Again, just a few images (and a whole lotta gnawing)

There is an end of the year deadline for completing this project. Specifically, completing it as a book. I feel good about such a deadline.

Conversely, I'm having one of those days where my whole life feels like it is loitering at a fork on a country road. What I need is for someone to throw a rusted 10W30 can at me and get me walking again. This is my night tonight. I am, to say the least, anxious about where to go.

Friends have been talked to, beer has been drank, tears have been spilled and many empty days have been droned through... yet still I am incapable of moving forward.

Here's Vassily Grossman etc.

Findings

Since finishing Patrick Lane's There Is A Season I'd been searching for something equally as rich to sink into. Out of this little quest I found my way to the sort of embarrassing, A Briefer History of Time. The embarrassment comes only from my buying the illustrated and abridged version rather than the full and heavy, serious business version of Hawking's masterpiece. I have to be honest and practical though, I probably wouldn't read the full book and also I'm using it for inspiration rather than actual knowledge, for poetry as much as science.

Also though, Miranda July's No one Belong Here More Than You is what I'm now almost done. This little peach of a book is where I am currently drawing most of my reading joy from. Perhaps I'll write more about the book later, but for now (as I am about to head out the door) a couple of quotes which have stuck with me over the last few days:

"What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real."

and

"There are some great reasons for resisting language and one of them is Love."

* * *

Lastly, and only slightly apropos of today's writing:
My friend Jim and I were walking the alleys of my neighbourhood last night, ambling along for research purposes as well as to enjoy the fading day. In one garage with a door in partial collapse I peered over the top and found Jesus...

This is not to be cynical regarding that overly punned and prodded turn of phrase, but sometimes, well, there he is, amongst the rubble of someone's accumulated life.

Against my better judgement (consider yourself warned)

Lately, listening to music as I wander around Toronto's stinking hot streets is (sometimes) all that's keeping me from a total emotional meltdown. Often enough I'll sing out loud as I can be pretty sure no one cares if I do and most of the time there's weirder stuff happening all around.

Still though, my gut reaction is to stop singing as someone passes. I was wondering how my poor singing has anything to do with the premise of this blog (if indeed there is a premise). One constant however, is my attempt to come to terms with my limits as a social being. Slowly, I am opening up those limits, and, as I hope the writing in these entries attests, trying to offer up my many failures as something that can make me into the best version of myself.

Blah, blah, blah.

Anyhow, Shannon is currently on a research and reunion roadtrip across the western US coast and as part of her project is recording her own singing. She is, to put it mildly, a far better singer than I but the sadness created by our distance makes it difficult, even impossible, for me to listen to each of her singings more than once.

So instead of listening and getting super sad, here is, unsolicited (and maybe unwanted) a very awkward partial rendition of one of my own favourite sad songs.

******
It's about 3 hours ago that I put this up. I must have been in some sort of heat and sadness induced haze. This post is akin to waking up after a drunk and remembering, with regret, what you got up to the night before. The good thing about blogsslashtheweb is that I can just pull this post off the blog.
"But here this now. Fuck. That. Shit."
Here it stays.

Dogtown

In Toronto I don't have any friends who own dogs. While there's a large contingent of dog owners around, they're not in my world. I have a friend who walkes dogs for money but that doesn't count.

The Yukon, though, that is the domain of the canine. Sure there are cats, but they have fear in their eyes.

The first dogs on my trip north were my friend Monika's. She and her boyfriend Jonah were gracious enough to put me up on both legs into and out of Whitehorse. For their hospitality I offered a drawing of her youngest dog in trade. Being the procrastinating (and busy) fella that I am, only last night did I get around to doing the damn piece.

I'll ship it NorthWest later today, but here's the pixel version of the ink version of a dog that has been clocked at 50KmH.

off the edge of the world

It seems like I should mention that I'm neither dead under the wheels of an indifferent cab driver, nor hiding out, living on popsicles and my own sweat.

