BOCA INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY

January 1st, 2012    12:07 a.m.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

I thought I would start off the new year with a blog. My neighbour beat me to it with a fireworks display. Either that or someone fired off a gun about a dozen times or so. Sometime in the coming weeks I will begin my diet in earnest. Until I get that all under control, my concentration will be on decreasing my daily intake so that I am not eating every two hours. That will be the hard part as I seem to have gotten myself into that frame of mind. The turn of the calendar means I will have to do a painting or two as I have promised myself over the years, at least one painting per year. Last year I did three or four. Unlike a lot of artists who buy ready made canvases I make my own, staple them together and give them a few coats of Gesso before I settle down to paint on them. My mother was an oil painter although most of her painting was done on short drink glasses and consisted of colourful Canadian birds, Christmas gifts for friends. They did not look too great after they had been used and washed a number of times but I never said anything about that. To my knowledge, Mum only painted one complete painting. ...oh, and there were a couple of thinks with ducks on them to hang in the house by the lake. I really do not consider them as works of art, although they are exactly that. I, on the other had have probably created some 3 or 4 dozen pieces of art, from a plaster cast to soapstone carving to printmaking and painting. It has been a fun journey. This is the year I have to do something with a Mayan touch as according to the Mayan calendar, this is the year the world comes to an end. I know things have been bad lately but a 4.2 earthquake on the Rictor scale is nothing much.

As an artist it is important to have some credentials. I was a student of Arthur Lismer of the Group of Seven painters. He taught art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art when I was a youngster so that along with half a dozen studio art courses at York University's Fine Arts program gives me great credentials. All that and a dollar fifty will get me a cup of coffee.

 To all of you who are seeing the New Year in with a late night party, have a great time, I am going to bed.