Growing up in Nova Scotia I remember a television program called Midday Matinee. This was during the late sixties early seventies (I was born in 65). Midday Matinee usually featured old movies from the fifties and early sixties.  My Father would occasionally suggest a film to see. These, invariably, were black and white Sci-Fi movies he had seen many times. We would watch together and he would talk me through the scary parts and explain the science, however far fetched. His enthusiasm for these films had me convinced they were award-winning cinema. The movie would end, my Father would go back to work and I would be left to contemplate what I had witnessed. My Father was a radar technician in the Canadian Armed Forces. During this time we were stationed at Canadian Forces Base Greenwood, Nova Scotia. His work involved flying over the North Atlantic Ocean tracking Russian submarine movements during the Cold War. I realize the irony that most of the movies that we had watched were laden with Atomic and Cold War metaphors. Resourceful, my Father could fix anything, especially electronics. It was not uncommon for him to have the TV or Hi-Fi taken completely apart to replace a transistor or a tube. If we needed, a fence built, or a shed erected, he did it. He was also skilled auto-mechanic. He rewired more toasters, steam irons and hair dryers than I can recall. He always had a fully stocked, meticulously organized workshop in our basement, with every tool you could imagine. My Father enthusiastically indulged every project I could dream up, no matter how complicated or ridiculous. Undoubtedly, this do it yourself philosophy was responsible, in some part, for my own creative drive.

Upcoming Exhibition

St. Francis Xavier University Art Gallery January 2012