Artistic Statement:

I have been working as a visual artist for over twenty years within the context of a local Toronto artist. I studied Fine Art Studio at the University of Toronto in the 1990’s and after graduation I slowly but steadily built upon my artistic career. Over the last three years I have been fortunate enough to be able to work as an artist full time, with some degree of success.  

My previous artistic practice has explored and utilized sculpture, set building, design and painting within a mixed media context. My recent body of work over the last year has continued to focus on exploring concepts of texture, line, mass and presentation in relation to visually appealing and interesting aesthetics. To date my work has included approximately 500 mixed media paintings and prints, over 50 assorted sculptures and smaller reclaimed metal assemblages, a number of group and solo exhibitions and one public functional sculpture – officially mounted in Parkdale in the City of Toronto.  

 Within my art, I explore variations on material and size, functionality, as well as nuances of form and layering to successfully illustrate my ideas and concepts. I excel at creative thinking both as an individual and as part of a team with common creative goals. My current practice of work is focusing on clearly defined imagery with studies of setting and atmosphere explored through layered color, material and textural work. I use social media, online galleries and professional forums as well as public exhibition opportunities to build upon my exposure as a Canadian visual artist. I also involve and engage the public to become part of the creative process through interaction on these mediums.

Epiphanies, lost causes and othe words I can't spell

I am trying to wrp my head around my art right now - have been back at it for about 4 years after a four year hiatus. I trained at UofT to be an artist. True fact. I knew right away Art was my thing. I am a creative person with a somewhat skewed but extremely interesting view of the world. Yep.

anyways, bio aside I have produced approximately 100 pieces over the last four years - some were okay, some were studies, some were and still are breathtakingly beautiful to me and to others. I have given alot away, sold some but now my apartment is crammed to the hilt with paintings. I have one wall left. Only one - my paintings take up 80% of my wall space. I need a show - I need to sell some pieces. I dont care what I sell them for but I need to move forward

I have the

1. the lady number 1 - on canvas - unframed  16" by 7"
2. the lady number 2 - on canvas - unframed  16" by 7"
3. The unseen wonder of butterflies  60" by 18"
4. set of four Rune color/texture series 12" by 16" **********
5. set of four Rune color/texture series 12" by 16" **********
6. The flag 22 by 60"
7. Numbers 24" by 15"
8. The lady looking Framed 12" by 24"
9. Emerald lady  8" by 12"
10. Winter pastoral 12" by 12"
11. winter mountain 12" by 8"
12. Lady in the water 18" by 22"
13. The mountain divides 22" 60"
14. Joe Wright unframed 18" by 26"
15. Accompanying piece 10" bu 18"
16. four part Pink Abstraction lady series - 1/4 larger 20" by 32" 
17. and 2/4 Pink Abstraction smaller 8" by 12" (s)and 1 smaller 8" by 12" (s)
18. and 5/4 Pink Abstraction smaller 8" by 12" (s)
19. and 4/4 Pink Abstractionsmaller 8" by 12" (s)
20. the 5 piece Jack of Hearts series 1/5
21. Jack of Hearts series 2/5
22. Jack of Hearts series 3/5
23. Jack of Hearts series 4/5
24. Jack of Hearts series 5/5
25. and the Salon 16" 20"

I prob'ly have another four more hiding around  and could easily have six with a little work...

That would make 30 pieces

Now I need to decide what to do next. do I weed them down to the best. I only have a few ringers here. I really like the five piece Jack of Hearts series and the Pink Abstraction. I love the way I can play around with the two Rune sets of four. I have some nice standalone pieces like the three big large tall ones for instance- each of them is at least 60" inches high and if displayed properly they each have the ability to capture the viewer.

In terms of prints/reproductions I have another 24 really good ones online. . What do I do with all of these? I could have a show but - am I confident enough in my current collection of actual work that I can justify a show. hmmmm. Maybe if I augment with some of my really really beautiful work that has been sold or given away - I bet that I could do a limited edition  print run and properly framed and signed it would look great. Thgen, what ever does not asell I put into storage and continue to move forward and produce more art.


hmmmm. the beginning of a plan.....

Friday afternoon and the world is moving...

Eeesh I say. Capital E. and an emphasis on the 'sh'...

It is interesting to me how comments can be misconstrued. I I added the 'kiss my ass' as initial response but so people know - I would never say that to a lady. Goes against my grain - so any women out there who may think it was directed at you - I apologise - it was not.

Meant for an old male ex-friend. He - well... he is always encouraged to 'kiss my ass' and 'fuck right off' and even the old standard 'go jump off a bridge'

When you are listening to stories about people and taking them as gospel whichout thinking about what that storyteller's motive might be, well this is kinda silly.
I like to look at why people do the things they do as everyone has a motive for everything they do. It can be benign or malignant.

