Upcycled clothes

The Russian Princess

Nanook of the North

Ophelia 

20x16

This was inspired by George Frederick watts. My Ophelia evolved into a modern day setting .

I love her soliloquy as she gives out her flowers

There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you;

 and here's some for me: we may call it 

herb-grace o' Sundays: 

O you must wear your rue with a difference.
Theres a daisy for you. I would give you  some violets, 

but they withered all when my father died: 

they say he made a good end

Recycling / Upcycling

There is a new trend taking place . Both on Facebook and Etsy. Women are selling their crafts , handmade clothes and artworks. In the current cycle of our fast changing world and the interconnectedness of our global market and cultural exchange. We are aware of one another, we are connecting. We are realizing our impact on the environment. We are aware our resources are finite. We are aware that poverty and human exploitation exists. It has touched our lives, here in the west over the past couple of years it has ricocheted and infiltrated our lifestyles. We know the ride will soon be over. We are bleeding it dry. Sucking the marrow from the bone. A petrified forest consumed by greed and the flesh off an animals back. Every time you fill up at the Gas station, you make a statement. You declare your stand to ignore what is happening around you. Because in this instance you have the knowledge,you have the power.

 I am preaching here. I am a hypocrite too. I use the resources at my disposal. 

What can I do?

Recycling / Upcycling

  My footprints are small, but they matter.

From here on I will make my own clothes using only Recycled material.

I will (try to) stop eating meat (its bad enough being a carnivore but the quality of the animals lives is appalling)and I will continue to use Public transportation , walk and ride my bike. I know there is much more I can be doing. Feel free to point them out to me.

Passages

22x28" oil on canvas . 2012

This painting was inspired by a short film called "Passages" by Shirin Neshat


 There is a scene near the end, of a group of women in a circle digging a hole with their hands. I found this scene extremely compelling and disturbing. Repeatedly they chant one word in Persian as they shovel the earth with their bare hands and bob up and down. They chant one word that sounds as if they are saying  "Die".

Taking liberties with this image, the phantom women in white make their escape in the derelict ship of gold. To the left as the women dig, water springs from the ground and seeps through the rocks.

 In Iran, the rule of law harks back to the lore of an eye for an eye.
 A woman was recently beheaded after being accused of witchcraft.
 Stoning is the punishment wielded for misdemeanor's you and I have probably committed.

A painting I did for a friend as a Christmas gift

The landscape is inspired by Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia

