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Split Mask, 3rd session, work-in-progress, 2014, mixed media.

Since it's largely charcoal, I need to go out to try to find a fixative you can spray indoors. It's almost finished, though I'm not quite sure where I'm taking it (what I'm going to do next).


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No idea if I'll get it finished by 9am Monday morning, in time for the pick-up of my paintings and the installation of my show at Urban Gallery, but I am working on a painting I've been thinking of doing for 4 months or so. There have been so many intervening crises that I was not able to get to it before New Year's Day. Floods, and family upheavals, and the power failure resulting from the ice storm (I had power and was refuge for family members along with an extra cat and a bunny) kept me busy and only staring at the empty canvas. I'm rushing through it now, no idea if I'll make it.

This is an iPhone pic, shot at night, not good quality, but posting gives it a reality I'm not feeling working away listening to a piano music channel (can't get into the wireless external hard drive with Glen Gould, which is who I would like to be listening to nonstop tonight). Never mind. Back to work.


I had begun a loose prosepoem called Split Mask last Summer, but it hasn't quite come together either. Still, the poem and the painting are part of the same creative process, the same concepts, just different vantages or mediums.

Later in the evening:



Here's the Opening Invitation, too, which I will no doubt be posting at least one more time. The show opens one week from now!


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Too cute not to share. My cat, Aria, 1½, sure loves her doggy, Keesha, 14½. Keesha is so gentle with her little cat, letting her sleep on her 'n all.

Keesha has lived with a number of cats in her 14 years and none of them were friendly.  Little Aria, who came from Willie Anicic out near Niagara Falls, was thought to be half Siamese and half tabby but who looks exactly like an Egyptian Abyssinian, doesn't she. She is all of 6 lbs fully grown. I wanted Keesha to have a feline pal, and so I worked on 'their relationship.' Aria hissed/spit at her doggy the first week or so, as all the cats do. But, instead of allowing their natural distrust of each other to determine their relationship, I used the butter trick.

What is the butter trick? A lady in a store told me that a friend of hers had heard about the butter trick - she covered her kitten in butter and her dog licked it off and they were sleeping together within weeks.

With Aria's hissing and Keesha's barking back at her, it was a bit scary putting butter on the little 2½ month-old kitten and holding her for the dog to lick for sure! I only put a small pat of butter on her side, and held her in my lap while I sat cross-legged on the floor. Keesha was called over and I pointed to the butter. She delightedly licked it off the tiny kitten who, when I let her go, ran off as quick as she could to a high perch to wash herself with dignity.

After another session or so of the 'butter trick,' when Keesha and I came home from a walk, our wee kitten was waiting on the stairs for us. She rubbed herself under her dog, and against her dog, purring loudly. I was flabbergasted. It was amazing to see after all the hissing and growling and scratching she has endured from our other cats over the years.

Here is a little cell phone video of Aria as a young kitten playing with an origami ball. Keesha wants to play with her, but doesn't know how to without hurting her (listen, I know my dog - not all dogs would be like this, but my old Springer Spaniel has a wonderful disposition).



June 15, 2012 - two days after Willie dropped her off. She'd be about 9 or 10 weeks old in this family video.


A month or so ago. My kids are tired of all the pics and videos of these two, but I never tire of being amazed at how close they are. Unfortunately, my doggy has an inner ear problem, behind the eardrum. She can't be operated on due to her age - vet says she wouldn't survive the anaesthetic - and because the area is too close to the brain. I've spent two grand on treatment for her ear, and at this point, I am keeping it as clean as possible, medicated drops, flushing with saline, and she is on gravol, which helps with the motion sickness and is enabling her to eat more easily again. She still energetically drags me through the streets on our walks, is loving and happy, so she's doing alright, the sweet old lady.

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Well, hey, Merry Gift-Giving and Day of Loving, to others, to yourself. Feast, be joyful, contented. Never mind the other stuff. Overload on good food, good company, good vibes. Get nice and charged up. Then glow, ok. Don't matter if you're with warm, loving family, hyper-intense dysfunctional family, friends or alone. Get merry, 'k. And remember, Poets Rock!!! xoxo

(photo courtesy of Tara Clews- who's back home in a warm apartment now! Ice Storms Cometh... and Ice Storms Goeth.)





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Best Wishes for your joy, comfort, safety and success are all year long, and yet this is the time of year when we are full of the light of our loving of each other and every wish sets off more sparks in everyone's lives... this gorgeous Solstice card was sent to me by +laurie corzett overflowing with an abundance of transformational wishes and so I am setting you alight with it too. xoxoxoxo

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Just sent some minor edits through to Urban Gallery, where my next show will be, from, get this, January 9th - March 1st!

The Opening will be on January 9th, from 5-8:00 PM (due to liquor laws, there has to be an rsvp list (send via email to Urban Gallery).

I'll be in attendance/artist at work on three Saturdays from 2-4 PM, Jan 18, Feb 1, Feb 15.

I've organized two 'poetry salon' events for January (both will get Fb event pages):

-Winter Snow Ball, an evening of Queer Poetry/Music/Performance, hosted by Philip Cairns, 7-9 PM.
-A Performance Poetry Evening, featuring Luciano Iacobelli and Brenda Clews, 7-9 PM.

Poetry Salons for Feb will be announced - hoping Nik Beat will do a poetry and music salon,  A Poetry Dance; and that Banoo Zan will offer a poetry night of features and open mic too.

Image is a composite I made from their website, http://www.urbangallery.ca/

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