From 'I am doing this because I am lonely and want to spend time with you' to 'I will tell you anything i can to get into your pants' and every possible variation in between. Its when you can't figure the motive out then thats when u should start to worry. But... believe what you want to believe... Doesn't matter to me, I say as I run sobbing out of the room and throw myself on my bed starting to scream hysterically before curling up in a fetal position and slowly rocking myself to oblivion... But seriously...

Some people judge me solely on what they hear. I am sure this happens to alot of people. These are the interesting ones for sure. To tell you the truth faithful readers I kinda take perverse glee in fucking with those ones.

Usually they are wary of me because A. I have been in jail or B. I am a recovered addict or C. I am sooo fucking charming I must be up to something...

I like the people who think my being sick was just a cover to excuse my -ahem- closet drug addiction - Hey people did you hear Cy was not actually sick but using it as a cover to do massive amounts of dope??? That's why he was so skinny. What was up with him? Oh - I bet he fell off the wagon... To these people I say 'bite me' .

I don't give a shit what you think - The people, whose opinion I actually do give a shit about are in my life and I pursue active relationships with them. I am not a perfect man and I have made mistakes - who hasn't? Its the people who stand by me and see me for who I am - not the person they want me to be or the person they heard i was or even the person they think i used to be - those are the people I love and care about - the people I keep in my life.


You may be thinking to yourself 'what is he going on about?" and to you I say...

Glass houses and all that eh?

No matter - next blog entry I promise to talk about a raven.

January in the House of Cy

Well. It is January and I have been feeling the itch lately to write. I recieved an interesting comment on my last entry in regards to my forgiving nature. Forgivness is an interesting thing isn't it. I feel that some people really do need to be forgiven for past indiscresions- whether it is to help myself move on or to release them from the debt they may feel from something they have done. In my life I have forgiven and I have been forgiven. There will be certain individuals I will never forgive and to be truthful if I ever see them again there will likely be HELL to pay - That said - this is not a good attitude to take - it is not healthy - not even in the slightest...
Why I cannot get over certain people is beyond me. No sense of closure perhaps or maybe somewhere in my mind I understand that they have never taken accountability for their misdeeds - and even if they did would a simple acknowledgement be enough. From some people perhaps - but not all. In these cases I ave been told that I should simply be the better man - but when the blood in my body boils and the rage I feel towards certain individuals starts to build the best thing I could possibly do is turn away and try and let it go.

For all the good that does.

but...

then I paused to check my email and see that the comment( well comments now) actually came from someone else. Not the person I was just venting about but someone else entirely.

I dated this girl for a few months last year right before I got really sick and it didn't work out. That was all - it simply was not what I was looking for and she will not give up the ghost. Sigh. I have no forgiveness issues with her - it did not work out and I moved on. I do wish she would find the courage to do the same. it is not easy to feel regected and obviously I can see now in retrospect that she obviously put more stock into what we had them I had orginally thought - but come on! To keep coming back to something that is simply not healthy is just that - not healthy! She says I disrespected her, took advantage of her, made fun of her behind her back, lied to her, broke her heart, dumped her, ignored her and cut all forms of contact with her.

Wow! I must be a real asshole eh? I will not respond to these accusations because to do so would simply hurt all involved. Instead I will simply state this - if I am so bad then why are you still contacting me. I hear stories of women I know getting conspiracy emails from you accusing them of pimping me out to assage some old twisted revenge fantasy. You have contacted girls you think I am dating online and blast them - and you never give them a chance to respond or reply. I am not mad or even surprised but for the life of me I cannot figure out where this is all coming from. There is nothing to forgive here. Please just move on. If you need closure I can understand that but... this is not healthy behavior.

Renny and me

Just a note to Renny - letting you know that i do understand and have forgiven you and myself for what happened between us. I held anger in my heart for a long time - mostly due to the very bad time i had in jail that particular time - I too have moved very far away from that life. I have people in my life that love me very much and that I love very very much - my words were never meant to reach your ears but understand i felt so betrayed and hurt but understood exactly where you were coming from - hell i was there myself! I wish u nothing but the best and hope you are doing exceedingly better than when we last saw each other - Nothing but love and forgiveness and open hands man!

The animated world of Owen Meany...

I am re-reading this book for the tenth or eleventh time over the last 15 years - the book is entitled "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and it was written by John Irving.

I don't think I care much for the author personally, but I do have to say that I love a lot of what he has written. Please don't misunderstand me when I say I do not care much for him personally - I am sure he is a nice enough - if not unusual and quirky enough man - its just that I have seen his public face during media interviews and he comes across as arrogant and I seem to have a bit of a problem with arrogant people - I don't mind confident people - in fact I find myself drawn to them - especially confident women - but that is a blog entry all on its own now isn't it?

