Dancing Days are here again…

tomorrow is my first day back at the pow wow in… how many years has it been? 2 we know about for sure. tomorrow’s pow wow is here in O Town, capital city, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, planet Earth. last time I danced in this neighbourhood was likely around 2001. the raven though goes all the way back to 1988!

said raven in 1988:

yours truly at the Wikwemikong Indian Days and Pow wow, 1988. version 1 of the raven and the first summer I was on the dance floor in my own regalia. that outfit was described as “artsy… “

version 2 of the raven, at the Wikwemikong Pow wow, 2013.

and so! what will the 2022 version look like tomorrow? I can tell you this much: the vest I wore when I was dancing on those cooler afternoons back in 1988, for some reason doesn’t fit anymore… I mean yes I can get my arms in but for some reason the bottom 4 buttons won’t work… if you get my drift…

quite actually: the rig has seen a lot of action over the years. we’ll see how it goes tomorrow but then let’s remember the forecast for tomorrow afternoon is 30 C! a real raven lies low on such a warm afternoon so we’ll see…

switching gears: fun stuff! fun words about the novel: SUN INFINITY MOON

COOL!

super cool!

yes. fun stuff. which gets me to thinking about the cobwebbed “Fighting In Hell”. it was written in February but gosh it opened up a can of worms and TNT that might have best been left alone. after my old buddy Blake passed, I was thinking about his art journey and I wonder if he ever kept a journal, say, going over the days he was in art class with Mr. Norval Morrisseau at the front, doing the teaching.

well I had no flashy art teacher like Norval M., but we managed to get a few pictures done along the way and so, perhaps, when we get back from the pow, back to the range, back to the big peace, we’ll go back and take another look at “Fighting In Hell” and see if it can be saved. (I still like the cover design!)

anyway. if it’s pow time tomorrow, lad get some sleep tonight!!! we started our day at 2 a.m., watched the moon rise and saw that celestial event that was in all the papers. and made the 9 hour drive to this crazy and smoking hot city! we’re in the AC now though on the swanky Island Park address, so all is good in getting ready to dance tomorrow.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Father’s Day 2022

we’re on the swanky 9th to spend some time with the top boss of the outfit, he turned 93 the other day! wowza. 93 big ones… our old buddy Blake Debassige only made it to 65, RIP Blake. I should have stopped when I had the chance last Saturday around noon but noon is a terrible to time to pull in for a visit.

new paintings! 24×36 inches, acrylic on canvas and created in late May! we’ve been creating these since 2013 but have never had a line up, a half dozen or more, all in the same room together. we put the idea to the test and the results are interesting!

20×30 inches, acrylic on canvas: that was the first one to go! and this artist boy likes what he sees. a fella like me can look at something like that all day and get along with it.

old work: 16×20 inches, acrylic on canvas board, April 1986! all the way back to art school! that is the sketch for the painting: Clouds Over Lake Mindemoya, 30×40 inches approx., and the first painting I sold, fresh out of art school. so Doc, if you’re reading this, send me an email, I’d love to see the big painting again.

also created on the same day as the sketch for Clouds Over Lake Mindemoya, “the Tree”, acrylic on canvas board, 16×20 inches, April 1986, Art School Days. Oh my goodness I do remember that morning when I painted these, at the apt. on 2nd ave, Owen Sound.

while going through the inventory last week I came upon these 2 sketches and thank the almighty we hung onto them. 36 years… where did they go?!!!

the sky at home on the range, 5 a.m., June 15, 2022: you can see what inspired the paint brush strokes in the above sketches! on June 15th I woke to the sound of thunder! how far off I sat and wondered… started humming a song from 1982… (the song: Don’t Answer Me, Alan Parson’s Project. she sent me what I thought was a “mix tape” but it turned out to be 90 minutes of Don’t Answer Me, over and over and over. I liked the song and never minded it. little did I know she was trying to tell me something… )

the front yard on June 14: there are 2 of my maple trees and they are off to the races! I visit them every morning! I have 8 of them I took from the farm back home in Mindemoya, back when they were saplings, and look at them now, 10 years in. I also have 2 oak trees charging up! one day someone is going to have an amazing front yard out there!

we’ll have to go there some day and see it for ourselves. many thanks to folks at Bay of Spirits Gallery.

in the news:

gosh the crazy things some folks get up to.

like this one:

another one of these phoney Indians or as the new term for it goes into the history books: “Pretendians”. this stuff always gives me a chuckle as I wonder who is it in the hiring committee? who was it at Penguin who bought into Joe’s story and gave it the go ahead? who was it that bought into Michelle’s bit and gave her the go ahead? who was it who bought into the Carrie thing and went forward with it?

as for me and my house: I’m dusting off the raven and getting ready to hit up my first pow wow in at least 2 years! the one I’m dancing in is at Ottawa, we’ll be there on Saturday, June 25th, and I want in on that Grand Entry! I just hope I can gather the rig and have the goods good to go come noon next Saturday. it has been a very long time since we rolled the raven out onto the dance floor. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I love a fun book review! we’re still having a lot of fun with our novel: SUN INFINITY MOON. posted in the above photo, a quick review recently sent. and I signed on for a few Manitoulin Island summer festivals as a “storyteller” and will be reading chapter 2, “Last Month” or as it is known in prize winning literary circles: “The Lottery Ticket”.

the good folks at utmscribes called it: harrowing…

anyway. happy Father’s Day. (I was a young father once.)