Upon Seeing My Painting Again

We went to a friend's house for a great dinner a few weeks back, this piece is theirs now, from my 2011 Loop gallery show, Life Lessons.  Looking at these characters again, I was struck how the central character reminded me of one of my mom's strange Moroccan wives tales. 

The story is about, on the surface, about a woman who can't stay home, even naked because she is a busy body. But on another level, I think the story was about female sexual curiosity. 

Amazing how you paint something, and with time another layer of meaning comes through, even to the artist. 

Coffee Anyone?

If you are in the east end, please swing by the Rooster Coffee house, at 479 Broadview Avenue, the coffee is great (they also have a great ginger tea for the non caffeine types) and I have remounted much of my 2010 show, Manifest Dream in the coffee shop.

When you walk in, you'll spot my large Ladies photograph on the northern wall and beside that, an image of the main square of Marrakech, Place Djemaa El fna 1 shot in 2009. The warm colours of the sunset look really great against the beat up brown leather chairs there.

If you are looking for more info on the coffee shop, click here

Also, keep your eye out for this image, I'm happy with it.

Terrific Saturday

The show opened at Loop Gallery and we had a large number of visitors, children and the odd hobo who strolled in. If you missed the opening, fear not, the show runs till August 8th, you have 3 weeks to catch show, please do.



This is one of the pictures you'll see at the gallery. I shot this in the desert of Morocco last year. I was on this insane desert tour of the salt route which was also known as 4x4 almost falling off the side of a mountain for 6 hours a day.

Anyways, we came into this part of the desert just after a brief rain shower and the sun had all but set. You could just see this amazing vista of forever and the odd dune. It was beautiful and more than a little haunting.

Sketches in Maroc

Here are a few sketches from my small travel sketchbook. Most of these drawings were done in Essaouira, where I spent a few days relaxing and gorging on bbq'd fish in this coastal village.



This is a watercolour sketch which, as often is the case with my trip to Morocco, is indebted to Delacroix. Note in the margins, I have notes written in pencil. Due to his social milieu and Romantic leanings, all of Delacroix's comments are tinged with the nobility of the people and all that jazz. Maybe because I am effectively from there, and a little more cynical- all my comments on the margins of my images are about how that guy wanted more money from me, this guy was a schister and it was interesting to see people in traditional garb with black latex gloves on.




I was looking for the typical music of the region, Gnouia which is fantastic, the hotel guy sent me here....Tauros, a upscale bar where there were people doing fire poi It was as crappy as this guy in the video, I was in hell. So I had to draw from another angle to avoid this misery.



Just a view of someone walking in the street.

People in what was Mogador now Essaouira

I was sitting in this cafe in the main square which was the only time I had not an insanely sweet and overly steeped tea, when I noticed this French woman. She was about 70 something ( or the sun was mean to her) that dame in Pink was like some amped up version of Phyllis Diller if that is possible. In my notes I wrote a cross between Diller and Carol Burnett.

On the other side of the page, a terribly deformed local and a kid.

Rooftop in Pen

Rooftop in Marrakech