Love Song No. 6

as some of you may know: ages ago i was in an amazing all native rock and roll band. we grew out of the drama team at the N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre over there in Sudbury, Ontario. ah but those were some glorious and exciting times!

on stage at the Northern Lights Folk Festival (ages ago!)

the band was called No Reservations and gosh they were a wild bunch! some day we need to write a book about that one.

and so around that time, i bought a Fostex brand 4 track recorder which used basic cassette tapes. i’d plug a cassette in there and use those 4 tracks to try and make something song wise i could take to the band. of course we had that Fostex sitting around at the party house too and some mighty weird songs were recorded on there including the infamous: What to do with Sunday Afternoon… (also on my Youtube channel, warning: coarse language and sexual content in that song!)

anyway: the Fostex and all those original tapes lay buried in a plastic bin back home on the range, for who knows how long. about 5 years ago someone who knows how to transfer these old analog tapes to digital went to work on a few of them and we ended up with some snap shots of the past, which we still need to make videos for and post them to the twinravens youtube channel. for kicks you see!

recently though i was given a gizmo that connects a guitar into a computer to record on Garage Band. this thing is an Apogee brand “jam” connector. the line in is the 1/4 inch jack and the line out is this magic whatever it is that turns your guitar into a digital. but instead of plugging the quarter inch line in jack from the guitar i plugged the far end into this Fostex and boom: we can hear all these old tapes once again but this time on computer. super fun stuff especially as some of this “insane and abstract” music hasn’t seen the light of day since 1995. like: The Shadow of You. (yikes! what a song!)

anyway. i haven’t got the details sound wise figured out: how to mix these four tracks into the digital without a lot of back ground noise, buzz, and all that crap that goes with a jangle of wires all over the table top. and i’m no ACE when it comes to using Garage Band! i’m still trying to figure that one out!

but here is Love Song Number 6 for you! fussed with last night to the tune of a half a dozen beers, a lot of wiggling and waggling of wires and yes the mix is very muddy, but this is our first run at reviving these old tapes and putting them on the youtube air.

Fostex analog to Garage Band digital, first attempt.

i think i wrote and recorded this in 1994 when the band was starting up and really getting going. we were a rock and roll band so this song definitely didn’t make the set list.

i put this cheesy video together last night after fussing for several hours with the sound and those measly 4 tracks! (gosh the business of recording sound, songs and so on is time consuming! best not to be consuming a half dozen beers along the way… (we’ll try it again on the sober straight and narrow very soon!)) the drawings in the video come from that time! those are drawings of mine from a sketch book dated 1994/1995. you’ll even see the famed Stacie from Malibu in there! gosh she was a thunderbolt!

anyway! there it is! my first attempt to revive these old songs of mine that never made the No Rez set list or album list. i had a lot of fun trying to figure this out last night and yes, those tasty German beers can become a diversion in the process but you have to remember last night it was a blistering 30 C plus! up here on the 3rd floor it was smoking hot! we were down to our bikinis!

Me and Shag going to work in No Reservations

ah but the music business was fun and how i would love to get back into it. but a fella like me needs a band and right now my band is working other irons in other fires.

the glass ain’t half empty/full, its BONE DRY!

you see in the band i was never one of the vocalists. we had 3 good singers up front and that is where they’re supposed to be! a voice like mine just couldn’t run in that race but i was mighty happy to be in there on one of the guitars.

here is what the band really sounds like, with all the bells and whistles of a fancy studio production:

Nice work!

so i’ll go back to work on those old cassette tapes and see what we can scrounge up in the lost songs/Fostex dept. (might be best to start the project in the morning minus the German pilsners! ha!)

and that’s the story behind: Love Song Number 6. words and music by Mark Seabrook. artwork too, drawn over the fun times of 1994 and 1995. what art fun!

update: November 8, 2022: full moon is on the rise, very far north on the tree line to the east, out here on the open range. no wind on a night like this means sweet and wonderful beauty! the landscape is at peace which means we can be too! wonderful way to spend a Tuesday night! anyway: I wanted to re share this classic twinravens song with you. I hope you like it!

Heat Waving!

friday in the slab was unlike any other day in many a moon! we had plans but the almighty laughed at those.

Friday, July 10, 2020

the plan was to jet the city around 6 but we had to save that for the 4 a.m. Saturday morning bug out: the heat had us knocked out Friday night. it was a beautiful early morning drive down the 416 and the 401-super green and blue with a much needed summer rain, a sky filled with heavy duty clouds in all shades of grey: beauty scenes! no time for pictures though as we had a date at the other end, up there on the swanky 9th!

