from roes to randi...
After Roes for Your Toes came a series of several constructions in the form of painted, cut out silhouettes that featured family members.
The images are watercolour on paper. Each painting is under plexiglas and merge with wooden elements that are built 'in perspective'. This approach requires that a coherent viewing is possible from just one particular point. The subjects are Gill watering the garden; Ben & Ceridwen tobogganing; and me sanding a block of wood.
Following a move to North Bay (1974), new work referenced the grandly-named Canadian Saw Company. It was housed in a large shed where owner/operator Elmer Carkner sharpened saws of all sizes and types. I went to see him because the only hand saw I owned needed attention. But it turned out to be Elmer's occupation sparked my imagination.
Elmer sharpened and rebalanced large circular blades used in the lumber mills of northern Ontario. As sculptural objects, these saws were as fascinating to me as were Elmer's innovative ways of handling them.
These blades are very heavy with sharp edges and, to manoeuvre them, Elmer had constructed a variety of levers made from lengths of 2x4 lumber and sheets of plywood. On the first day, it was watching Elmer work and listening to him talk about his experiences that made me want to spend a lot more time in the Canadian Saw Company. Elmer's knowledge, patience and generosity became integral to me making water colour paintings, silk screen prints, a variety of works on canvas and paper and 3D works in sheet metal, wood and plexiglas.
After the Saw Series, my work continued on a representational path but with applications of colour that harkened back to my earlier abstract work. Focusing on the environment and materials of the Canadian Saw Company had reduced my palette to grey, brown, silver and blue. I decided that it was time to rediscover colour. As a result, the new paintings were less literal in the application of colour. The scenes also featured translucent, spray-painted 'frames' evocative of camera viewfinders and the off-centre placement of a frame within the scene disrupted compositional balance and implied movement across the picture plane.
The next series, At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners - a phrase borrowed from poet John Donne - became the title of a solo exhibit where the composition of each painting suggested a corner: a meeting place where disparate images can exist side by side in space and on three adjacent planes.
Finally, a featured visiting act to the North Bay Arts Festival, James 'The Amazing' Randi, found me featuring him in a series of drawings and paintings. In these works, and by implication, Randi accompanied me as I documented people and places from North Bay to Cape Breton. James Randi escaping from a straight jacket while hanging upside down became a visual thread that connected time, space, ideas, images and media.
The images are watercolour on paper. Each painting is under plexiglas and merge with wooden elements that are built 'in perspective'. This approach requires that a coherent viewing is possible from just one particular point. The subjects are Gill watering the garden; Ben & Ceridwen tobogganing; and me sanding a block of wood.
Following a move to North Bay (1974), new work referenced the grandly-named Canadian Saw Company. It was housed in a large shed where owner/operator Elmer Carkner sharpened saws of all sizes and types. I went to see him because the only hand saw I owned needed attention. But it turned out to be Elmer's occupation sparked my imagination.
Elmer sharpened and rebalanced large circular blades used in the lumber mills of northern Ontario. As sculptural objects, these saws were as fascinating to me as were Elmer's innovative ways of handling them.
These blades are very heavy with sharp edges and, to manoeuvre them, Elmer had constructed a variety of levers made from lengths of 2x4 lumber and sheets of plywood. On the first day, it was watching Elmer work and listening to him talk about his experiences that made me want to spend a lot more time in the Canadian Saw Company. Elmer's knowledge, patience and generosity became integral to me making water colour paintings, silk screen prints, a variety of works on canvas and paper and 3D works in sheet metal, wood and plexiglas.
After the Saw Series, my work continued on a representational path but with applications of colour that harkened back to my earlier abstract work. Focusing on the environment and materials of the Canadian Saw Company had reduced my palette to grey, brown, silver and blue. I decided that it was time to rediscover colour. As a result, the new paintings were less literal in the application of colour. The scenes also featured translucent, spray-painted 'frames' evocative of camera viewfinders and the off-centre placement of a frame within the scene disrupted compositional balance and implied movement across the picture plane.
The next series, At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners - a phrase borrowed from poet John Donne - became the title of a solo exhibit where the composition of each painting suggested a corner: a meeting place where disparate images can exist side by side in space and on three adjacent planes.
Finally, a featured visiting act to the North Bay Arts Festival, James 'The Amazing' Randi, found me featuring him in a series of drawings and paintings. In these works, and by implication, Randi accompanied me as I documented people and places from North Bay to Cape Breton. James Randi escaping from a straight jacket while hanging upside down became a visual thread that connected time, space, ideas, images and media.