Instead my energies (though drained by the ongoing blanket of sweltering humidity) are directed towards what has become the exhibition season. Tomorrow I'm taking possession of 2 crates which I'll fill with paintings, wait for shippers to arrive then send off to Brandon MB for my late August show at The Art Gallery of SouthWestern Manitoba. This is on the heals of my current show at LE Gallery here in Toronto. The LE show also garnered 2 pieces of print press. Leah Sandals interviewed me for the National Post while David Balzar reviewed the show for Eye Weekly.
Both pieces are below.

Once these 2 ventures are underway I'm planning on returning to this project. There is still the drawn out promise for CFAP to send me to Kandahar or, as has been recently suggested, Dubai. Regardless of overseas possibilities, I'll be back to this project with vigour come August and September. Until then I will sweat and shower, shower and sweat and eat Popsicles.

I'll also mention that I'm hoping to head out to Fredricton NB in September for the next installment of A Brush With War as it settles into The Beaverbrook. The show then heads to The War Museum in December. Again, I'm planning on making the trek.

wildlife art

After numerous Warsteiners in numerous other bars I thought it time to make a return to The Pit and see if it might offer more options for the teetotaler. It also seemed like time to part ways with the Hi-def quietude of The Downtown Hotel in favour of the effulgent drunks.

Sheepishly, I asked the bartender what non-alcoholic options they might have. Having a fake beer in The Pit seems like going to a strip club because they have good chicken wings. Surprisingly, not only was there no Warsteiner, there were several options ranging from soft cider and Labatt Nordic to something looking way too similar to Warsteiner. I took the Nordic and sat down to watch Brazil vs. Côte d'Ivoire.

This, however, is just the back drop to an ongoing little quest of mine. While The Pit on a sunny Sunday reinforces my belief that early afternoon is the best time for a tipple (even if it’s a point five Labatt) I was here looking for wildlife. Like a German tourist Grizzly spotting up on The Dempster, I was on the spy for Crodmo of The North.

This aging drunk has an uncanny resemblance to what I believe South Eastern Crodmo might look like after a few decades of hard livin’. Just add age, bad teeth, a ponytail as well as a hockey jersey and a chipper demeanour and you have time travel version of my friend.

While everyone, myself included was glued to the game I snuck a couple of photos of the man in question and spent the afternoon drawing him. Here he is.

Keeping it social

Paraguay and Italy: 1 all.

I had the Sourdough Saloon (home of The Toe) to myself today... No Euros around except for when Paraguay scored and all of a sudden there appeared a German tourist with a point and shoot to take a photo of the goal on replay. And then he was gone. Another game another crappy Warsteiner which, it turns out, is the only non-alcoholic beer in this town. I might give it a pass tomorrow though I have, however, been considering the Warsteiner shandy option.

There was one other German who sidled up to me and asked, "Is this where Jack London drank whiskey?" I didn't know though I will ask tomorrow when North Korea play Brazil.

Today's production: 1 puppy, 1 backpack, 1 headstone. Tomorrow is a writing day but it also a back to the dump day to try and find a Yukon license plate for The Kid. I have some things to say about the ferry but not tonight.

I went out briefly tonight and walked straight into a conversation about the female equivalent of the bromance. I ordered a Warsteiner and did my part for gender specific lexicons but I should have just turned around.
Bromance, ugh. Let us speak of such things no more.

I just finished a tasty bowl of Corn Flakes and Life and am going to curl up in bed and watch an episode of Lost season 1. I do miss home but its markers, like cereal and Lost, as well as this blog, give me some sense of connection, false though they might be.

2 Wrongs Make a Right

No meat and no alcohol. What kind of Yukon residency am I having? A good friend of mine once spent a year in Japan doing the time honoured ESL gig. She was a strict vegetarian and so spent a year having to work her way around fish. Years later she said that was a mistake and, at least in that case, moral inflexibility (of the kind I am practicing here) was a mistake. The Japanese do some pretty tasty stuff with fish just as I know Elk sausage is something special.