Anne's sunset

20x24 oil on canvas.2011

~~~

2 songs beautifully covered by Tristan  

16x20, 2011

Before I became immortal

                                           

Winter on the farm, the landscape spreads out before me a sheet of white tundra, pools of black mud and dead brown foliage. It's impossible to stray too far back, the snow is waist deep. The twins and I build forts under the big yellow sun that hangs alone in the cold blue sky.Its solitary presence escalates the feeling of the colds isolating numbness. We make game of tracking the prints of rabbits and other wildlife. A sighting of deer through the wiry web of branches is a majestic privelage, though a dreaded one if seen left for dead by the side of the road. When the boys get too cold to continue playing outside, they go indoors. I remain , the snow is falling and I lie down allowing my mouth to fill with the cascading flakes , they seemingly hesitate to melt as they descend in patterns and slide in droplets off my red cheeks. I shut my eyes and the play of light shifts in kaliedescope patterns. I am Eskimo Ophelia floating beneath the glare of the hot sun transported in a frigid silence, the sky an expanse of possibilities. I embrace this solitude, nature is my shrine as I lie here under the firmament. Getting up from the snow I notice one of the neighbours bulls from a distance I climb the fence and the bull spots me, I might aswll be a red flag in my bright orange snow suit. I make haste to get back over the fence but my snowpants get caught in a bit of wire that is twisted into a knot that points up towards the sky. After a cursed struggle I finally free myself from the the catch of wire and make it back to safety but not without tearing my pants. The white polyfill fibre sticking out and exposed making my new orange snowsuit look old.

This is a song my son composed

Tristan Darko

Did I ever mention that I carry some superstitious beliefs. It only pertains to one thing, or rather to one specific date. The date aforementioned falls on the 29th of July. Today it being July 29 , I am resolved to commemorate past events, Shall we begin. My father died in a fatal car crash on July 29, my son's grandparents married on July 29, and you are probably wondering why I brought that up, its for you to keep wondering. My son burnt his face with a cup of hot coffee when he was 16 months old on july 29. My friend left me on July 29. Maybe there are other dates that carry weight, but for some reason this day stands out from all the rest. When tragedy strikes close to home, it cuts to the tenderest of entrails. Bones and muscles, flex and burn. The body memory is retained. Translated through time, distorted,veneered and sometimes vanquished.

Painting by : Leonora Carrington
Song by : Bjork

Arabic rhythms

Arctic throat singers

African Pygmies

She has recreated the sonic experience.

.

       
       This song cuts to my heart

      

This is a painting from a still of the film "The Turin horse" by Hungarian film maker Béla Tarr. He describes the film as being about "the heaviness of human existence". I won't say more about the film, as I haven't seen it. Except that the title is in reference to Friedrich Nietzsche  and his witness to an event in Turin  that ultimately changed him.

                The image grabbed me, I thought..I want to paint this

...and so I did

Its that door that won't open

 Its that door that won't Open

  the foot hanging limblessly

  the morass of desire

  the token from the heart bereft

  the subjugation of winters sleep

  Here I stand remembering

  white fleck of hair floating in the breeze
  stock after stock is stalking me
  I am trembling not with fear 
  A vagabond spitting as he passes me on the street
  my soul shudders with a knowing

  I know I know too much and yet too little

  This dissatisfies me to no end

  The right hand makes a gesture 

  an invitation of a color

  the left is holding hands

  the kindness

  the vaporous stranger sits at my side

             Mist

        deliverance

  


     I don't remember 

     there was a cat 
     there was a drill
     fire quickly spread 
     the cat springed and hid in the cupboard
     Ofcourse he had to jump into the highest
     nook he could find 
     I had to get the chair and drag it across the floor  
     paint and varnish peelings dragged along with us 
     I and the chair  
     the chair had a life 
     many a thought and feeling sat here
     the weight continually shrinks and swells with
     each passing season
     It sits a century later in a corner 
     painted and stripped several times over 
     with a string I draw a knot over a rubber spider   
     the cat leaps and chases
     as I run leading him down the stairs



Death be not proud

Bowing out with artfullness
What of the ones left behind. Left remaining
fighting the terror, the loneliness
Anger , a vipers grip
A white scorpion in the desert scutters under the bed.
When he stings you, you will die.
Painfully your limb swells and you heart burns.
Her children surround the coffin.
Pine, beautifully carved
Within she lies peacefully , at rest free from pain.
Outside the box a multitude is gathering, so many people
she had so many friends.
She had a heart of gold, always thought of others before herself.
This is true I can vouch for this myself, but what a temper,
she hadn't learned yet to soften the blow.
How she boiled over and I laughed telling her to let it go.
After awhile I turned away from the pettiness.
At heart she was never petty, she had a heart of gold.
She carried the weight of it in her crown.
Always proud to step in, take care of it


no matter.




Farewell Sheila

Its early evening going on eight. Dusk is settling over the city. The night air feels fresh and replenishes following a day that felt as if I were baking in an oven,or stewing in a stewing pot. I was informed earlier today by a child that each summer would grow hotter. I don't know why , but it makes me consider my demise. Do I still want to be here.




I'm afraid of dying.

 