Toronto, near 1 Yonge Street, smoking hot.

we were out the door fast and going downtown. check out that stupid mask i’m hanging onto… what is the world coming to? i’ve got my snarly face on for the good folks at the waterfront.

Viewing art shows in the time of Covid 19: social distancing.

we were at the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit, Physically Distanced Walk In, and folks it was not a sold out show! not at 1 p.m. it was well worth the time and effort! the soundtrack is was what struck me. i heard Samuel Barber’s Adagio Op. 11 arranged for piano, and let me tell you hearing that with those Van Gogh images sailing across those big dark walls…

this was not the version in the show but wow! what a moment of heavy duty wonder. good thing they had us hiding our emotions behind those stupid masks!

viewing art and art shows in July 2020.

some music, with your heaviest of life events attached to them, will certainly stir the emotions! i was happy it was dark in there and i had that dumb mask on. so yes! a 40 minute show, well worth the time and $$$.

Beautiful downtown Toronto, Saturday afternoon, July 11.

in that intense heat and humidity none of us wanted to stick around the downtown! we were in the limo and going back to the swanky 9th in short order.

Found Poetry, Book 5, a work in progress.

i’m having fun with the last hundred pages in Book 5, found poetry, repurposed books, art journaling, artist journey, creative adventures, other ways of writing and arranging.

interesting stuff on Instagram last week.

i’m liking what these young artists are creating. we may have thought about it ages ago but they’re doing the actual! nice work!

The Green and Blue, late July, many moons ago

the boss has cut me some slack! so i’ll be moving to the rear with the gear in a few short business days and let me tell you several days on the open range at that time in the summer is going to be serious medicine. serious healing! serious green and blue! and how lucky am i! we have our friends arriving at the same time. i so look forward to those wonderful days in the sunshine and those nights under the stars!

The open range, on an August night, many moons ago.

so maybe the lawn won’t look like this when we get there but i’ll see what i can do with the turn around in the greens keeping after a night of star gazing.

sunrise on the range, many moons ago

one thing is for sure: it’s wonderful to know we have a place tucked away where we can go when they cut us loose from the city. and if this heat wave continues you know where i’ll be!

Paintings, Writings, Music and road tripping Native Style

Power Bird on the Range, acrylic on canvas board, 7×9″, Artist Collection.

in the spirit of Pride, the Power Bird on the Range, artwork by Mark Seabrook. ah yes was it the summer of 2013 when we walked out to what became “the Art Bridge” and re visited our landscape painting? the Art Bridge is part of the laneway into the range, back home on the island. and the “twinravens” landscape is something we were developing way back in art school: many moons ago. developing yes. unfortunately not connecting the dots, never following through. the idea was brewing alright and one day when i get home to the range i’ll snap a photo of one of the paintings from that era, where the brewing was beginning! in recent years, in full brew (ha!), we managed create paintings like this:

For Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women, Acrylic on canvas, 36×58 inches

i’m pretty happy with that one. many thanks of course to the good folks at Abstract Expressionism, c. 1950.

Body, Mind, Spirit. Acrylic on canvas board, 12×12 inches. Artist Collection.

we’re going to hang onto this one as we were almost there with the idea. what we need though is a block of time back at the bridge! maybe we can get back there in August, as i have been thinking about that one!

Clouds over Lake Mindemoya, acrylic on canvas, 16×20″. Artist Collection.

we want to remember too, that THIS was part of that landscape idea from art school. this one was painted during 3rd year and thank goodness we still have this sketch! the large painting of this idea is the first painting i sold! many thanks to those doctors from Toronto. (Doc: if you’re reading this please contact me as i’d love to see the big painting again.)

Anishnabe at Full Moon, acrylic on canvas board, 16×20″. Artist Collection.

we want to remember we still have this going on and its going to continue to go on!

The Lottery Ticket in Thunderbird Stories Edition One

i want to say Aanii and Boozhoo to any of you folks here from the UTM Scribes on Instagram! “The Lottery Ticket” is a part of the horror story: SUN INFINITY MOON which is my first attempt at a novella.

the famous: Moosonee Proof!

yes we kind of rushed through production last summer and what they gave us was a book full of howling errors! errors like cockroaches, i didn’t see all of them until i started paying attention last autumn. so if you come across one of these copies, what it is is the Artist Proof. sorry about that. it is being retooled and we are soon printing the cleaned up version with a brand new cover. example of howling errors: right there on the cover: the clown changed my “coarse” language to his “course” language…

you see this is what happens when…

yeesh.

anyway. we move forward.

