spring is in the air

and continues to

mixed media on masonite board

layers of drawings

7 x 9 inches

in the shop

* * * * *

I don't know what it's like in the clean neighbourhoods, out in the suburban hinterland, but down in the unwashed heart of the city there is no hiding the changing of the seasons. On our morning walk to 'school' (daycare), Oona and I see it happen, in degrees, day by day, mostly in the form of garbage.

Yep, garbage.

You see, suburban kids are made aware of changes in the season by big and obvious things, like different after-school sports, dirtier then clean again SUV's, fewer skiing weekends, and grandma starting to talk about the garden (Christ). But for downtown kids, who spend their lives trudging up and down the same treacherous sidewalks, the telltale signs are all about garbage.

Some recent examples, from our own neighbourhood:

the garbage pile dumped at the corner of Cherry and Pine, degrading grotesquely with every thaw, and something to be avoided, just like the (crack) house it sits beside

the giant flat-screen tv box across the street, flatter and saggier every day

more light, filling in the sky, morning by morning

an even higher incidence of hoodies, if that's possible

the "BAD DOG--| |--BAD DOG" warning, written in chalk(?), about halfway up the east side of Cherry Street ... impossible even a (frozen, icy) week ago!

the dog poop on the south side of York street, breaking apart and disintegrating a little more all the time ("Let's step over the poop today, Daddy!")

the filthy mitten so gently (lovingly?) placed on the cinder-block wall beside the driveway close to the corner of Raglan and York ... wetter, dirtier ... is that spring I smell?

To be honest, I don't know how much I look forward to spring in our neighbourhood. Winter is a pretty effective dampener on the moronic unsavouries, the low-ballers and no-percenters. They tend to stay at home, indoors, where their shirtlessness can still be celebrated. Yo.

glamour, by extension

C is friends with the fashion stylist Rebekah Roy (left in both pics above) ... one of those people who personify calm and smiling success. On her blog she presents glamour in this very sincere, straightforward way ... whether she's taking pictures of people on the street , talking about stain removers , her favourite videos , or attending some glittering party . One minute she's ruminating on hair extensions, and in the next she reveals how she's been featured on the Vogue UK site. A real disarmer and charmer (and this without meeting her yet, although I feel like I know her because we both did our time in Winnipeg). * * * * * Coming home from Russia, we did many bad things. ; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. In my own life, the glamour is wholly imagined. * * * * * witches, smoke ; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. My second go at this one, and for some reason I'm painting a lot of smoke lately (note to self: tell C that I want to be cremated). *

the indisputable weight of the ocean

People are always telling me that my work is too dark. So I've put up this sunnier story, but even it has a shadow, as its original publisher – a fine Atlantic Canadian literary magazine called the Gaspereau Review – is no longer in business. ---------------- It was a simple enough thing and that thing was simply this: Edmund Kelley was a gentleman. Of course his mom called him her 'little gentleman', as in 'Oh Edmund, you are my perfect little gentleman,' which did seem to hold to a certain logic that these type of things often follow, considering her affection for him and the fact that he was, after all, only ten years old. Still, Edmund himself was not particularly fond of the diminutive aspect of that title. Gentleman was enough; gentleman summed up the whole thing rather nicely, thank you. He was definitely a more refined version of your average child. He lived in a state of perpetual Sunday m

Oona Balloona (doesn't care about new tables)

Well, it's Friday, and since I'm pretty depleted in the chit-chat department, I might as well put up some pictures of Ol' Giggles At Ghosts before Grandma starts sending me hate mail. Man, what a goofball. At this rate it's going to be, like, eighteen years before she has gainful employment and moves out of the house. I mean, come on . * * * * * C is especially crazy and frantic today. About two months ago she decided that she no longer liked our dining room table (take that, dining room table! no more BFF for you!). Since then she's switched the dining room and kitchen table (and all the rest of the furniture in the house -- about thirty times, but that's another story) as a provisional solution while she scoured area stores for an upgrade. And she thought she had found one, on Wednesday, at JYSK ( Whatever , I said). But when she ordered it, JYSK called back to say that they were really low on stock, and that the stock they did have was damaged, and

red-handed

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