Drawing from a trip to Toronto

I know this is a late posting... from a trip to Toronto last year. I like this drawing because it evokes some of the hustle and bustle, not to mention glass and concrete jungle aspect, of the big T.O.

Jeff Healey

One summer night in 2005 during the Montreal Jazz Festival I was sitting with my friend Paul at Cafe Delifrance listening to a great after-hours jam by Vanessa Rodriguez, who plays an amazing Hammond B3, when suddenly none other than the late (great) Jeff Healey showed up and asked to be part of the jam. I don't know where he came from (I think he was sitting at one of the back tables all along) but he soon proceeded to play some INCREDIBLE guitar licks in his trademark fashion with the guitar sitting face-up on his lap. I drew him while he was in the middle of what was an AMAZING live set... we were seated literally a couple of meters away from Jeff Healey! Incredible.

Three Cheers for Black and White!

Ahhh the joys of black and white! I love it so much... nothing beats ink on paper for that beautiful pop of contrast... If I could make it any blacker I would

Standing into the Future...

Here is an image from a while ago that I made in response to one of my favourite Leonard Cohen albums, Ten New Songs. I remember wanting to reflect the experience of being timeless and saturated in imagery that I regularly feel when I listen to Leonard's songs (without of course outright copying his images). I love this picture - but it was when I showed it to my good friend (and great writer) Paul Harvey that it took on an even greater symbolic and perhaps even spiritual significance for me. Paul's prose poem, I feel, takes this simple drawing of a man holding a rose and a book to another level and makes it come alive in a new and amazing way. Over the years, we've contemplated making a book of drawings and writings just like this but have not found the time to do it yet... for now, therefore, the posting of this image with its corresponding writeup serves as its first instance of publishing. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll get around to publishing that book after all :)

Only a corpse, only a statue, could maintain this pose
for more than a moment without falling. He leans
forever away from the rose, his book caught gently in
his hand like a naked phallus. The pages will not wilt
like human limbs as time passes, but his eyes are
closed to this subtle comfort. Like a blind man, he
reads his shoulder blade with his left cheek, seeking
some braille reminder that he is flesh.

But he has not died. His flesh, one feels, would be as
effective under the sheets as a nineteen year old, and
the flesh is better drawn. God has never drawn so
precisely as this artist, for flesh is a less precise
instrument than the pen. In the drawing, muscles are
precipices, creases in the skin are canyons in the
page. It is perilous to peer over the edge of the
page, for fear of plummeting.

The thorn against his buttock does not scratch him.
Only mortal flesh is prone to wounds. Can he
understand the rose if he is immune to tearing?
Ignorant of the rose's threat, he is a danger to any
whom he might thrust the rose. His lover may be prone
to the rose's sting.

No one will take the rose from his hand, or relieve
him of his blank book. This is the irony of his
immortality. His loneliness is as everlasting as his
flesh. The artist has been more cruel than a rose's
thorn. This man will remain naked and alone forever,
waiting to fall, waiting to feel.

From the Archives...

I've been away the past few days (moving apartments here in MTL) and haven't had a chance to draw anything new, so I thought it might be fun to post two sketches from the archives so to speak... that is, from the huge store of drawings/sketches on my computer (13 gigs and counting). Sometimes I scan drawings like these in because I have them in mind for "finished" illustrations; other times I just scan them in cos I like them and want to "immortalize" them by putting them on my computer. This is in itself an interesting impulse: why should we feel that somehow an artwork is MORE enduring because it can be reproduced digitally, especially since the process of scanning something into a computer of course renders a real object less real. But that's exactly what makes that object more flexible and therefore capable of - theoretically at least (barring a system crash) - being reproduced forever... Personally, I've never been big on carrying around a portfolio full of precious one-offs. But I digress... (sorry; this is bound to happen in this blog! You get something for everyone - those that like to read and those that like to look :) Speaking of looking: These 2 sketches are very different in tone and feel (also different media used: brush vs. ball point pen) but I equally like looking at them for different reasons. Hope you do too!