Very much still active a full 25 years later!

the famed twinravens Summer Mission Statement. words we lived by up until just a short 4 years ago when this road trip started. we have had bits and pieces of this mission statement covered since but some that have not been covered are: “swim out beyond the confines of the cover, into the big water where the big fish like to go”, “spend a morning, afternoon and evening with your mom and dad and have them tell you about the times when they were your age”, and “design your own tattoos”. my tattoos have faded away, now long gone. (Meen Geezis translates to: Berry Moon, or July)

Page 178, from INFINITY

yes there is a lot of coarse language and mad capped high jinx going on within the pages of INFINITY but the same can be said about SUN and MOON. this ain’t no Indian Disneyland type story.

Refer to: this piece at cbc.ca

The Doc Project·Personal Essay

My adoptive parents tried to erase my Indigenous identity. They failed.

Kim Wheeler was adopted during the Sixties Scoop and fought to find her way back to her culture

Kim Wheeler · Posted: Jun 18, 2020 5:29 PM ET | Last Updated: June 18

well that is Kim Wheeler’s tale. mine is quite different. my parents did NOT try to erase my Indian identity. what they did instead was save my life.

but going through that adventure: The 60’s Scoop, for me, sure did open a lot of doors where a natural born artist like me can stand and see a great many things, people included. i was one of the lucky ones.

Words and music by Shag Shaganash

i didn’t write any part of that one. that’s all Shag and his work. but that’s my band and lets hope and pray one day we get that show back on the road. the world could use some NR.

Words by Mark Seabrook, Music by Shawn Corbiere, Vocal by Jen B.

i did write the words to this one and you can hear in the lyrics: that 60’s scoop experience… many thanks to Mr. S.C. for the music and the great Jen Brunelle for the vocal. Danny Boy on the drums! (Hey that record was nominated for a Juno Award! just saying.)

well we are here and it is now: we’re on the swanky 9th. the cook is working up something very nice for lunch and the afternoon is all ours: what to do with Saturday afternoon?!!! ha ha. i say that knowing the mad capped twinravens classic: “What to do with Sunday afternoon?” (on my youtube channel), some of you found offensive and accused me of being obtuse!

Summer in the city

what we have to do is make up our mind which is our best foot and put it forward! GO!

Summer Solstice

wow! i’m at home, on the range, south east Manitoulin Island, in a paradise! peace, blue and green in every direction this Sunday morning. mega wowza!

My Home on the Range: I’d drive all night to get back home.

and i did drive all night to get back home! i split O Town around 8 p.m. Friday, after all was said and done at the office. the temperature was way the flipping up around 32 C, boiling hot and brutal in the city. folks over there sitting on their pavement and concrete, sitting in their shades, fussing and seriously fuming in that urban nightmare. i looked it over, chuckling, knowing full well that i had a place of peace just 8 short hours down the open highway.

Last week’s weather forecast, O Town.

it was a smoker of a day over there and i was glad to be leaving! glad to be leaving the city heat and the nightmarish city scenes: folks in all sorts of distress.

Highway 17 between Deep River and Mattawa, around midnight.

like i said before: there is no short version to the drive from O Town to the range: it is all of 8 hours. so my thing is, lets make a night of it and pull over along the way to see the stars and to smell the landscape in the boon docks section where there is big time no light or noise pollution. the scene above though: they’re fixing a bridge out there and its down to one lane.

Nice work!

with all that alone time you can take a few moments to think about the work day, business week and the scenes along the way. this instagram post caught my attention!

Fostex plugged into MacBook: digitizing old twinravens songs!

when you’re sitting at the starting point of an 8 hour drive you almost wonder if its worth the time and effort. had i stayed in the city i’d be back to fooling around with the old Fostex plugged into the computer but i’d been working on that every night of the work week and of course i saw the forecast for saturday!

Saturday afternoon, June 20th.

a heat wave doesn’t mean a thing when you have a river running through it! and we surely do out here on the open range!