Back to Irving though - I just didn't care for the arrogance the author seemed to exude during the interviews I had the opportunity to watch or read. I cannot find myself disliking him too much though as he has written three of the best books I have ever read - three of my top ten so to speak - each one representative of where I was in my life when I read them for the first time. The books are of course Owen Meany which I find myself turning to like an old friend - it is my comfort book - I pick it up and can open it anywhere an re-discover plot threads and characters that in their own strange way seem like family to me. Each time I read it I discover something different about it - like an old friend that never ceases to surprise you with the levels of complexity tht he or she has to offer. Even after many many years...

The other two books I refer to are the "Hotel New Hampshire" and "The World According to Garp".

If Owen Meany is like an old friend - full of surprises and satisfaction and its cast of strange and realistic characters are like extended members of my family - then HNH would be my sexy Aunt - you know the one - everyone seems to have one in their family - the one who goes on tour with some Rock band, trips through Europe, looks beautiful in anything she wears and seems a little sad sometimes - in spite of or likely despite her life choices. As exotic and adventurous as her life has been, she is always looking for something - No one know what though... We all wish we could be her, that is until we catch the glimmer of sadness in her eyes...

Now"Garp" would be my brother from another Mother... I love Garp and I envy him and I marvel at his misadventures and once in a while I pity him and sometimes I even hate him - but seldom for very long. In my mind he looks like a young Robin Williams and epitomizes everything I wanted to be when I became a man. I first read Garp when I was in my early teens and it was the first movie I ever saw based on a book I had read. To say it had a profound effect on my would be an understatement to say the least.

Garp will have to be a topic for another day though and so will Franny and Junior Jones and even the bear might one day become a topic of discussion open these crisp white pages - but today - well today I still want to cover Owen...

This time as I re-read the novel I am picturing something different in my head - Have you ever seen any Edward Gorey artwork? I see Owen now as this fearful looking little door mouse - big eyes and dark circles and very much in keeping with that sort of gothy, horrorlistic style Gorey has seemed to make popular in the alternative arts scene over the last few years - Kind of like Tim Burton meets Jacob Two Two - infused with a health dose of Ruby Gloom for good measure. Mind you - in my mind I only see Owen portrayed like this - In the book he is the only visibly odd one in the cast. The rest have their own idiosyncrasies but Owen wears his in his physical appearance. As an animated show it has great potential if done correctly - this freakishly small force of nature set among a cast of seeming ordinary New Hampshirites - murdering mothers with foul balls during little league practice - commandeering christmas - loping off his best friend's trigger finger to keep him from going overseas and please do not even get me started on the whole predetermination vs. free will thing...

Simply said - it would make a great cartoon...

I don't nessessarily love Buffy but... (written 09/2006)

I did enjoy many juvenile aspects of the show. I loved the characters and while I know many people despise the concept - the show itself - the writing - the characters - the plots and most of all buffy herself - I say to these - screw you if you cannot respect that different people like different things. I may not like everything you do and you may not like everything I do but "can't we all - just - get along??" heh heh heh... for more on this famous statement see the following link: Why Mr. King took a beating by those bad ass policemen who obviously were corrupted by their own sense of power and supremacy ? Makes me wonder about other things as well. How many cases of corruption do we hear about on a daily basis and are we as a society simply becoming desensitized against this sort of thing? When we hear that another cop beat a young man for what would appear to be no really good and valid reason are we even affected by this information anymore? Do we do anything besides shrug and think to ourselves "gee... That's too bad..." Is there anything else that actually can be done? Is that why the King beating led to race riots? Is that why these men and women who abuse their power and get caught get a slap on the wrist as punishment for their crimes? Makes me mad I think or should I even care? Let me know what you think gentle readers - that is if you can be bothered to - even a little bit. I will reflect the number of comments to this particular post as evidence to either back up my point or demolish it. Billions of people have access to the internet - surely even one of you could take the time to comment on whether or not we as a people even care anymore if power is corrupting the police and whether or not we even care enough to do anything about it. I guess we will see. eh?

A tuesday prayer written too late (from my draft folder 2007)

well. swell. meld. held. tightly in the night.
sigh.
this is where my mind is today.
i am thinking about things and will start uncharacteristicly with a small prayer. (I found this in my draft folder ~ written once upon a time by someone named cy williams - had I posted it when i wrote it maybe things would have worked out differently ~ maybe not ~ most likely not...)

Dear Lord.
thank you for second chances thank you for daring girls with beautiful eyes and wistful wonderful dreams thank you for showing me that some things never change and that many others do thank you for smiling children in my life who love and laugh and sing and grow thank you for making my life as unpredictable as any life can be. bless those i love and keep them safe from bad men and women, from nighttime fears and heart ache, from their own monsters and demons that mean them harm and hurt. protect them from the things that would hurt them and if you cannot do that then please allow them the strength , courage conviction and cunning to protect each other and themselves as well... thank you so much

Amen.