And SO! x 2

I hate to see it go as it IS one of my personal faves:  but it is going.  And gone.  That is acrylic in a water colour technique, finish depending on the “tooth” of the canvas board.

Another of my personal faves, shipped out, and gone.  The empty spaces on my walls…  Like a lot of things going on around here.  Thank goodness for Nadja, there in the blond hair, she’ll keep a close eye on things.

Going back to the MET:  that story…  of me walking in there, stone aged, and seeing this!  Have mercy: I’m going to see a quack.  Hopefully we can sort out the weird-ness of what… what is this weird attraction?  The quack is also an art historian (hobby horse!) and knows a thing or two about the Indians and land reserved for Indians.  Plus…  she IS pretty attractive dot dot dot…

Other MAD scenes in the MET:  this was actually in there, in the MET, on a Thursday afternoon in December…  (kooky…  )

Check out the date:  March 10, 1995.  My how some drawings tell the tale!

Flash Back!  May 1991.  That’s me, in Belmont, Manitoba on a Saturday afternoon.  We’re on the road to Whitehorse, a well oiled machine, show bizz, rock and roll.  But on this afternoon I had to get the van serviced so I took off alone, left the apes in Brandon, and found myself in Belmont.  Put the van in the line  up and started walking through this one horse town.  Took lunch at the diner, fresh, old time sandwiches made while you wait.  Wrote a letter to my sister. Thought about “her”.  Imagined myself back home, swimming in the warm waters off the south end of the island.  Tanned my feet both front and back.  Read the NY Times, the paper was at least 12 years old.  Drank a sweet fifth of Hoola, with a cut of water.  Rolled in the sunshine.  Imagined the war: on going, in lands far away.  Smoked home grown.  Wore my black bikini.  Settled under the sun.  Drove the island roads with the window down, my left arm hanging out the window.

When I got back home from Scotland the lawn was a mess!  Lucky for me we had a suitcase filled with 20 dollar bills.  So I fired up the lawn mower and tried to rescue my lawn.  This is 10 days into July, 2018:  I was out there alone.  The girls were on the road.  What madness went on and off and out and in.  I snapped this photo of the crib at sunrise and remembered when I was over there, all I could think about in those final hours over there, was getting back home.  And surprise!  There I was.

Sunrise in summer:  on the range.  This was in July 018, smoking hot and super dry!  I was there and I was thanking my lucky stars I’d made it home!  I was VERY happy being there in the summer of 018.  Wonderful memories.

Middle

In the grand and glorious summers of the past, this one in August 014, we see many a grand and glorious scene:  this one looking due north, out where the horses are.  We were in the house and noticed the wind had changed so we went out for a looksie and saw the north sky had turned to a boiling thousand shades of grey!  Fantastic!

On stage with NR back in 017:  We need to get the band back together.

Sister JEN!  Working the magic.  She owns the show.  Summer of 017.

Before the gig:  we might look cool but we’re not!  We’re both scared.  It is show business.  And no matter how many times you do the show, rehearse the show, when you put a crowd of folks out there, you’ll have butterflies deluxe.

Mask making with Mark!

Mask making:  that hand design… We’ve alway been ahead of the curve.  (the mask making exercise is SOLID GOLD real estate.)  All ages, no matter where.

Closing poem:

CRUSING BACK THE RANCH WITH MY YOUNG FRIEND

to see what we can see

come night time in a room

full of books, paintings, feathers and bones

the window wishes west

while the sun is arriving

at six in the summertime

she sleeps above the trees

below the stars

not a second close

enough to please me even mildly

in a red willow wind

curtains whisper quiet sins

moon

the island still

silent stars

the way she was stolen

by your quiet smile

into the night

when the drums are distant

shadows of the pines

cooling dew grass

the fringes on her shawl

the ferns are spooky

barefoot during the night

the feathers and bones

of a crooked crow dying

modern day pow boy

wishing well into the night

think about the moons you have missed

treating your life like you had nine

words by mark seabrook

 

 

Saturday Night Blizzard!