My home sweet home!

there she is! at around 130 yesterday afternoon, smoking hot, a gin and tonic, and mission accomplished: home and exactly what i imagined during the work week. definitely worth an 8 hour drive turned into about 12 hours on the road, over night.

at home with the river

she said: you have beautiful legs. (how nice of her!)

anishnabe sun worship

okay so maybe i don’t have the figure i had a short 4 years ago but one thing is for darn sure: yesterday’s round of sun worship was exactly what the doctor ordered! and exactly what i’d imagined! and this old boy is still on the mend! i hope to be back to my “old self” soon!

a summer evening at home

gosh it is hard to believe i’ve been living on the road going on 4 years… hopefully by the time i get back there will be a deck on the front of that house! when it gets there and when i get there i’m going to crack open something very tasty and sit down out there, enjoy my view, thank my lucky stars, and remember too my many nights in the city.

an artist alone in the city

but we are here today and it is NOW! it is a paradise in every direction out here: bird song in every direction and the quiet sounds of the river. yes sweet yes! it is wonderful be here at home. much love!

Love Song No. 6

as some of you may know: ages ago i was in an amazing all native rock and roll band. we grew out of the drama team at the N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre over there in Sudbury, Ontario. ah but those were some glorious and exciting times!

on stage at the Northern Lights Folk Festival (ages ago!)

the band was called No Reservations and gosh they were a wild bunch! some day we need to write a book about that one.

and so around that time, i bought a Fostex brand 4 track recorder which used basic cassette tapes. i’d plug a cassette in there and use those 4 tracks to try and make something song wise i could take to the band. of course we had that Fostex sitting around at the party house too and some mighty weird songs were recorded on there including the infamous: What to do with Sunday Afternoon… (also on my Youtube channel, warning: coarse language and sexual content in that song!)

anyway: the Fostex and all those original tapes lay buried in a plastic bin back home on the range, for who knows how long. about 5 years ago someone who knows how to transfer these old analog tapes to digital went to work on a few of them and we ended up with some snap shots of the past, which we still need to make videos for and post them to the twinravens youtube channel. for kicks you see!

recently though i was given a gizmo that connects a guitar into a computer to record on Garage Band. this thing is an Apogee brand “jam” connector. the line in is the 1/4 inch jack and the line out is this magic whatever it is that turns your guitar into a digital. but instead of plugging the quarter inch line in jack from the guitar i plugged the far end into this Fostex and boom: we can hear all these old tapes once again but this time on computer. super fun stuff especially as some of this “insane and abstract” music hasn’t seen the light of day since 1995. like: The Shadow of You. (yikes! what a song!)

anyway. i haven’t got the details sound wise figured out: how to mix these four tracks into the digital without a lot of back ground noise, buzz, and all that crap that goes with a jangle of wires all over the table top. and i’m no ACE when it comes to using Garage Band! i’m still trying to figure that one out!

but here is Love Song Number 6 for you! fussed with last night to the tune of a half a dozen beers, a lot of wiggling and waggling of wires and yes the mix is very muddy, but this is our first run at reviving these old tapes and putting them on the youtube air.

Fostex analog to Garage Band digital, first attempt.

i think i wrote and recorded this in 1994 when the band was starting up and really getting going. we were a rock and roll band so this song definitely didn’t make the set list.

i put this cheesy video together last night after fussing for several hours with the sound and those measly 4 tracks! (gosh the business of recording sound, songs and so on is time consuming! best not to be consuming a half dozen beers along the way… (we’ll try it again on the sober straight and narrow very soon!)) the drawings in the video come from that time! those are drawings of mine from a sketch book dated 1994/1995. you’ll even see the famed Stacie from Malibu in there! gosh she was a thunderbolt!

anyway! there it is! my first attempt to revive these old songs of mine that never made the No Rez set list or album list. i had a lot of fun trying to figure this out last night and yes, those tasty German beers can become a diversion in the process but you have to remember last night it was a blistering 30 C plus! up here on the 3rd floor it was smoking hot! we were down to our bikinis!

Me and Shag going to work in No Reservations

ah but the music business was fun and how i would love to get back into it. but a fella like me needs a band and right now my band is working other irons in other fires.

the glass ain’t half empty/full, its BONE DRY!

you see in the band i was never one of the vocalists. we had 3 good singers up front and that is where they’re supposed to be! a voice like mine just couldn’t run in that race but i was mighty happy to be in there on one of the guitars.

ah for kicks here is another one of the Fostex tapes digitized by one of the lads who really knows how to make the sound proper and clean. well, as clean as it can be considering the tape is 25 years old! (this is what Love Song Number 6 is supposed to sound like, less the tasty German pilsners!)

