will remind you.

I will remind you that you are worth everything that has happened. Billions of years of stars and dust, lives lived, children born, all to make you. You are a gift.

You are a gift and have been given a gift so precious it only exists here on earth: life!

Life that knows it's alive!

We are the children of the universe, you and I. We are all connected.

Go into the wild. Press your bare feet against the soil and feel the heartbeat of your loving mother who provided such a special place for you to live. Remember how beautiful it all is. Forget dogma, forget hate, forget tribe and nation. Return to the wild and remember that we are a family and this is our home.

The lone wolf will return to it's pack. You have been alone too long. Come back to your family.

Come back.



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Revealed

By Fire and Storm Transformed
18" x 36"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

This piece is a commission for the Eagle Feather Gallery in Victoria, BC. It's from a personal story of someone who was touched by lightning. I thought about this painting for a very long time, hoping to find the right balance between the drama such an event would hold with the aftereffect it would have on someone's life.

I hope they enjoy it as much as I loved creating it.


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Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek of a piece I'm shipping off to the Eagle Feather Gallery in Victoria (I have a link for them on the sidebar). I don't normally go in for commissions as they tend to take me a very long time. This has to do with the fact that I'm not an art churning machine. Most of my work is a months long process. Add to that the desire to "get it right" and this can stretch out to half a year or even longer.

The only time it doesn't apply is when it's for a dear friend or family member and all the pressure is off.

But I'm very proud of this one and I hope whoever it's going to loves it as much as I do.


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You can't hit a target you can't see

Buffalo Woman
16" x 20"
Mixed Media on Art Board
2010

Sometimes I work with schools and kids and the message I try to leave is to have actual achievable goals. After you have a few achievable short term goals, then dream bigger than big. Dream ridiculously impossible stuff.

If you aim for the impossible, what you determine to be achievable changes and magnifies exponentially. You get way more out of life than you ever thought possible. If you look for average or normal, if you try to fit in with everyone else your life will be, well, normal. And that's not such a bad thing if it makes you happy. What I would suggest is that your life can be something truly special. You can think different, think larger, more encompassing. Make travel, adventure, service, and pure joy your every day experience. We have one shot at it, so why not go all the way?

Apply the miracle of your mind and the beauty of your heart to your life and see what the Creator can make happen.



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For My Wife When We're Apart -part2

Gateway of the Sun
9" x 12"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

I will fly to that star
Wings fall apart in the distance
Falling
Through to you
My gateway of the sun


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For My Wife When We're Apart -part1

Star Traveller
9" x 12"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

Travel to me through the stars
Send only your love
So you may find me
My heart is in a wide blue ocean
Waiting for your return

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A Gift to Honor Survivors. All Surviviors

Returning Home
30" x 40"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

I'm allowing free full sized download of this image. For those who need it you are welcome to it. Click here.

If you like any of my other work to purchase, it would be appreciated but is absolutely not necessary. This is my gift and now it's yours. Here's why:

This was painted for the survivors of the Canadian Residential School experience. For those who don't know, it was government policy to "kill the Indian" in children by taking them forcibly from their homes and transporting them to far away schools. These Schools were run primarily by religious organizations and many of the children were physically and sexually abused. They were forbidden to speak their own language and at the end of their experience were broken people with many unresolved emotional scars. My grandmother was one of them. This policy ended in the 1990's. Not the 1890's. The 1990's.

Every First Nations (Native) family has someone who was subjected to this purposeful abuse and the long ranging results are alcoholism, drug abuse, perpetuation of the abuse they suffered on the next generation, mental illness and so on.

Sometimes white society in Canada gets frustrated at the repetition of these facts. I guess it's a sort of "blame the victim" mentality and they wish Aboriginal people would just get over it. Of course, it is my most sincere wish that one day First Nations people heal and do get over the abuse.

But something that took hundreds of years to mess up probably won't be fixed overnight. It will take generations, and that's just the simple, unvarnished truth. White society should be outraged at their government. Locking someone in a room and allowing them to be molested by a man or woman of god for ten years might take more than an apology to make all right.

