Artists: Be Here Now…or face this Duchman’s wrath

November 12, 2013.Reading time 2 minutes.

Apparently I have the attention span of a month-old shih tzu. Despite making a pledge to be more present, I only managed to reign my mind in to the moment for all of about 37 seconds over the course of two weeks. Pathetic, I know. And yet despite its brevity, I did manage to get […]

Things that inspire me to write #4: Ted Harrison’s Northern skies

January 25, 2013.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Like a tea kettle in a Disney movie, there are some paintings which almost seem to breath with life. Ted Harrison’s renditions of Northern Canadian landscapes are like that for me—the colors so brilliant, the lines so fluid, the scale so grand, that I feel like I’m sitting on a stretch of Yukon tundra every […]

Things that inspire me to write #35: My Gramps

December 24, 2012.Reading time 1 minute.

Tis the holiday season, a time all about being with family—in addition of course to the over eating and overspending parts. Not surprisingly, after spending the last couple of days with my partner’s grand folks, I found myself thinking about my own, long deceased ancestors. Particularly my grandfather, Philip Amsden. I didn’t know very well […]

Things that inspire me to write #50: Emily Carr

December 10, 2012.Reading time 1 minute.

Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso—Europe has practically been bursting with master painters since I don’t know, um…FOREVER–which is exactly why Emily Carr has always had a special place in my heart (and I mean aside from the fact that she had a pet monkey). A painter and writer from the 1940s, Emily Carr was one of […]