I have a new routine though. It started yesterday morning and I'm already calling it a routine. I Head over to The Downtown Hotel, order a very suspect 0% German beer (Warsteiner I believe) and watch The World Cup with the European tourists. I nurse my beer, work up a ballpoint-pen sketch of the bottle and watch the match. It's pretty alright and though we don't know each other, like the sports propagandists will tell you, football unites the world, or at least the out of town version of the world.

The locals don't seem to care all that much (or maybe they're taking advantage of the miracle of home TV) but as you'd imagine, the old worlders do. As mentioned previously some of 'em went so far as to take photos of the high Def TV mounted high on the wall each time Germany scored... which was often.

My day, as always, begins with breakfast cereal and for the next 11 days (until I leave) I think it'll begin with fake beer and overly enthusiastic Euros. That's the kind of Yukon residency I'm having.

What's that noise?

This morning I was awoken by an intermittent fading and lamenting electronic whine. At first I assumed it was Kerri’s (the other residency artist) alarm clock as it was coming from a distance and was intermittent. The noise of what could be described as a wounded cyborg wasn’t abating though, so I finally got up to check it out.

As it turns out the noise was the smoke alarm being activated by a burst water pipe in the ceiling, drowning the alarm and flooding the residency house. The good news is neither our work nor possessions was overly affected though there’s damage to the walls, floors and ceilings of the living room, kitchen and Kerri’s studio.

The scenario of waking up to a wounded cyborg and a subsequently raining ceiling is a little confounding at 6am on a Sunday morning but when all was said and done, the outcome could have been much worse.

We’re now out of the building and have been put up at individual cabins at The Triple J Hotel. The cabins are pretty cute with tiny kitchenettes and I have a table with a window at which to paint. The only down side is the lack of internet access, which I can only gain by sitting in the lobby of the hotel.

As I look out the window of my temporary new home I am slightly reminded of a WW2 era army training camp or high-end fruit pickers shacks in Kelowna. For example:

Work continues though as can be almost viewed by my sketch of Shannon in the above photo.

Now though, I’m heading back to the studio to collect my ziplock bag of Earl Grey tea. I have already brought the milk and cereal with me. Stability has almost been achieved.

On the bike

In response to the previous post, I offer a small, and impossible to actually demonstrate, example of riding in Dawson. The principal point here: The is only up and down, there is (almost) no coast. For those in the know, a 160mm front disc brake is not enough, no sir. I almost never pick up any appreciable speed as I'm either grinding up a paved road to reach the trails or grinding the brakes on rooty, rock-filled trails that care not a whit for me being on 2 wheels. I ride by myself as I prefer it that way, but also I don't think there any any serious riders here who have grown pubic hair (apologies if you fit into both categories). A couple of times I've walked a section, not because I couldn't conceivably manage it, but the consequences when alone are just not worth the risk (or maybe I'm just lame). Here are th'photos:



Below, I try to take a shot while riding along a cutline. The actual trail is up ahead.






























You'll note my name and the Beatrix Potter characters.
















Some fancy depth of field action as I take a break from the hairyness.












































Looking back up the trail. The seat is that far down for a reason.






















Once more, down.






















Thanks Monika and Jonah for getting the scoop on Dawson's trails. And thanks to Kale for ordering the many parts and super sweet frame that I'm taking advantage of. The frame is great (as I hope the painting is).

Not long until Happy Hour.

The Westminster

For your consideration: A few shots from in and outside the Westminster hotel. The Hobo Hotel seems ideally placed for those nights when the stumble home is just too much to contemplate. As well, a trailer full of mattresses is really just a trailer full of possibilities.





















































From inside: The Snakepit TV cabinet... the Wooden Cobra.






















and birchbark canoe






















And though this little fella is found at a gift shop he looks like he could use (or has used) a few pints

The Dead part 2

This marks my second day in a row of me being hung-over. This ends now I think. Back to my afternoon tipple only. I did get to wear the Goat Coat last night though. Hooves and all, but no photos.