Anyway, it's kind of depressing information, I agree, so I'll leave you with the write up I created for this work.

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The idea for this painting was to communicate safety, security, a return to tradition and traditional teachings. In essence, it was to be about healing. I considered the challenge it represented and in an instant this image appeared to me. A tipi lit from within, offering sanctuary against winter’s chill. The warmth is so overpowering that it spills out through the skin, much like the glow of a person who has found a truth and lives by it, their own personal light shining out into the world offering hope to everyone. And better yet, there is a community here. No one is alone. In every home is a family, laughing, playing, dancing or praying. This is a good place to be.

Above the still and silent night hangs a full moon, lighting the way for travelers who are still out in the hills, showing them the way back to hearth and comfort. They carry burdens but will be able to put them down when their lonely journey ends. Watching over it all are the Aurora Borealis, our Northern Lights. Swaying, shining, the light of those who have gone before - our grandmothers and grandfathers - are holding hands, keeping the beat of the Round Dance. We watch this beautiful dance and are reminded of the old ways, the old teachings. We are reminded of our connection to heaven and earth, past and future. We are reminded to live here and now, in each other’s hearts.

Though the journey seems far, we are never alone. The spirits of the land surround us, the spirits of the sky watch over us, and the Great Spirit, our Creator, leads us to our greatest happiness. It’s hard to believe it when we are alone in the wilderness, but come home, be safe, be warm. Come home and rest. Come home at last, and heal.


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With thanks to Honor Walk: Residential School Healing


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From the Collection of the Artist

Caleoni
14" x 18"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

This was painted half in Hawaii and half in Canada. It was my first time being overseas and the experience of Oahu really touched me. My time there was very special for me and I came to understand something amazing. When I first arrived, I was struck by the sheer humidity of the air, the gentle feeling on my skin. As the days passed and I walked in the valleys and along the beaches, as I swam and soaked in the sun, I began to see the spirit of the land, the energy. I saw the underlying currents of the winds, the water, the rock and soil. The entire island came alive under my feet!

I couldn't delay. I bought paints, canvasses, supplies and sat in the hotel room every evening, painting away, the song of the island birds coming in through the vast windows.

I felt like a Black feathered Corvid out of my element and yet completely at home. A stranger in a strange and welcoming land.

My wife and I were talking about children, the possibility of a daughter. In that place of renewal and peace I imagined the child of our dreams, perhaps not this physical form represented, but I hope it captured the spiritual essence of what that child might be.

Since that time we have settled in at home and we are expecting a son. Perhaps that daughter is in the future, but for now, just knowing that a new little life is on it's way, feeling him dance and kick in her belly, fills me with a wonderful joy.


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Dull drums decline

Fleur-ish
Chalk Pastel on Paper
12"x 16"
2011

I know spring is months away, but I feel like I'm waking up a little early. I've been laying fallow for the past six weeks or so, seemingly unable to do anything art related. Create, ship, whatever. This week has seen a rejuvenation. I'm ready again.


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A New World Awakens

Seventh Fire
12" x 16"
Oil Pastel, Gold Leaf
on Paper
2011

Endless fields of snow. Cold with no relief. A darkness that weighs heavy and long. There are times in our lives when it feels as though everything we touch turns to dust and there is nothing good that is lasting and true. W all have our times of despair, where hope can find no foothold.

Then for no reason we can ever truly explain something changes. A spark lights up inside and re-ignites the fire of our vision, the heat that fuels our heart. We find that not only are we alive but we are strong. We are bright. We are perfect beings and the beauty of our souls light up the night like the sun.

We are the Seventh Fire and we are strong.


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A Prayer

Thunderherd
28" x 22"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

Where are my brothers?
Where is the thunder?
Where is the passing storm
that leaves destruction and new life
in it's wake?

