"Neurogenesis"
48x48 Painted for the Chiropractic Health Clinic in Support of the Rotary Club of Whitby Sunrise This was my first officially commissioned painting. It was a pretty cool feeling to have someone want to pay me to create something for them. It was interesting going through the process of valuing my art. The value of anything is difficult to calculate, something I am all too aware of working in the financial industry, but I found valuing my art particularly stressful 😬. I had no idea what to charge (I didn't even know what my materials cost). Adding to my discomfort was the realization that I was becoming an artist, which up until this moment was never something I expected to be part of my identity. I'm not sure how long after this painting I decided to create willpaintfordonations and only paint for charity, but I knew I had to find a home for the amount I received for this painting when I made that decision. Rotary seemed like the best fit and I can proudly say I have never received any compensation for anything I've created other than the joy of creating and sharing it with others. The title of the painting comes from a book I had read, "The Neurogenesis Diet and Lifestyle: Upgrade Your Brain, Upgrade Your Life," by Brant Cortright. I have accumulated a number of injuries through a lifetime of playing hockey and lacrosse. The most concerning injuries where my head injuries. Until reading this book I had accepted a fate of early onset dementia. Conventional wisdom had told me we stop growing brain cells early in life and all you can do is hope to hang on to them as long as you can. This book help change my expectations for my future. It shares evidence that we are able to grow new brain cells at any point in our lives (though it is more difficult as we age) and simple things we can do to improve our brain health. The spine and nervous system is an extension of our brain. Seeing Chris (and his painting) at the Chiropractic Health Clinic once a month are one of the many things I do to improve my future.
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"Shoshin"
36x48 Acrylic on canvas on plywood Painted for Murray This was a gift to thank a friend for their help with the construction of the above ground pool at my parents' home. My art studio hasn't reached it's final form yet (it likely never will, but the improvements of the studio happening now I would still define as revoluationary - they will eventually become evolutionary). Each painting still inspires me to create something longlasting for the studio. This painting provided the motivation to create a new tray to apply the paint. I also like the simple palette with the splash of red, inspired by the decor of Murray's living room. I initially had a simpler design in mind for the splash, but decided to create more layers when it came time to create. It was fun to have a spectator during the main event. My grandma was in the gallery to view the event. There were 2 spontaneous elements of this paintings creation. The first was the background. I initially started painting it white with a brush, quickly grew tired of it, and decided to paint the background by spinning a pile of paint in the middle. I wanted to waste as little as possible so I thought i would spread it with the brush first. I noticed the paint was think and liked the textures it was creating and decided to leave to leave the textures. Secondly, my initial intent was to let the trapeze swing back and forth several passes, trying to time it so the entry was at different spots each time. I practiced it many times before but the rotation speed was too fast when I let the tray go. I can't explain why I grabbed the tray after one pass and then released it again, but I'm very happy with the result. Shoshin, the beginner's mind, is a concept I think many people could benefit from. As we acquire knowledge throughout life it is easy to think we have nothing more to learn. With an open mind there are far more possibilities than with a closed mind. I've learned in my yoga practice, guided by my teacher Yoga with Tim, great gains can be made by going back to the basics. Kobe Bryant famously did the same. He was once asked why he still practiced the basics, his response, "why do you think I'm the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics." “Reminisce”
24x24 Acrylic on canvas on plywood Painted for Nanny I painted this painting for my grandma. She was planning to visit and I wanted to surprise her with a painting. It was around the same time as the submission deadline for Station Gallery’s 29th Annual Juried Exhibition. I thought it would be special if my grandma’s painting spent some time in an art gallery, so I submitted it to be evaluated for the juried exhibition. I was excited to learn “Reminisce” was selected for the exhibition. But when I surprised my grandma with her gift while she was visiting from Ottawa, it was confusing to tell her she couldn’t take it home with her! But I think she appreciated the reason was because it was going to be hung on the Station Gallery’s wall before it would be hung on hers. The inspiration for Nanny’s painting was her home décor and the conversation we had during the drive from my parents’ place to mine to show her my art studio. During the drive she was telling me about some of the stories she remembered from her past and how sometimes when she’s at home she likes to sit and think about her memories. One of the stories she told me about was the first time she drove in my car (my grandma has never had her license and can be nervous in a vehicle sometimes). It was shortly after I gained my G2 Ontario driver’s license. It was the summer and she was arriving in the afternoon on a weekday. I don’t think I was everyone’s first choice to pick her up, but I was the only choice since everyone was working. She said she’ll never forget sitting in the Oshawa train staion and seeing me round the corner in my 1984 Ford LTD station wagon, windows down and tunes pumpin’. She told the story while in the passenger seat of my car, so I assume I drove responsibly on the way home. My wagon was brown on tan interior with an exhaust leak and no heater (I had to drive with the windows down in the winter to defrost the windshield). However, it did have a homemade speaker box with an amp and a 10 inch subwoofer. "Synesthesia I" 36" x 36" Acrylic on canvas on plywood Painted for Aspire Whitby's Silent Auction Fundraiser for Durham Community Foundation Friederich Nietzche believed the highest level of consciousness was that of a child since