WARNING: Coarse language and sexual content.

made up on the spot, Sunday morning, Suds, 1995

this is one of those songs made up on the spot: no lyrics written, just made up as the tape rolled. same with the guitar, i picked up Shag’s 12 string and hit the record button. you can hear Shag in the back at the beginning, he’s cooking up breakfast. that’s also Shag in the background vocal which is kooky as he is a LEAD vocal!

here is what the band really sounds like, with all the bells and whistles of a fancy studio production:

Nice work!

so i’ll go back to work on those old cassette tapes and see what we can scrounge up in the lost songs/Fostex dept. (might be best to start the project in the morning minus the German pilsners! ha!)

and that’s the story behind: Love Song Number 6. words and music by Mark Seabrook. artwork too, drawn over the fun times of 1994 and 1995. what art fun!

update: November 8, 2022: full moon is on the rise, very far north on the tree line to the east, out here on the open range. no wind on a night like this means sweet and wonderful beauty! the landscape is at peace which means we can be too! wonderful way to spend a Tuesday night! anyway: I wanted to re share this classic twinravens song with you. it is a cluster you know what, but still, after all these years, I believe in in a lot more than UFO’s. ha!

I hope you like it!

Early Summer 2020

the mad goings on over here in the slab are forever, 24 and 7, and in every direction. we’re in here thick and surrounded. but there is a place! and we have the good fortune of the ways and means of blasting our way out.

the front lawn in early June 2020

i know it’s a mess but this is what happens when my boots are not on that ground. that lawn, given my free hand, can look like this!

nice work: lawn care by yours truly, from a long ago August evening

Ten Mile Point at Sunrise

as usual on a Friday in June i hit the office from 9 to 5 and then started out on the road home around 8 p.m. i had to pull over and see the moon, the moonlight, the stars and smell the glorious things in the deep dark woods between Deep River and Mattawa, after midnight. AND hear the far away sounds: frog songs a thousand yards away. a bird at night. but on this trip, no far off train rattling through the wilderness. it was just me and things mentioned. absolutely everything i asked for. what glorious moments. i turn that 8 hour drive into 12 hours and so arrived at sunrise: Ten Mile Point, on Manitoulin Island, and saw this! wowza!

waiting for the full moon on June 6th

the grand lady of the house was having a party and so it was a busy scene up there in the crib: cooking, mostly. me doing most of the cooking of K but here is the scene after sunset: waiting for the full moon, the Strawberry Moon too! if you know the story there is real reason to go out there and celebrate. which of course is what we were doing! (by this point in time i was working on 2 hours of sleep in the past 2 days!)

good old blue eyes

this is one of the cats the folks rescued and old UE seems to be settling in, going on several years now. you might remember the story of when he/she first arrived on the range, autumn ages ago. i was sitting at my dining table around 6 p.m. in early September and saw something white at the very top of a far away tree to the east. there were ravens and crows circling the tree and i wondered what in the what the is up there? yup! it was UE up there, as a kitten, trying out his/her new jungle claws. the way i saw it: if you can find your way up there, you can find your way down, and so never called the local fire dept. (i’ll see if i can find that photo to share with you.)

UE is one of 4 cats on the range

they’re living the good life out there: lots of birds and mice to harvest and who knows what all else…

there she is: running with or without us…

i hope to get back to this again like i have in the past: 8 weeks of sun worship and thanksgiving. July and August on the range, how lucky i have been in the past to be there and see it for 60 days!

Shell with her new Eagle Feather

that’s her office up there on the hill and she’s got a brand new eagle feather in her hand. Sunday morning with the clock ticking: we had just a few hours to go before the bug out: back to the cities. a bit of a bluesy thought: we get home and like any sane person: why would you want to leave? truth is you don’t want to leave a paradise on earth but… that is the way of it for now.

found poetry, repurposed book 5: fun stuff!

That Weekend at the Cottage, No. 6. it is a run on poem in this repurposed book, turned into fun stuff, art journal, diary, mad house, spooksville, and general issue hub bub ranging from late December last year to now, and with a hundred pages to go, likely into somewheres in July. for more info on the repurposed book/art journal visit the twinravens youtube channel.

and so the world’s people have gone mad. or at least 50% of them. but the world goes along without us. i was down at South Baymouth on Sunday morning and the old drunken sailor we saw there at 7 a.m. said the water in Lake Huron hasn’t been that high in 20 years! well i’m an old sailor too and i said: 25…

(i was there to see it!)

yes this old world doesn’t need us crazy humans to get along. with that in mind, i have my acoustic guitar tuned to play Led Zep’s “That’s the Way” and since my sweet Jazzy Moon is out on her first sleep over in over 3 flipping months, it is just me here which means i can get that big old acoustic rumbling and see if my voice is wiggly enough for my best Robert Plant! one more Warsteiner should loosen the rig and get the wiggly we need to play such a thing.

i won’t share with you my version of “That’s the Way” so here is the real deal off LZ3.