Well maybe it “aint no” blizzard like the folks in NFLD whooped through in the past 24 hours but here in O’sville, outside, now, 6 p.m., it aint pretty.  And it IS ice Flipping cold!  that is why I’m tucked away in here, in the crib, with the fake fire going, fake fireplace on the TV, 2D logs burning bright, warm as toast, snug as a bug, nestled up next to a Henschke Cyril Henschke Cab slash Sauv slash Franc slash Mer mixarama.  The folks are pitching it as extra dry but I’m telling you right now its twice the sweet as I like them.  Ah well.  It IS a snow storm out there.  And those Australian Vins on a cold winter night are something to write home about.  I’d write home if I had one…

And so!  It IS a blizzard, I’m in for the evening with the vin and a book.  Thought I’d re read the “CLASSIC HORROR STORY” by kooky Sinclair Ross:  The Painted Door.  Of course when I was sporting, many moons ago, we’d make that trip, a mile anyway…

Things have changed since then.  Now, as an old man, we don’t need to wade through classic Canadian horror stories as we have enough of them stowed in our own story telling departments: if it were a library, a mighty library it would be as some of us did!  I was reminded of that when I crossed paths with an old soldier today:  same age as me!  We laughed and cackled our way through stories about the ages, old names, old places, now all dead and gone.  Yet we remain: Two Anishnabe, from the same year, many times in the same places, with the same people, yet never crossing paths until today.  Slick stuff.

We got to that story sharing place where I told him about that night at the International on Kathleen Street, N’Swakamok, summer of 1995:  I was in there with one of the killers, as back up.  He was in there looking for someone but he never told me why he was looking for this person.  We sat ourselves down at a table and ordered drinks and pretty soon this young Anishnabe dude came along and sat himself down at our table.  This dude knew the killer and they were chatting up a storm, going on about “stuff”.  Well I’d heard enough after about 20 seconds and said to the killer:  Is this the guy?

As I said that I was reaching inside my coat with my right hand and the dude FREAKED!  He put his hands up right away and said Hey Man!  I didn’t do anything!

Of course he was right.  I was just reaching into my coat pocket to get my cigarettes, to see if he wanted a Marlboro Red.  Back in those days you could smoke in the bar.  It was kooky to see though how that dude nearly shit his pants when I did that.  Ha ha.

It has been one of those winter days.  Cool too though when you cross paths with folks of the same vintage.

Girl From the North Country, Found Poetry, Book 5, a work in progress.  Drawing by Mark Seabrook, Anishnabe artist.  Truth is I have NOT been drawing over the past few or several years and…  They were right.  It does go away if you don’t keep at it.

Anishnabe Kwe, Found Poetry, book 5.  So yes, we’re still working at it.  The book is 400 plus pages and the story is INSANE!!!  So we’re mostly painting over the pages of text and making this one into a book of drawings.  There are a few poems in there but not as many as in the past books.  The drawing practice has been good for this old boy.

Ed Hopper at the MET.  Remember how I was going on about that meltdown at the MET, back in December?  Well here we are a long way from, and here they are in no particular order, the paintings that brought on the meltdown…

Have mercy.  You can read a ton of books about this one but when you’re standing where he once stood:  the same distance away I mean, there is a fine line between living out your dream and shitting your pants on the NY subway.

Good Wowza.  If you are a visual artist, and you walk into a room and see this…  Well lets just say this:  I was in there looking at this and wondered if maybe it might have been better had I been KIA in the Great Hay Wagon Disaster of 78.  (If you don’t know what that is, scroll back through a few blog postings…  )

Good Gawd!  Anyone out there reading this:  are you a painter?

Jeepers H. Mary and M.F. Joe!  You read about it.  You see a small picture in an art history book text.  But then there it is.  Wowza x 2.

Stop.  Stand.  And Stare.  Holy chocolate wagon wheels someone actually created this with their bare hands…  (Q. And what am I doing?  A.  A GREAT BIG FAT NOTHING.)

OFMFGF.  We went over this in art school for days.  Detailing it, went over it, shoulder to shoulder on our hands and knees, going over every inch of the details with an extremely powerful art history instructor.

