Golbe and mail 30-11-07(exerpt)

. . We have burned away excellence and mastery as the only fit criteria for real artistic performance and crowded the world with the petty foolish projects of poseurs and impostors. . .  - Rex Murphy

Lorsqu’on se sent obliger de constamment répéter qu’une oeuvre “vient nous chercher” ça cache souvent le fait qu’elle n’a, en vérité, aucune capacité de le faire. - 07-11-06

"In the 1860s art was still considered frivolous" - I laughed whole-heartedly when I read this seriously intended statement. The quote is from the biography of Mary Cassatt by Susan E. Meyer. (Mary Cassatt - First Impressions - pg. 13) published in 1990. Such a sad and yet hilarious thing to say about a bygone era. It immediately brought to mind another telling quote: Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil. - 17-08-06 

Art is about the concept, the statement, the subject, the reaching out. Artwork is about the creator. - 26-04-05

If you feel the need to explain your artwork it must be that you do not trust it to communicate, to touch, to say what it sets out to say. You do not trust its voice. - 30-09-04

"Canada's Ape Artistes Create Stir Overseas" - Ottawa Citizen - Canada Page, (A6)

It seems that Tom, Toby and Billy Jo are in the front running to represent Canada at the next Venice Biennale. The question is not are we descendants of the apes, but rather are apes the next step in the evolutionary process. - 28-09-04

Homogeneity is the crucial seed of community. In the short run, it assures   security. But in the long run it is not sustainable if it depends solely on homogenous thought and action. Homogeneity is much too anxious an overlord. It needs to be counter-balanced if its communal mandate is to survive. Alone, homogeneity is too coldly objective, and yet oddly subjective, in its disproportionate fear of community "units" not precisely fitting into its predetermined molds.

Homogeneity does not see beyond itself. All it can fathom is sameness. And when left unchecked, it becomes unbalanced by a lack of its equal and opposite: individualism. Homogeneity is frightened by creative thought and action. It is threatened by it. Its innate self-protection-anxiety increases to a point of extremism and self-destruction when confronted with individuality. When the rooted logicality of homogeneity' s make-up suffers from such hyper-tension, it demands subordination, subjugation and even the elimination of those elements which "taint" the purity of its technocratic structure.

To be viable, homogeneity needs individual self-expression, needs the arts. Homogeneity's goal is to create a most technocratically secure living environment whereas the role of the arts is to make that same environment exciting, vibrant, evolving and adventurous.

Societies evolve and thrive only when the exuberance of artistic expression counter-balances the anxiety which lures us to the security blanket of "sameness”. The arts not only sustain community living, they enhance it. The arts are a counter-balance to conformity and submission, to the status quo and a to lowest common denominator existence. - 03

Poetry is not for memorizing or rote spewing. Poetry is to the soul what the tang of orange or lemon and honey is to the parched throat. - 96

Art renews itself, changes, evolves, speaks out and is heard, despite our desperate efforts to sabotage it - render it impotent. - 91