At least it's easy to work off the booze; Mountains are handy for that. This morning I went for a boot around the base of the Dome and found various items of interest that fit nicely into my newly decided upon theme.

Graves, it seems, are all over the place here. Step off the trail and there's a mound with a body several feet under the surface.






























Further along the 9th Ave. trail I came across this little gem of an abandoned, collapsed abode. The trail is called 9th ave because decades ago Dawson stretched up the mountainside. With the collapse of the Gold rush, the town shrunk, leaving bodies, houses and roads to fend for themselves.















Treecave!















And, the last vestige of snow in town:

The Dead

Where to begin?
With a mediocre Americano I suppose.






















Actually, in answer to the question of darkness, here's a photo out of my bedroom at 2am, taken after getting back from a ride around town at 1am. It's really quite weird as it feels like daytime but there are so few people around. Perhaps there's a flesh eating plague keeping folk inside. On the other hand, when you see 9 year old kids wandering the streets at midnight, well, that seems kinda weird too.






















After the coffee I hopped back on the bike to check out the cabins of the Illuminati/literati. In the case of Dawson, that's Jack London and "a cat named Bobby Service". Both places have grass roofs and even if there are currently no goats manicuring them, they're still pretty sweet little abodes.

First is Robert Service:




















































And Jack London, who is cooler than Service in the he-man cabin contest because he has a stilt house (used for keeping bears and hobos away from his furs and meat).






































This was a pretty filled day for me. After the mad trappers of literature I rode up The Dome, stopping first at the cemetery area. The area has divisions for various faiths and affiliations such as Catholic, Jew and cop. Also YOOP.

Many of the grave markers are seemingly ad-hoc, but like much around Dawson, the necessities of Northern living generate resourceful and unexpected results. The first thing that strikes Big city folk (I suppose) is the wood markers that are completely effaced by time and the weather.























Steel piping is standard fare up here too. Many of the graves use it as a fence.





















































If you don't like thinking about dead kids, skip ahead.
There are quite a few tiny graves up here, again in various states of repair and making good use of whatever's available.




























































... 3 days old. sigh.



















That's it for now. There's more dead folk to come. For now though, I'm off to The Pit. In my years of drinking there are a few standout (and falldown) joints. Walt's Place in Rainier Washington, The Wainwright Hotel in Wainwright AB, The (late, great) 'Wick in London ON, perhaps The Communist's Daughter in TO and now The Snakepit

Come with me, if you will

Day 2 and I spent a fitful night's sleep worrying that I hadn't produced any work in my 12 hours here. That would be really lame if it didn't summarize my personality so nicely.

This morning (well, morning, afternoon and evening are more or less the same, differing only in temperate, not light) I wandered around, stewing over project ideas and taking shots of architecture. For your consideration, I offer: a selected number of highlights.
Starting off with a lie, this photo of a local telephone pole wasn't really taken today, but was taken at midnight last night. I guess that's today though, and yeah, day or night, little difference.

I suppose I should do some research on these buildings, but for now, here's a nice abandoned ochre structure down on the riverfront.
















How's about some birds? Swallows in fact, nesting in the eaves of another building.
















And in closing, a tree house. Pretty sweet.

Here we go

I've been here in Dawson for about 10 hours and so far I've done one lame drawing, assembled my bike (and stripped the head of my stem bolt), gone for a run, had a Yukon Amber Ale and made dinner from items left here by previous residency artists. Except for the crappy drawing, not a bad day so far.

There's no real night and in about 4 weeks the sun won't actually set at all. The birds seemingly love it as they sing all night long. Last night I was in Whitehorse (somewhere around 600K south of here) and I woke up at 3am to the sound of birds singing in the twilight.

I have no photos of birds singing in the twilight so for now, a shot out the window of my studio. There is one bird, perhaps a Red-Winged Blackbird, singing as I type this period.