Monday, April 11, 2006
So here we are at the begining of a new year. I am attempting to update things here as best I can.
I am painting and have been all year. I may not be putting anything up as they are all gone. This is good. I think I will be adding an archive to document my latest paintings. I am very proud of my new work and so are the owners.
I am continuing to developing my own personal style and I think I am at the point that I can truly call it my own!
I noticed in one of my earlier posts I criticized Mr. Gates for his money-lust. I should also congratulate him, publicly, for his philanthropy. He has donated a whopping 58% of his wealth to charities, to worthy causes and other things that could be described as one human helping another. Wow! Thats a lot of help. Now, how about the Walton family? Don't know them? The family owns Wal-mart. To date they have donated less than 1% of their acummulated wealth.
Personally I do not feel obligated to donate any of my earnings to any charity, organization or cause. I should also say I have lived most of my adult life poor. If I had the cash I would do anything to improve the human condition. Currently I can improve myself so I start here.

Sunday, October 31, 2004
It has been a while since I made an entry so now is as good a time as any.
I must tell everyone out there that I made one of the smartest decisions in my life and started using Firefox as my browser. I no longer use IE. I no longer have to to make daily virus checks. I no longer have spend hours surfing forums trying to figure out how to remove the nasty little things that infect my computer as if it were plague season.
It also blocks pop-ups. It is faster than IE. It does'nt try to sell me things I don't want or need as part of internet experience.
The sad thing about the viruses that attack IE is that they most likely are helping Mr. Gates money machine by forcing people out there to buy the latest upgrades and dowlnload the latest patches to fix all the holes in the crappy software that they think they need.
There are alternatives out there. Firefox is an open source application. It was written by the internet community. It is free and serves the community that built it. You can also download it's email application Thunderbird which also has improved my internet experience. I highly suggest to anyone who reads this to start using Firefox and get Mr. Gates off your computer! you can find it at www.mozilla.org.

Saturday, April 25, 2004
I saw His Holiness the Dalai Lama yesterday on his cross Canada tour. A very direct individual with a clear message. His sense of humour was extremely refreshing considering the subjects he brought up. He was very clear about his views on humanity, suffering and happiness. He described much of the suffering in the world being caused by a lack of understanding of our inner emotional lives. The physical world, as we relate to it, has been described by scientists with much enthusiasm that has greatly increased our understanding of the physical properties of the universe. The deepest ocean has a bottom to it. The highest mountain has been climbed many times. Our emotional lives are "vast!". If we paid as much attention to our inner lives and the people closest to us rather than the latest gov't scandal or celebrity break-up, we might begin to heal much of hurt and our empathy for our fellow human beings may increase and relieve some of this suffering. He spoke for just over an hour. His words were well chosen and I'm sure we could listen to him for years and still only scratch the surface of his message. I recorded his talk and will work on having it delivered here sometime soon.

Saturday, Feb.21 14, 2004
It has bee a while since I posted anything here, I think the following needs to be said, not just for other artists, not just for myself but for the public as well.

To the Public, I am an artist who paints works of art, works of art. I am educated I have worked hard to produce these paintings. They take up much of my time. I am very grateful to the individuals and institutions who have acknowledged their worth by purchasing some of my work. Recently, and throughout my career, I have been approached to show or donate my work at events or auctions. I have been harassed by event organizers as to what a great opportunity it would be for me to have my paintings shown at their event, free of charge, it would be great exposure. Well, it would be great decoration for your event. Do you work for free? Do your DJs spin for free?
I have been asked to donate my work for auctions with the proceeds going to worthy causes or simply to subsidize administrative overhead of under funded organizations. I am an under funded artist, it is not my responsibility to pay your bills. An art auction should, at the minimum, be a 50 / 50 agreement. These auctions that my work was sold at for hundreds of dollars with 100% of the proceeds going to the organization, did not generate one sale for me regardless of the exposure.
To organizations who produce calendars of art without paying the artists should be ashamed. It is not our job to promote your organization through our art. If you want to use a painting pay for it. The exposure is yours. The artist gets a reputation that they will let their work be shown free of charge. To any organization in Canada wanting to use an artists image for any reason should be aware of the standards and regulations described by CARFAC

To other artists, take these words as cautionary advice. exposure is great but up to a point. If Someone is making money off your image you should also get paid.
Auctions can be great exposure also but you should always get a minimum of 50% of what the work sells for, any less insults your hard time and education that went into the piece. Really look at the CARFAC site that is linked above and do not work for free.