They are gone
They are gone
Into the bosom of the Mother
Into the Mountain
They are gone

They will return

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Snow Snow Snow

Boreal Morning
12" x 16"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

Life in the North is a different kind of thing. Where I am, we are just on the verge of the Great White Expanse. In my journeys up to the Northwest Territories and throughout Northern Alberta there is one thing I've come to understand and appreciate.

They make them different up here. Like a Raven we'll caw and complain but in the end, we get to work. We live through the mountains of snow and ice, we help dig out our neighbours, we still do our jobs and take care of our families.

Sometimes we'll get that far away look, that thousand yard stare, and everyone who lives here knows what it's like to get that need to go, to leave to walk away into the wilderness and never come back. I think it's the balance we have to strike between our animal nature and the demands of a modern life.

Yes, it's cold, people die of exposure, tips of ears or fingers can freeze away if you get caught in it, but it's also our blessing. We don't flood, we don't shake, we just freeze. And the spring always comes. Is it possible that one day, after we've wrecked it enough that it will all change? Of course. Maybe one year it will freeze and it will stay frozen. It's happened before to this earth of ours, and it can happen again.

So we do what we must. We recycle, we eat less, we waste less. or at least we try. Will it be enough?

This vast wilderness is our home, and looking out at the mountains of snow I feel a soft calm. I don't know how, I don't know why, but I know without a doubt that everything will be fine. We may have our long dark night, but out of the dawn we'll see the distance, the puff of breath in the cold air, and at last the sunrise.


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They Will Return

Sleeping Buffalo (Tunnel Mountain)
12" x 16"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

This mountain can be found in Banff National Park - Alberta, Canada.

It's mostly known by another name: Tunnel Mountain

The story goes that when the buffalo where decimated by the newcomers, Mother Earth had compassion on the once great herds and took the remaining free buffalo and led them to the mountains. There she opened a way for them, allowing them to pass through into safety, and there they sleep, waiting for the day when they can roam free once again.

The mountain itself looks like a buffalo at rest and legend has it that when the mountain starts to move, the mighty herds will return to spread their thunder once again.


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Moon Shadows and Stuff

Solstice in the New World
18" x 24"
Mixed Media on Canvas
2010

This past December saw the Winter Solstice arrive with a bang: a full lunar eclipse. Here in Western Canada, it began before midnight and ended in the early morning hours. I stayed up to watch the event unfold, as did many others. We are far removed from the days when such phenomena were frightening and unexplained and that can lead us into a sense that such events are unimportant.

Just because we can explain a thing scientifically, however, does not mean that we understand it or that it is simply another event of slight interest only because it is remarked on by a few people on either side of the scientific or spiritual fringe.

In other words: just because you are not aware of the importance of an event doesn't mean it won't affect your life!

We live in a time where an astounding number of people are awakening to their own existence and seeing that there is a curable madness inherent in it. The sheer waste we produce, both physically and emotionally is changing the face of the planet. This solstice marks that awareness and even better, the will to do something about it.

Some people still believe that forcing others to their viewpoint will make for a better world for our children's children. Some people despair that nothing can be done anyway, so why get worked up about it? But some change themselves.

That's it. Some people change themselves.

It's really that simple. Behind all the fears, illusions, and defeats is one simple truth: to change the world, change yourself.

Speak more gently, speak your truth more clearly. Act in ways that are in keeping with your values. Like it or not, we are all responsible for the fate of our planet and for each other. We are all one tribe, one people, and turning our eyes away from the suffering our privileged lifestyles cause to our family in poorer countries only harms ourselves.

Be aware. That's how you change. Changing isn't a process of fighting yourself, of straining and stressing, it's simply awareness. Be aware and the change will come as naturally as breathing.

Be honest. Be aware.

As the Sun, Earth and moon aligned, so too can our thoughts, words and actions.

As the Solstice marked the end of the darkness, and as it was broken with the moon slipping out from shadow into light, so too can our lives be illuminated by the gift of awareness.

Solstice in the New World.

Pretty cool, huh?

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