Art school sound track

(better put the headphones on for this one!)

The Dream at the End of the World

Opening pages of Found Poetry Book 4: The Dream at the End of the World.  I loved that title and to boot: printed way back in 1991, the paper is quality stuff that can handle the sharpie markers, highlighters and thinly spread dollar store acrylic paint.  I keep saying “thinly spread” as no matter how good the paper quality is in these old books, if you layer on gobs of acrylic, bad things are going to happen to your book project.  I’ve seen it happen with a few participants and yes it can get messy fast.  And that’s when the tears start…

Remember: this is meant to be a long term art making project.  As you can see I started this one way back on September 4, 019.  Here we are at December 15th and I have 3 pages to go!  The opening “found poem”, is 2 pages of love…

Found poems…  Love this stuff!  As I said to participants:  what literary surprises are waiting for us with every page?

The End of Art School, found poem No. 3, is an 8 page beauty that goes like this:

in a dream, rising up through the tranquil sleep of a warm May evening, left in its wake a delicious sense of peace, of afternoon sunlight, the dream terrain, i felt the thrill of recognition, was offering, up to him again.  

his life was out of control, sidetracked by untidy passions, impulsive missteps, messy obsessions…

daring was in his art, and his ambition seemed limitless, he was an accomplished poet as well as a musician, still, he was beginning to feel like a hired hand, and he was weary of focusing his energy on works that were not his own.

disturbing, nihilistic, quietly bizarre…

its perpetual distraction.  as summer approached, the power of his stories, the dream had shown him the way.

flirtatious, seductive, she staged mad crushes, they had become favourites among the creative elite, they were famous among the famous.

his only refuge was his imagination, he invented his own planet, “I was always trying to get away.”

found his freedom, possessed of a diffident charm, and sensible in summer, thrillingly remote, was vital and clamorous, the ancient native, life burst through the seams, wonderfully excessive, costume balls, expeditions and martinis, cleanliness and efficiency.

steady, hot, with a moon that is like a sun when it is full, a madhouse: the piano in their isolated house was wildly out of tune…

trance dancing-all of it was part of the pageantry, Sahara, the sky had a life of its own, baptism of solitude, silent country, sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute: the absolute has no price.

mystical undercurrents ran deep, a man transforming, the supple nature of reality, on the other side of the looking glass, alienness intoxicating, insupportable jealousy, I shall be away. 

pursued the exotic, self indulgent, he kept up his creative momentum, he transported himself, an untamed twenty year old, the two began to spin fantasies.

a protagonist in his novel, restless souls who wanted to explore life outside, purpose and spirit, it was a mystery, She laughed: “You KNOW I don’t want you to go.”

a close friend of both, i dimly remember my own face and not yours, how psychosomatic can you get?

Of course there is room for drawing: “Fancy Shawl Dancer, who IS Mother Earth”,  sharpie marker, thinly spread dollar store acrylic.

And room too, for experimenting with the draw and the subject of the draw:  black ball point pen with sharpie marker on acrylic paint.  Maybe there is an opportunity to create a new series of pictures from the sketches in these pages.

Some days are tougher than others…  Sharpie marker on acrylic paint.

“True Love: age 22, (I knew her name)”, Found poem, a 12 page extravaganza!

Once into it, these sketches can be pretty telling…  (life on the road…  )

And of course there is room for fun stuff!  The end page of a wildly sexual poem, from the Road Taken!

Ah yes: room to explore, room to create, and maybe a new series of paintings in the development stages…

Heavy duty and ultra supra TELLING!  Wow.  This drawing is from the last of the pages in the book, 384 pages of found poems, drawings, journals, love stories, memory brambles lane, black circles under blood shot eyes, spinning out in a parking lot, from soup to nuts, insanity before xmas in the city.

Yes the found poetry book project is a work in progress and an exciting exercise for the creative soul.  On Monday I’ll be back in the goodwill on the snoop, looking for another interesting title with high quality paper.

