Interesting, isn’t it, that we divide ‘commercial’ music from ‘real’ music?  When in fact all music is consumed, and all professional musicians are in the business of earning a living – no matter what genre they play in.  We say to our kids – no don’t be a musician, you’ll never make it, it’s too […]

played and explained by Joanna Wronkowska   This reminds me of a man I will always love, though I’ll probably never meet: Excerpt from ‘Anthem” by Leonard Cohen: Ring the bells that still can ring forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything – That’s how the light gets in.  

Delightful days, these.  In the grand pause of morning I can recall at least one, sometimes three marvelously shocking, transcendent moments for each day of this month – some mine, others I’ve witnessed.  Is this what you get when you jump into Georgian Bay at midnight on Nov 1?  If so I’ll make it annual. […]

Sir John Tavener has died.  It’s well worth taking a moment to listen to this interview from August 2013.  And then another moment to listen to his music. Beautiful. BBC interview:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2kdFYm8eDg Lamb of God:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8-cFRjcdU0

It’s become a bit like being in my own reality TV show, this process of getting paintings out the door.  The day has just passed that I’d targeted as my deadline, barring a major dharmic intervention.  I will say that I have made great progress, and these two huge impossibles are very close to being […]

None of us are immune.  Just when you think you can see it all and taste the sunbeam of good finish, a painting problem will like a brick wall whose only purpose is to humble you.  So, laugh or be flattened like Wile E. Coyote, to bonelessly slide down the mountain.  Or both. I pick […]

Yesterday was requiem day as I worked in the studio, which seemed fitting, somehow.  Every layer of grief and joy is expressed and exposed in them – the Mozart, the Brahms, the Faure, the Rutter.  Outside my windows there raged a storm that tore hydro lines and uprooted trees – for a while my phone […]

I’ve given myself two weeks to answer a list.  On my list are relatively small goals but they are necessarily comprehensive, since the overall aim is to break through a log jam of old unfulfilled ideas, to clear out what is no longer useful or appropriate, and give form to the ones with a vigorous […]

We have dispersed ourselves in these months – one flown deeply into Japan, another more briefly to Rome. Two others ventured first into the textured lakes and rivers of Northern Ontario, then into the island of Manhattan, prickled with concrete.  Another flown away away into young Toronto, where she is given kittens by young attractive […]

Summer ‘Do’; Winter ‘Be’: This is the natural way of things, if you take your lead from the plants and the squirrels; the chipmunks and the bears. So it follows then, that Spring is for clearing the way for new growth: …and autumn is for making good use of the harvest, putting things into their […]

So peaceful, this end of September 2013. In the growing dark of the season I can feel what is timeless and eternal – the breathing of the fall wind, the lap of waves on the breakwall of the harbour.  The summer birds have flown, but even the starlings and chickadees that remain are asleep still, […]

In honour of the obscure fact that the equinox sun will be square to a little-known planet called Narcissus this Sunday, I spent an entire evening being as narcissistic as possible.  I examined ten years of journals, poetry and photos, the nice way my fingernails grow, the diversity of engaging and informative titles of the […]