Blog

What Adult Porcupines Say A long time ago I was working in a resort in Haliburton and the management there was kind enough to let myself and another employee make an inhouse magazine. We called in The Migrant Worker. It was a great deal of fun. I still have a few copies in a trunk somewhere. It was mostly satirical (ahead of it's time if I say so myself-see The Onion) and very much a poke at oursleves. The very first issue had a pilfered Far Side cartoon on the cover. It showed a living room with a couple of...

Dream Pages  As a boy growing up in Grimsby, I sometimes got my hands on my older brothers Field and Stream and Outdoor Life Magazines. I'd glance over the fishing articles and the tales from real life about escaping from the clutches of an angry grizzly. But it was in the back pages that I really dreamed. It was in the back pages where the tiny ads that promised you could get rich by raising minks, rabbits and giant frogs. You could learn how to mount birds and animals for fun and profit. You could get your hands on tons...

A Gift From New Zealand This Christmas, my family recieved a painting from my sister Holly. I was so happy to open it up! It's beautiful and I am proud to hang it on a wall in our home. Holly is an illustrator in New Zealand. She has a wonderful way with colour and lines and has always had, what I refer to as, a touch. Holly has always been an inspiration to me. She was born with atistic talent and imclination, but she has always worked very hard to stretch her boundaries and make the world more beautiful and...

Bones Earlier this month, I undertook the long overdue job of changing the window at the studio. The end wall in the window was covered with ancient masonite that would shatter when you hammered a nail into it. It came to the point where it wouldn't hold a nail anymore. So I tore it down, intending to replace the masonit with plywood. But then I saw that there was a brick wall back there. I like it. It wasn't shiny. It couldn't be improved with a new coat of paint. It was just a brick wall. And it suited my...

Making Music Many years ago I found a busted old, harpsichord lying in a pile by the side of the road. I had never seen the insides of a piano before and I was blown away by all the parts. I immediately went home for my Chevette and took that beautiful pile of bits and pieces home. Since  then I have had a special love for anything musical as raw materials. I am always amazed that someone along time ago figured out how to put wood together and tighten some strings across it in such an arrangement as to make...