Yup!  I was nearly a sobbing wreck by this point.  Just like that time I watched the first 5 minutes of the movie:  UP.

Okay.  No words.  There it is.

Have mercy!

Absolute melting point:  if you’re an art enthusiast and dreaming…  If you see something like this, in the MET, after all these years…   (Well lets just say it will be the crows nest for me.)

Here though:  something turned.  I may have rounded a corner with this one.

Stopped and stared.  Imagined Mr. R. standing there too, cigarettes in hand…  ages ago.

K.M. in his gear, making the presentation on Thursday night to a darn near a sold out show.  He had his book, getting his words straight, but what I was worried about is that he was going to fall off those great big high heels he was wearing!  He didn’t fall off his shoes and it was a great performance, and a great show:  glad to be there and see it first hand.  That painting of course, if you scroll back through the blog, you’ll  see it up close, from that night long ago…

And so the snow storm continues.

alone at Carter’s Bay in a long ago summer time

I dream about the beaches back home: the wind and the waves, the sun, the earth, the sky.  The blue and green.  And yes:  The sienna, the gold and silver.

Oh la la!  There will be time to get back to those water falls and that river where I call home.  I usually travel at night.  I’ll arrive at sunrise!

When you live a bit, silly things like a snow storm are nothing.  Rooms in a house, the “Famous Cockroach Incident”, a thousand mile drive at a hundred miles an hour, the summer of 1995, the lawns between her house and mine at age 12, her red jacket…

I’ve got a home waiting for me.  Yes I’m the road now but I’ll be home soon.  For now though, we have the art, the road, the snow storm, the flash Australian Vin, and the stuff not worth mentioning out the front window, the back window and the side windows:  life i the city in mid January.

Keep on keeping ON!

 

 

For You: Sahara

Power Bird:  Carry On.  Acrylic on gallery canvas, 24×36 inches.

Power Bird:  Rolling Up on Winter.  Acrylic on .75 canvas, 18×24 inches.

Power Birds: October 23rd.  Acrylic on canvas board, 8×10 inches.

Power Birds: November 5th.  Acrylic on canvas board, 8×10 inches.

Raven on the Range: April 19th.  Acrylic on canvas board, 5×7 inches.

Ravens on the Range.  Acrylic on canvas board, 5×7 inches.

Power Bird: No. 5.  Acrylic on canvas board, 8×10 inches.

Woodland Raven with Teachings.  Acrylic on canvas board, 18×24 inches.

The Starlight Tours: The Early Years.  Mixed media, hacked painting, on canvas board, 8×10 inches.  (2nd in a new series.)

We acknowledge we are living on unceded Algonquin Territory, Trail of…  Mixed media, hacked painting, on canvas, 16×20 inches.  (First in a new series.)

New Moon on February 14th.  Acrylic on canvas board, 14×18 inches.  (Brighter in this photo as the summer sun is blazing down on the scene.)

Raven Moon.  Acrylic on canvas, 8×10 inches.

I Miss You.  Acrylic on .75 canvas, 18×24 inches.

TV Reception on a Remote Indian Reserve: 60’s Scoop.  Acrylic on .75 canvas, 36×48 inches.

Happiness is Big Bucks.  Acrylic on canvas board, 5×7 inches.

Messenger Bird.  Acrylic on canvas board, 7×9 inches, not framed.

Raven on the Range: October 20.  Acrylic on canvas board, 9×12 inches, not framed.

Ravens on the Range: October 18th.  Acrylic on canvas board, 9×12 inches, not framed.

True Story.  Acrylic on canvas board, 9×12 inches.

Power Bird: October 1st.  Acrylic on canvas board, 7×9 inches, not framed.

4 Directions.  Acrylic on gallery canvas, 22×28 inches.

twinravens in June.  Acrylic on .75 canvas, 16×20 inches.

twinravens on August 5th.  Acrylic on .75 canvas, 16×20 inches.

Your Artist!  Mark Seabrook, Spanish River Indian Rez, home on Manitoulin Island, temporarily in the town of Ottawa!  At your service.