Sometimes I wish it were all over. I continue now on my walk. The poverty of my life hits me. This is a wealthy neighbourhood with their utility vehicles , sports cars and Mansions. Houses built of grey stone, built in the style of scottish architecture. Afterall they were amongst the early settlers here.The Scots built the first bridge across the Saint Lawrence river. As I walk I consider the poverty of my situation. This encompasses the things I feel are absent from my life, or are they merely illusions. Hollow satisfactions, falsehoods and fabricatations. Being loved for oneself is desirable by almost everyone. Its getting it bang on with the right person. It appears most miss their mark. I did, and lurking in the back of my mind, my thoughts falter , the room goes quiet, perhaps I light one up. Doing this portends the thoughts will take flight.
 

                                                                            

Shadow

d

a

n

c

e

photos:MK

To know you will be lonely is not the same as being alone.

Lonelineness slips into a knot, and you can feel its grip, its pull, as it tightens. To imagine you will be lonely is a romantic fabled concept. Poetry will fly off pages as you ponder upon the nature of things as you walk amongst trees, as your feet press down and you hear the crunch of bracken beneath your step. I have never felt lonely in my own company, but I have felt alone in the company of others. Disparate , indistinguished and inconsequential.

 It is true, the solitary heart thinks amongst everyone else, feels its superiority. I am special, I am alone in this. What a incongruity of ideas. This thinking can but only sever connection.

It is when I am alone that I have felt the most complete and alive. It's true too that I have felt the deepest despair , but think it was always brought on by the failure of relationship to others. Parent, friend,lover and even child. It's safe being alone. Some say there is safety in numbers. One I, two is a pair, three is crowd, four is a family. A man, a woman, a boy and a girl.
 
 
 

 

photo:MK

 

On the road

As a woman now facing the latter half of her mid forties. My head is bent to the skies facing north. The peak of all my obstacles still loom, but now the beckoning has faltered. Could it be the end of the road. What now? South still shines though not as bright. The flame is a dying ember. Moroseness is moronic. I see that now, I do. I strategize in a vagueness of manner, my uncles hand brushes my arm, I feel young . He is happy that I came to see him, he says he remembers. This definately means something as the old man is struck with Alzhiemers. Cognitive observance is a cherished emotion. He is one person who is happy to see me. The future is a grappling promise of weekend excursions after a week of a hefty workload. Money is set aside for a rainy day or a craving that takes hold. It can be in glass or it can be in wood or a color.

MK

               
   

                          The holidays

 will be spent with my father at his apartment in Carlton Place, Ontario. He lives in an apartment above his store. The first time I walk through the corridors of the building, I imagine a cockroach infested hotel where one might find prostitutes and derelictes hanging about. With all the money he makes from his business, he could surely afford a house, a nice big house. Yet he chooses to live in a place where one can only imagine they arrived at the end of the line. Abject poverty and a complete absence of hope have cried tears here. I don't think my father is even aware of this. How could he knowingly bring me to a place such as this, a place where dreams die. Cheap faded floral patterned wall paper is peeling off the greasy walls and the linoleum covered floors echo's the floors of the farm house when Celeste was still there. The beds are old and springy and the matresses are sweat stained . They give off the musty odor of  its previous occupants.

There is nothing to do. The television is black and white and only three channels work if you set the rabbit ear antenna at the correct angle or otherwise give the box a good whack. There is no food in the fridge. Nothing to stare at out the window. It is a small country town and all the shops are closed during the holidays and the towns inhabitants stay indoors trying to keep warm from the frigid sub zero temperature. The bathroom is a great disappointment, as I always enjoy my time sitting in a hot bath, singing and have a dialogue with the friends I longed to be with.  There is a shower stall at the back of the kitchen and the toilet is in a closet sized room. My father says he has no towels, after taking my shower I have to dry myself with the dishtowel. As the showerstall is in the kitchen, all I have to do is reach my arm out of the stall to the stove where the dishtowel hangs from the oven door. The dish towel smells bad, and after drying myself I too smell bad.

 He has towels, I can see them on a high shelf in the doorless cupboard in the bedroom, but he refuses to get one down. This unsues in a battle, one I won't back down from. It takes my refusing to ever visit him again ti'll finally he will aquiesce, though it seems painful for him. Ofcourse I love my father but he is a strange man and I don't like how lives. The towel from the closet is thin and immediately soaks through as it absorbs the water off my skin, it is no better than the dishtowel, except for the absence of a musty smell.

MK

photo:http://www.shadenproductions.com/

Ever have an epiphany?

 A thought or an idea suddenly bursts through,and into the light of day you step forth . A feeling of joy washes over you. If you are open to it at the moment, grab a hold of it. Grasp it to your chest. It is your unconscious speaking in full clarity. Epiphanies are rare and magical at best. They come at the least expected moment, in a dawning of a second. A vagabond spitting as he passes you on the street. Your soul shudders with a sudden knowing. You know exactly what must be done, and there is no deterring you. Epiphanies are a gift from the gods, shooting arrows landing at your feet, as if to guide you.

Australian Aboriginals believed that if you needed an answer to a question . A problem or a dilemma in need of fixing, all one has to do is find an open space, large enough to spread your arms straight out from your sides. Then commence spinning counter clockwise whilst concentrating on the question or problem at hand. Upon awakening the next morning the solution will unfold in your mind, like a letter being pulled out of an envelope. A secret long contained finally carried from a whisper to a resounding blast.

Beware the act of rebuttal. The mind performing a mystery does not ask to be cut to the bone. Some spend hours crossed in a lotus figuring IT out. Epiphanies are honest, possibly the only time we truely are connected to ourself.

Do you know yourself ?