Power Bird, acrylic on canvas, 18×24 inches, by anishnabe artist Mark Seabrook.  Made fresh this past week and using a new brand of acrylic paint!  The last of my Stevenson Professional Acrylic, and I mean the last, we’re down to the bottom of the barrels, I’m pretty sure we only have a half dozen paintings remaining in those paint barrels.  Very sad for me as Stevenson was my brand since all the way back in art school.

Power Birds, acrylic on canvas, 24×36 inches, by anishnabe artist Mark Seabrook.  Originally it was a black and white but with this new brand of paint in the house, it’s time to explore and see what she can do.

Just ten days before Xmas and…  yikes: another year will be in the books.

 

The swanky 9th

Up there somewhere, is the swanky 9th, photo from a January evening, 2018.  It’s a very cosy crib up there with all the bells and whistles!  This morning though it’s sunny and blue skies, looks like a great day for a drive from one slab to another.  Along for the ride to and from we have the Great Jasmine Moon!

We’ve been riding together, father and daughter, since she was around 3 years old and what beautiful trips those have been, mostly The Range to the capital city.  As you can imagine the music selections have changed through the years…   On the ride down, Friday night, never thought I would say this but gosh, kids these days, what strange music they listen to!

We started out alright, me tuned into the “classic rock radio”, the limo riding smoothly down the 416, darkness all around, perfect for classic “daddy music”, cranked:  “Ace of Spades”, “Mississippi Queen”, “Uncle Salty”, “When the Levee Breaks” and the likes of, which, it appeared, my old buddy Jasmine Moon could kind of get into…  Soon the classic rock radio faded away and out came the iPhone filled with “mod music”.  Oh boy.

Out of her iPhone shuffle came Boney M, “Rasputin”.  Wow!  What a fab song, cranked, what music (and that bass line!), whew!  Truth be told, I was a bit surprised to hear such things coming out of that 16, soon to be 17 year old gal’s music selection.  She had some golden oldies on there:  “Kiss You When its Dangerous”, “Don’t Dream its Over”, and one of my old, closet, high school faves:  “Kiss On My List”.  Fun stuff.  But it didn’t end there: out came some Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Nat King, and the likes of.  These road trips continue to be grand and glorious father and his daughter adventures, whatever music is playing!

Switching gears, check this out:

That is ME!  Day 1, Art School Year 1, age 18.  College photo ID snapped first thing on morning number 1, the Tuesday after Labour Day.  I remember that day!  My instructor said to me:  We’ve had a lot of Indians come through this program but none of them finished the first semester of the first year.  Me being who I was at that point in time replied:  That is why I’m here, to change all of that.

Haven’t seen that photo in years!  Shell was going through some boxes in the basement back home on the Range and found it!  Ha!

The Great Jasmine Moon, yesterday, getting her birthday tattoo, age 16, soon to be 17.  Happy Birthday my sweetie!  Love dad.

As for yesterday’s Roncesvalles show:  fun times as always!  Maybe we’ll see you again next year!

September 11, 2019

oh the dates in history…  i remember it well 18 years ago:  we were deep deep deep in the bush, far from any radio, TV, internet, completely unaware of what was happening south of us.  as far as i could see on that morning:  the big woodland skies were blue, the land was filled with greens and the waters were dark and mysterious, the sand was warm to the bare feet.  our jungle gear was brand new, untested, like us.  i managed 7.5 years in that jungle, but my gear was pretty much worn out by the time i came back.  i think i came out of there in November 2008, darn near crawling on my hands and knees!

but as my old buddy Sallah would say:  life goes on Indy!

we’re getting ready for a reprint of Sun Infinity Moon!  now…  yes.  i do know there are some spelling errors and layout problems in the first run.  the folks at the printers gave my project to some junior whoever, not sure how new they were to the layout position but anyway the man in charged assigned the young lad and away we went.  the problem of course is we were in a time crunch situation.  we had booked our little release party for July 20th, and there i was still fussing with the writing of it, on the morning of July 2nd, WHEN we sent it to the printers.  as far as i was concerned, when i saw those layout problems within the text, in particular, the business of paragraph indents, in the e version proofs, i was okay to run with as time really was running out.  (we had already missed a dozen deadlines.)

how i did not see:  “course language”, on the cover, i do not know.

where we really in that much of a time crunch that i missed that?  well anyway there are only 150 of them out there with that on the cover, so if you have one, you have the collector’s edition.  when we had the little release party we joked that yes, it is course language, university course language, not meant for high schools…  (ha!)

