Tir Na nÓg

1984
acrylic polymer and black marker on illustration board
7" x 20"

I did this one in a bit of a fury. A painting instructor in college had just advised me to give up art, basically. I thanked him for his advice, politely told him what I thought about it, then grabbed this leftover bit of board and did this in about 10 minutes. Then I threw it into an art locker, packed up my stuff and went to get drunk. Months later, someone saw this and really liked it. They suggested I frame it. I did, double matting it and taking a silver spraycan to the outside black mat to produce a misty look. This was, I think, the first piece of art I ever sold. It went in the first art show/sale I ever took part in. Unfortunately, the only photo of it I have here is pretty blurry. I took it before the sale and didn't get the photos back till after it was gone.

Made In England

1984-85
inks and acrylic polymer on illustration board
17" x 17"

I did this one as a project in college. We had been assigned to do four different treatments (geometric planes, black & white line w/ neutral background, full tonal greyscale, and full colour) of a face... any face. I picked Karsh's portrait of Winnie the Shit here, because he had such a big square head that fit nicely into the 7" x 7" square format we were assigned. I made him look a bit more bulldoggish though. Nowadays, this kind of stuff is done pretty quickly and easily on a home computer, but this one was done completely with hand and eye. The title comes from a song by Ian Anderson. Some people thought it was kind of a cutting statement about this old Brit PM, but I didn't really mean it to be (maybe it was the red eyes). I always found that people's reactions to it seemed to reflect their own views as regards the old Empire anyway.

Posse

1989
graphite on packing paper
26" x 37"

A group of hunters seated for a portrait before heading out on the trail. Not just any group... sons, fathers, uncles. My family. Me on the upper left, my Dad on the lower right. Deer hunting is something my family has been doing for several generations: all on the same section of land. Old family property, we all feel a real connection to the place. This sketch was supposed to look kind of antique; Butch & Sundance; the James Gang... almost timeless.

Possible Transitional Mythic Figure

1989
plastic car model parts and plasticine on a coat hanger and copper wire armature
~ 12" tall

I was reading a lot of Joseph Campbell at the time, for whatever that's worth. Constructed for an art show on the theme of automobiles, I wanted a figure which was half-flesh and half-machine. Inevitably, it ended up sort of like The Terminator, I guess. But this one wouldn't go on any killer rampages with large bore guns and fast cars. Mainly because he was too small to reach the pedals and he was just made of plastic and plasticine, of course. I still have this thing and the plasticine is drying out and cracking badly. When he's gone, he won't "be back".

The Hitchhiker

1989
graphite and coloured pencil on 140 lb Arches paper
22" x 30"

A drawing using the sculpture above. I placed the figure on the Havilland Causeway on Highway 17 (The Trans-Canada Highway) about 20 miles north of the Sault. I used that location because it's very recognizable to the people where I live and this drawing was going into a local art show. The inset is a very abstracted image of the Algoma steel plant, also a recognizable landmark (read "eyesore") locally.

Bullroarers

1988-89
carved and stained hardwood
~ 11" long each

These are decorated flat pieces of hardwood attached to long leather thongs and you whirl them about your head. A loud thrumming noise is produced. The pitch will change, the faster you whirl it. Primitive things, they make great fetish objects. They're pretty tied up with male initiation rites in a lot of tribes. I guess they're kind of phallic... in a flat, wooden, tied-to-the-end-of-a-thong, whirling-around-your-head, kinda way. Today, you are a man, my son.

Gros Cap IV

1990
watercolour on 140 lb cold pressed paper
7½" x 5½"

Number 4 in a series of 4... smaller than the others and minus the conté. I guess it is the final evolution of a bunch of studies but, as usual, I prefer what appears in a preparatory study (when I bother making one) over the more tightly controlled final version. Not that this one was all that controlled..

Handpainted T-Shirts

1991
acrylic polymer stains on cotton t-shirts
sizes M, L, XL, XXL

A bunch of hand-painted t-shirts for sale, hanging out of the ass end of my old Chevy half-ton. I did these to make some cash one summer (and to use up some old tubes of paint). I didn't sell any on this day, but they all eventually sold over the next year or so. It was interesting making them, though.

Bodhrán Decoration

1996
ink on synthetic drumskin
~ 16 " in diameter

An adaptation of a Courtney Davis design, slightly altered and added to, this symbol decorates the synthetic skin of a 22 inch Remo hand drum I use sometimes in place of my real bodhrán. The synthetic skin makes it more rugged for playing outdoors in changing weather conditions. It has limitations as far as variability in tone, however. Trade-offs....

Bodhrán Case

1999-2000
woodburning and stains on mahogany plywood
~ 20" x 20"

Burned-in decorations on both faces (seen in full in the larger version by clicking on the thumbnail above left) of my travel case for my working bodhrán. One side features a squared-off adaptation of the design just above, while the other shows my own Celtic-type illustration of a bodhráneer (kind of a self-portrait from my long-hair days), some simple knotwork, and this here text (intended to deter theft):

Bodhrán: {pronunciation can vary according to local whimsy, rhyming alternatively with "moron" or "sour on"} It is a single-skinned & broad-yet-shallow, light hand drum, wielded with implacability by single-minded & broad-yet-shallow drummers and employed to inflict rude percussion on quasi-celtic dance music and songs, through skillful, cruelly monotonous application of a shortish, double-ended beater, known dubiously as a "tipper". Bodhráneers are widely notorious for five decided characteristics: 1. a shocking lack of requisite social graces; 2. an insatiable appetite for delectable, frothy, dark, potable libations of a stout nature; 3. an exhibition of no real sense of restraint or pace; 4. a tendency towards sudden unnerving esoteric ejaculations, like "Wallup!"; 5. the possession of very medieval ideas of retribution... most notably in a murderous, vindictive bastard named Rick Deevey.

...and that's about all I got to say about that.