    MK                                             photo:Aboriginal dancers telling Dreamtime stories at the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony. Image source unknown.       

painting:Colleen Wallace Nungari

Hardship

Hero or coward which one be you. I moved out into the world at a very young age. Not by choice but circumstance. Friends and aquaintances would claim I was strong and courageous, but really I wasn't . It was the desire for autonomy from strife and the feeling of being caged by an ungrateful invalid. I won't mince my words. The old adage "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all". Well it stops here, only speak the truth, and the truth is sometimes ugly. The truth is beautiful too, for now I can reflect back on all that has past, and I can smile and I feel good. Not smug either, but authentically at peace. Still there is alot of ugliness to be shared not for woe, but to enlighten and embolden. I am brazen to say I had dissappointing parents. A cruel mother and an ambivalent father. They handed down to me a sense of hardship, as if it was, to be perfectly natural for our times in this nation. For a few years I was a slave to my mother . From the age of twelve I took on full duties in the running of the household. This comprised of cooking my own meals,washing the dishes, sweeping the floor after everymeal, doing the laundry, taking out the trash, grocery shopping , banking, vacuuming, and dusting everyroom and scrubbing the bathroom. You get the picture. I faded into walls as I flowered. I was pretty and popular, for a time. Then I became faceless as I turned my face to the walls. Even a youngster can turn bitter.

 Resentment fueled by daily dosages of anger fed from a bitter tongue. The serpent of demise strangled my soul. Do not forget I was only twelve, and I wished my mother gone.



MK
painting: Goya "Saturn eating his young"

Biking along the canal

photos:MK

Tina Modotti

I bought myself a bike, a second bike, two days ago.

I rode it today to the store where I promptly plopped in all the groceries of jars and skins. I drove the bike home. It feels like a truck after riding the mountain bike. I am seriously questioning what exactly was the reason for buying a new bike. Was it boredom ? Am I trying to reinvent myself ? A last chance Texaco , stab at youth.

I feel the tenuous grip I masterfully hold, it is slipping. Strength decreasing, desire ebbing. They say as women age they lose their womanhood. Does a man lose his manhood? Where does the women go. I am having thoughts about returning the bike. Alas, I'm stuck with it. Can I grow to love it. I romanticized its impact before I had it.
 
 
 
 
MK

Farmhouse

The Farmhouse

or..just

 another Goat story

~ 1975~


In place here once stood an old farm house. It has since been destroyed by fire. I was 11 yrs old moving into a new foster home with a young hippy family whose dream was to renovate a rundown 150 yr old farmhouse. Using the supporting frame they tore down the walls while we were living in it. Every evening after work my foster father who was a school teacher by day set to work on home building. Ripping out the old planks of rotting wood and replacing them with strips of fresh two by fours of white pine.The scent spread throughtout the house as inscence. The smell travelling up my nostrils opened up a sense of excitement of the future, of the magic and possibilities of creativity. The radio playing the latest pop songs , my foster father sang over them as he hammered and sawed. I stilll hear him when I inhale the faintest suggestion of any lumber construction ... "make a new plan stan, don't need to be corderouy, hop on the bus Gus, just get your self free". He was a man of a genuinely happy disposition. I enjoyed sitting close by where his good humour could rub off.

Before we moved in it was a Goat farm run by a middle aged woman and her teenage grand daughter Celeste. Celeste's front teeth were rotting and chipped. Which is no small wonder considering the daily gorge of volumes of pepsi she consumed. I doubt she ever drank plain water. On the first few visits to the farm, while my hippy foster parents were fixing the deal on the house and the 35 acres of land that accompanyed it, Celeste would lead me into the forest and show me where to find the sweetest blueberries and the tastiest apples . You couldn`t find them growing anywhere else on these lands, for this was apple country here in the Monteregie regions off the southshore of Montreal.

These excursions were not for my benefit alone, it was the Goat's walk. There were atleast 26 of them and Celeste treated them they way we treat a pet dog. Coming down from the city never having stood next to a live goat I was terrified, especially as the frisky kids gave me bucks that sent me hurtling a few feet forward. In the back of the barns that were held up precariously by rusty four inch long nails or perhaps by sheer faith that our lives contained a divine plan, there lay buried under piles of manure and hay the skeletons of Celeste's dearly beloved goats. She'd fish her hand into the dung and pull out the skull of a departed one and relate an anecdote about his or her character. At first I found the debris of spine and leg sticking out of the dung disgusting, but I soon got over any squeamishness and found myself pulling out limb or skull, eager to know who's skeletal remains I was holding. Unfortunately my foster parents cleared the animal cemetery by the time we moved in. My morbid fascination continued as I scavenged for bits of cartilage remains.

photo:MK 1985

The trees

In the forest, between all the trees.

Silence and whisperings.

We are trespasser's, innocent hostile

invaders.

The trees pass distances we have run.
They standstill, witnesses.
We parade through their branches.
they remain while we are long gone.

 
photo:mk 1987

War

Everything is closer than you think

 

Hope

Born with a veil

The ship sunk in love

I am fortunate to have never experienced warfare firsthand. That is not to say I haven't been touched or affected by conflicts happening in other parts of the world. Like you I turn the Television on and watch the news, an innocent observer feeling powerless, deeply confused and angry, and Ever so gratefull to be planted on the curve of another angle that no bombs or tanks roll over. I like to believe that it is arbitrary where we are born or end up living. I wonder sometimes, for how long are we safe.

paintings:mk