Beaded Dreams, on Bank Street, just north of Gladstone, in Ottawa:  i dropped off a fresh bundle of books to these good folks so if you’re in the area, you can get your collector’s edition, first run copy of SUN INFINITY MOON over there.  same with Huron Island Time down on Providence Bay Beach although i imagine these days, this far into September, things might be a little slow in downtown P.B.  now sure of the hours they might be keeping.

The Atomic Rooster, Bank Street, Ottawa:  the show is still up but your chance will soon be gone to see “For MMIWG” by anishnabe artist Mark Seabrook, up close and personal.  the canvas is 36×60 inches, Stevensons acrylic, and after this show, that painting is going into the Artist Collection, never to be seen in public again!

that is the great Peter Purdy’s artwork hanging next to mine.  title unknown, price unknown, 36×48 inches or there a bouts.  First Nations artwork.

Mother Earth sketch, acrylic on canvas board, 18×24 inches, by anishnabe artist Mark Seabrook.  we continue to play with the idea.

Found Poetry:  The Clone Trees, as read by anishnabe artist Mark Seabrook.  The Found Poetry idea has been a lot of fun, we’re coming up with some mighty strange poems and artsy little books.  The starting point is of course you take a hard cover book from the goodwill, one with quality paper, toss the paper cover, and go to work:  much like you see here with the Clone Trees.  A book of found poems can be pretty telling as the days go by: it is not a quick fix project, book 3 was started in early May 2019 and finished just last week.  Very telling indeed…

Book 4 is in the works.  Fun stuff, crafty, artsy, and one of a kind.  And oh yes:  you’re suppose to pick a book with a title that says it all for you…

Let me know how it goes.

Book Review by Steve McPhail

SUN INFINITY MOON
a novel by
Mark Seabrook

“Mark Seabrook” is a renaissance artist from the “Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation”, also known as “Many Rivers Joining-Human Beings”. Sagamok’s culture and language is “Anishinabek” / “Anishinaabemowin” and is made up of the Ojibwe, Odawa and Pottawatomi bands. (The Sagamok reserve is approximately 120 kilometres west of Sudbury, Ontario.) I first became aware of Mark’s brilliant “Woodland” style of painting at the “Providence Bay Harbour Centre” on Manitoulin Island, where his work illuminates the walls of the “Huron Island Time” ice cream parlour.

“Contemporary Canadian native artists have produced three major schools – ‘Westcoast art’, ‘Inuit art’ and ‘Woodland art’. All three have been based on ancient traditions that, despite the persistent and pervasive forces of acculturation, have endured to the present day. The woodland style developed as a direct result of the imagery ‘Norval Morrisseau’ brought forth into the world in the early 1960’s. Despite censure from elders in his community, he chose to make public the spiritual concepts inherent in the ‘Midiwewin religious society’. Common to contemporary and prehistoric traditions is the prevalence of images of ‘transformation’: representations of a man or an animal being two life forms at the same time.” – (http://www.native-art-in-canada.com/woodlandart.html)

For the record, “Midiwewin” is a religious society made up of spiritual advisors and healers, known as the “Mide”. The Mide serve as spiritual leaders for the general populace. They perform religious ceremonies, study and practise sacred healing methods and strive to maintain a respectful relationship between humanity and Mother Earth.”
– (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/midewiwin)

Though Mark Seabrook is no stranger to expressing himself in the written word, as a musician, poet and playwright, only recently has he released his first novel, “Sun Infinity Moon”. Much like his brilliant work in the visual arts, Mark reveals the story of a narrator’s “recapitulation” of his memories of childhood friends on Manitoulin Island, in a non-linear manner. (“Recapitulation is a core shamanic technique used to heal emotional charges. On a deeper level, it is used to reclaim energy and return it to one’s self.” – (http://toltecnagual.com/toltec-tools/the-recapitulation)

Whether these various characters are different people, or aspects of the narrating character’s fragmented personality, is up to interpretation. On the book cover is the warning: “contains course language, violence and sexuality”. Whether the reader identifies as Indigenous or not, take no offence at the harsh and humorous collage of scenarios depicted. As one follows the narrator’s struggle through his personal transformation to regain his “Indigenous soul”, consider the act of visualizing this story a personal shamanic journey.

Derek Stephen McPhail

Providence Bay