they were not subject to the biases acquired through living. Even our senses can create biases. Donald Hoffman, a Cognitive Psychologist at the University of California with a background in artificial intelligence, game theory, and evolutionary biology; developed a computer simulation to test if natural selection through Darwinian Evolution would select to perceive reality as it truly is. What he's found is the probability that humans see reality as it is, "is precisely zero." If we look at the effectiveness of just one of our senses in observing reality, sight, it has been estimated that we see only 0.0035% of the light spectrum. Synethesia translates to "perceive together." Babies are thought to be synesthetic, unable to differentiate between the senses. It's possible they have a more accurate representation of reality since they're able to sense everything all at once. Maybe that's why they cry so much and we can't remember what it was like? "Synesthesia II" 48" x 36" Acrylic on canvas on plywood Painted for myself Grow Young"
24" x 24" Acrylic on canvas on plywood Birthday present for Jessica The number of times you have lapped the sun is correlated with your age, but isn't a true reflection. At a cellular level we age at different rates, a combination of genetics and epigenetics. David Sinclair, co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School, in his Life Span podcast explores the research ongoing in the field of aging. It has been observed in many research studies that it is possible to slow the aging process and even reverse it. Dr. Sinclair posits that aging and dying may not have to occur. There would likely be consequences if a species didn't have to age or die. Ajit Varki & Danny Brower in their book, "Denial," propose that once a living thing becomes aware of its existence it must coincidently evolve a mechanism to deny its mortality. Otherwise the fear of death would paralyze all action. Every day you wake up the probability you will die is greater than zero, millions of years ago the probability was much higher. The older you get and the more you engage in risky activities, the higher the probability is that you will die on a given day. The easiest way to ensure that probability is as close to zero as possible would be to do nothing. Which would ultimately lead to the failure of a species since eating and procreation are essential to continuing life. It's an interesting concept and one that would become more applicable if a species were able to achieve amortality (death from natural aging processes and disease not possible, but death from trauma still possible). If humans were to achieve amortality YOLO would take on a whole new meaning. Rather than denying mortality our species might become hyper aware of their mortality. In Canada during the year 2020, 1745 people died in automobile accidents; 743 people died from homicide; and 238 people died from eating food. If an action could infinitely reduce your life expectancy you would not be likely to engage in it. The solution might be to simulate living your life (or many lives) from the safety of a pod being fed a sterilized nutrition supplement intravenously (The Matrix). Nicholas Bostrom's Simulation Argument states that it is likely that we are living in a simulated reality. It's based on the following assumptions: 1) We already create simulations, 2) computers continue to get more powerful and able to handle more complex simulations, 3) There is no reason to believe these things to ever be untrue. Accepting those assumptions there are three potential outcomes: 1) We destroy ourselves before we are able to fully simulate a reality, 2) We establish laws preventing the creation of a simulated reality, or 3) We are living in a simulated reality. It is inevitable that a computer will eventually be able to fully simulate an entire reality, which would in turn simulated a reality and so on creating an infinite series of simulated realities. The probability that we are the original in an infinite sea of realities is pretty close to zero according to Bostrom. Who knows how old you really are. With confidence I can say it's not the number on your birthday cake. "Wu Wei"
36" x 36" Acrylic on canvas on plywood Painted for Station Gallery's event, Drawing for Art. This painting embodies the concept of "Wu Wei." The painting came together on its own. The title came to me a day prior to painting and was reflective of what was going on in the world. Many people were becoming tired of everything COVID brought along with it. My favourite moment came a day after I had painted it when Nicole and I were kayaking. It was her first time kayaking and there was a decent amount of wind which was making things difficult. At one point Nicole said, "I'm not even going to paddle anymore, I'm just going to go wherever the water takes me." Wu Wei was the first painting I had displayed in a gallery. It was such a cool moment. The thrill of seeing people like something I created reminded me of the feeling I got when I was playing hockey and lacrosse. The nervousness I experienced during the event waiting to see if someone would select my painting and the joy when someone did are emotions I will never forget. "Pink"
24" x 24" Acrylic on canvas on plywood Painted for girls inc. of Durham's event, Power of the Purse. You can place your bids on it and many other items by visiting the auction page. For centuries both boys and girls wore white dresses. It was more practical, white clothes were easy to clean because they could be bleached and the dresses made changing diapers easier. Pastel colours were introduced for children in the mid-nineteenth century and the association with each of the sexes didn't start until the early 20th century. It was during this time that manufacturers tried to sell more childrens clothing by colour coding them, but not in the way you would expect. A trade publication in June of 1918 stated "the generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls." Pink was seen as being more masculine as a lighter shade of red and blue was associated with the Virgin Mary. Genesis is defined as "the origin or mode of formation of something."
Genesis is one of the first paintings I created. There's nothing particularly remarkable about the artwork. It was painted on June 18th, 2020 with dollar store acrylic paint on a dollar store canvas. It was more of an experiment than an intent to create a work of art. I have kept it and have it hung on the wall as a reminder of my beginning. 12" x 12" Acrylic on canvas Personal Collection |