MEDUSA'S HAIR

A beautiful woman once told me that the only way to love a woman is to worship her like your Goddess. Try it men... it opens the gates of love. The Goddess takes many forms... not all of them are pretty. Poor old Perseus could not look into the eyes of his Goddess lest he be turned to stone... so he looked into the mirror of his shield and cut off the head of his true love and turned his love to stone. Or you could be Paris and choose between the Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, Hera, Goddess of the Hearth, or Aphrodite, Goddess of Beauty. Young men choose Aphrodite, middle-aged men choose Hera, great men choose Athena. The irony is they are one and the same and found in each and every woman we truly love. My love Katmandu has amazing hair... dreadlocks in a Minoan crown.I gave my Goddess Medusa’s hair but she has the vision of wisdom and the soft bosom of solace. 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES (with a nod to Leonardo)

Where are you from? Can you tell your story just with reference to the city of your birth... the city of your death? My cities: Montreal, Minneapolis, Calgary.... now Saskatoon. My towns... St Donat, Inuvik, Crowsnest Pass, Pincher Creek, Lethbridge, Placencia, High River. Write now... sit me down... I will tell you the story of each of these places. They are as much a part of me as my shoulders, my kneecaps, my ear lobes. Katmandu, my traveling companion, the love of my life.... my Goddess comes from Toronto and lives in Saskatoon. Hence the two cities in my painting. An allusion to the cities as if they were dream cities not the real YONGE and BLOOR or SPADINA CRESCENT. My challenge in this work.... create aerial perspective... the great lesson my Italian Godfather Leonardo taught me. The colour of a landscape adopts the colour of the sky as it disappears into the distance. Life is short. “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” to quote my born-to-be-wild friend Paul Gauguin adrift in Tahiti after Paris and a season with my sad brother Vincent in Arles. Read “Invisible Cities” by that other Italian... Italo Calvino. Then you will know exactly what it means to come from a city.

SHAPE SHIFTERS

Who are we really? Are we the selves we see in the mirror in the morning as we shave the stubble from our cheeks and chins? Are we the masks of beauty we apply with the mascara brush and lipstick to our aging faces? Are we the strands of DNA that coil like prism snakes in the centers of our cells?Are we the prisoners of our own minds? Are we the memories in the vaults of our temporal lobes? Are we the citizens of a city that cites us in its censuses? Are we the brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and mothers and fathers of all those nuclear families? Am I my driver’s license photograph? Am I the Viking warrior I saw in the flames of the campfire under the Aurora Borealis? Are you the flower girl at the coronation of the Babylonian queen that you saw in the Forget-Me-Nots under the sunflowers that afternoon in late July? We have been here and elsewhere in many universes in many eternities many times before...... Battista Sforza, the duchess of Montefeltro from the castle in Urbino in the hill country of Rimini. Kathryn my wife. See one. See the other. And who is the Kathryn that shines beyond them all? That is the Goddess I wish to paint. We shift shapes, we shape shifters like the sky changes from dawn to dusk. It is very beautiful. It glows with possibility. Yes!

GODDESS

I’m the type of girl who butters toast from edge to edge.

No moth balls in my fur-lined cedar chest.

 I’ m a contradiction... simple as a caress. 

 I’m complicated as a hissy fit... “wanna see me jealous?”

 Dread-lock gypsy queen with Bach embedded in my bones.

 Make-believe .... a miscarriage or a poem.

I‘m the blue jean Venus at the Rodeo Dance. 

It ain’t easy being a goddess in a frozen land.

One part snow and one part mall, lake trout in a pan. 

I’m the gothic girl with a nose ring in Matane.

The grande dame at the opera in Chicoutmi.

I know the Micmac & the Cree for “just bite me!”

Medusa or Madonna, It’s Kali or the Queen of Spades

Aphrodite or the Sphinx you  gotta choose the only one &

If you look me in the eye, gonna stone you green as Jade

So, Bring me all your honey and i ‘ll shine you like the sun

So, Bring me all your honey and i ‘ll shine you like the sun

Get on your knees, do not beg, you needy man.

A little groveling never hurt ...you better make me laugh.

So, bring me a Chardonnay &  draw me a bath.

State your name and reason why, but never turn your back.

I’m a sweat suit  Nana with a Louis Vuitton bag.

3 dozen pink and one red rose I command... I command!!!!

Medusa or Madonna, It’s Kali or the Queen of Spades

Aphrodite or the Sphinx you  gotta choose the only one &

If you look me in the eye, gonna stone you green as Jade

So, Bring me all your honey and i ‘ll shine you like the sun

So, Bring me all your honey and i ‘ll shine you like the sun