infinite series of movements
medium : watercolour, pencil & ink on paper
dimensions : 3 1/2″ wide x 4 1/2″ high

There are quite a few of these floating around, about 150 of them. This image of the ladder and the light at the top first occured in collaboration with my friend B. B is five years old now but when I first met him he was nearly two. I had been hired by his parents to mind him and his brother M (who was ten months old) on an ongoing and weekly basis. The best job I’ve ever been paid to do yet was hanging out with those boys, walking all over town, naming plants, singing, being children.

B and me had our first conversation over crayons and things took off from there. From the beginning B was very good with a crayon in his fist, making big energetic swarms of colours on the paper we were sharing. We developed a habit of collusion which had me drawing with the black crayon and B filling in. One of B’s early words was moon. I drew many of them in various phases, meanwhile thinking up other things that could be rendered in simple line form, things B would recognize. His obsession was tractors, I threw in houses, people, and one morning, looking at the paper, I saw a ladder. When you’re in the country, around lots of fruit trees and barns and whatnot you see a lot of ladders. So I leaned the ladder up against the moon …

A year later we were drawing them on pavement with chalk whenever it wasn’t raining or winter. We drew lots of other things too of course but always the ladder.

At around that time I was walking with a friend to visit other friends for coffee. My hands went into my pockets just for something to do and I discovered a chunk of chalk so I drew a quick one on the road. My friend stopped to look at it. He was quiet, studied it, then pointing at the light asked me; ” Is it God?”

Good question.

This is why I’m hoping to keep up with the blue rabbit, quick rabbit, quantum rabbit.

Today’s special? Pie in the sky, my friends. Pie in the sky. All you can eat. Tuck in.

title : 5 pies in the sky
medium : watercolour, pencil & ink on paper
dimensions : 4 3/4? wide x 5 3/8? high

Just ruminate on the very sound of it as it comes off your tongue; Pie in the sky.

Doesn’t it sound gooood? Yes it does.

I’ll tell you about the first place I remember hearing it in the damning sense of the words. I was twenty-four years old, a second year student enrolled for a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and had recently plunged mouth first into student politics. I ran against no one (which is to say no one else wanted the job) to serve at the union post of student’s representative on the Board of Governers. I was and remain an ardent crusader for fullest access to education for anyone so inclined to learn. In this capacity, all stirred up by youthful passion and idealism, I met with the University President, a Mr. Ian Christie-Clark, in his gloomy cavern.

I do not recall the details. I remember we were being handed another tuition increase and I was no doubt lobbying in that regard. (Oh how the mind goes with time) All I really remember was his reply to whatever painfully prepared utterance I had gone in with.

He said; “…but that’s all …”, his hand upraised, floated out… indicating something impossibly remote; “pie in the sky.”

One day in March of this year I heard it said twice. I thought, why one pie? Why not a flock?

I take a moment to wonder whence the expression and I can only guess it is an oblique poke in the eye of heaven. It is cynical. As with all cynicism it is best blunted by turning it on it’s head.

I say: pie for everyone. Pie in the sky is real. If you can’t see it — look harder. Look inner.

title : Bronx
medium : watercolour, pencil & ink on paper
dimensions : 4 3/4? wide x 5 3/8? high

This is Bronx asleep on my office floor. He is very, very zen. He has beautiful blue eyes which I am afraid to paint and do less than justice to. He is undoubtedly dreaming of meat pies in the sky which drift gently down to earth at your feet whenever you need them.

Dream on my beloved friend, dream on.

title : blue rabbit run
medium : watercolour, pencil & ink on paper
dimensions : 4 3/4? wide x 5 3/8? high

“blue rabbit? blue raaa-bit …”

Where is that blue rabbit headed in such a hurry? It looks like a jungle out there. Head for the middle, blue rabbit.

There were a stream of blue rabbit sightings in March and early April but lately I’ve been in the basement painting on chairs and I haven’t seen him. He’ll come around. I don’t know where he came from but he knows all about those ladders I’ve been drawing for over two years. If you are patient things settle and all muddied waters become clear.