Thursday, Jan 14, 2004
I am well into another painting. I am planning on a new section of the site called "The Process". This will document the process of completing one of my paintings. I really got into it and forgot to take pictures. Next one for sure.

Wednesday, Jan 07, 2004
This is an excerpt from a post I made today on an art forum, www.visualcues.com, I thought it would be a nice synopsis for a little of what has been happening in Native art history.

"I see this time as an opportunity for artist's to distinquish themselves. Other Native artists I know fall into two groups, imitators and innovators.
People who sell usually fall into the first category because buyers tend to recognize a style before the individual. Other artist's who have well established reputations have very personal styles, there are exceptions. There is a group of artists here in Canada, that if you took one of each of their paintings and put them side by side a casual observer could not tell if it was one artist or four different ones. Art institutions play a role in this imitation. Unfortunately for quite a while the artists who show are the ones that demonstrate styles that echo European and American influences, - Jasper johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg.

For the institutions their frame of reference resides on well worn trails through art history. Art is art as long as it has European historical beginnings. This ethnocentricity is thankfully changing. The National gallery of Canada should be given a nod as it has recently and finally addressed the lack of Native art as part of it's permanent collection. Good work Mr. Hill, Niawen kowa."

Wednesday, Dec 31, 2003
The last day of the year! I hope everyone had great holidays. I spent a few days out west visiting friends in their beautiful new house. I spent some time developing a work plan for the new year. 2003 has been my most productive year yet. I plan on producing a substantial amount more in the new year. Art can be a very fluid process but to produce an amount a person can live off of is a difficult thing to do. A plan is important and you have to stick to it. This website is a bit of an experiment. I know other artists who really don't make any sales from a website. I think there is going to be a lot of secondary marketing involved to make this work. Well I hope everyone plays safe tonight and thinks of peace.

Sunday, Dec 21, 2003
The site is finally up! I can get back to painting and working on some graphic design contracts. Painting is great but it doesn't always pay the bills. So, its the shortest day of the year, finally the days are going to start to get longer. Luckily winter has not been too cold here, but the short days really take something out of you. I started a new painting and just spilled canvas primer all over my rug. The only thing that makes more of a mess is coffee grounds. Luckily all my materials are non-toxic, I always end up covered in them one way or another.

Saturday, Dec 20, 2003
Just about to launch this site. The holidays are strange time. I have a line of greeting cards sold by www.imaginationcards.ca. Last year they sold more of my cards during the summer months than the winter months. Not sure if the content of the cards is the reason for this or summer tourists. Still working on my latest painting. Soon, I am going to produce a series of paintings of traditional Haudenosaunee pottery. These clay pots have been hand made for centuries using traditional techniques. They are very indicative of traditional Haudenosaunee culture. To me they are the embodiment of house, home and family. Central to nourishment and warmth. I haven’t made one myself yet, these paintings will be practice for when I do.

Monday, Dec 15, 2003
Working on my next painting, a small 12" by 12", and still working on the website. My friend JP has been helping me with the administrative part of getting a website online. He has also been a great help in the content of this site. This would be a good time to say,
"Thanks JP, for everything!"
He has helped me through a lot of hard times and I hope I can be there for him.

Monday, Dec 1, 2003
Just finished shipping a lithograph off to Portland Oregon. I spent an hour at the post office waiting in line, getting it wrapped up properly and, for some reason, filling out 4 forms with the same address. It feels good though, I hope J likes it. Still working on the site. It is kind of a balancing act painting and designing a website at the same time. Each take a lot of time. Every now and then I might spend a few months on one painting. These are the ones that really have a life of thier own I feel like their servant at times. When they sell I miss them. There are only two I have as part of my personal collection. I have had offers but they really mean too much to me.

Saturday, Nov 29, 2003
The site is finally coming together. It isn't live yet but with a little more work it will be soon.
Just finished my latest painting. Don't know what to call it yet, I am considering naming it "Untitled #3". The other two "Untitleds" seemed to have extremely obvious themes or narrative, a title would have come off as a little "cheesy". This latest one just feels good, the curves and abstraction of it were really the thing in itself, the intent.

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