all the news that's fit to print... and then some.

may 08 - with pinocchio finally done, i'm slowly starting to get my taxes in order... doing the backstroke through a sea of reciepts while my cohorts in the saint john river valley swim to work (i was only three when the river last got that high). in other news, for 13 years of wifeliness, my dearest darling bought me this sweet ride. it's my first "new" bike in 27 years. it's a welcome addition to my collection of used and broken bikes. i installed a dynamo generator to the back wheel, and with some rugged finessing, finally got the front lamp to work. so darkness is no barrier - those trails do get darn dark on a moonless night, i tell ya. oh, and buttons buttons buttons -mitchell wiebe's rad rat gang tore through town, bringing selwyn sharples and his stuff. awesome indeed. finally, the pond we dug last summer to bring me some sweet froggy-love, is attracting a little more wildlife than i or my doggy bargained for.

april 08 - we went to check out a clear cut property and former dump. affordable junk land for future homestead... we'll see. what else other than pinocchio? ... got my bikes out for the season... did some paying magazine work... went to lot's of lovely musical events at the gallery and at georges... oh, and i gave myself a pay raise!

march 08 - working hard all last month, this and most of the next, trying to get a new animation completed for the may screening. aaaah.

february 08 - i went to fredericton to see some of the ecma related events. here's two things i saw.

january 08 - all kinds of stuff... art stuff posted over in latest work... another issue of the quilt magazine off to the printer... and learned once again that safety never takes a vacation. i'm such a dork. looking forward to the ecma's down the road in fredericton... hopefully i can find my way there.

december - well if i wasn't all growed-up an' brave last weekend. i toodled off to the island for to teach a workshop, give a presentation, and unbeknownst to me, to brave a ferocious snowstorm to get my bad self home again. but i did 'er. perhaps not as well as i may have hoped, but no complaints... yet. got home just in time to catch the hidden cameras at georges. woo woo. then i went into production on a new gang of flowers, two of which will be for sale in the struts 25th annual members show and sale which goes up today (dec 7) with a much anicipated party tomorrow night. how exciting.

november - we've only just begun, but news is news. i won an award... and had to accept it infront of a theatre full of people. i didn't do a very good job of it. why do i have to be such a dork? i dunno, but there you go. so swan pond is the official recipient of best music video award from the silver wave film festival. when i got home from the festival, i found out julie's peeps needed my signature to submit both it and the album artwork to the junos... almost six months away... but here's hoping.

october - i finally took my show down at struts and repaired the walls for mary & mel's lovely work. mel also took my old say cheese super-8 reel to screen in her attic gallery mid month... it's also due to screen next week at GIRAF3 in calgary. i started preparing for my big talk in december... kinda.. documenting some of my studio work.. i have no idea what i'm going to say, or if it will make any sense, so the more visual stuff i can dazzle them with the happier we'll all be, oui? oui! it's nice because i probably spent more time in the studio than i may have otherwise, since this has been a month of working for evil and otherwise - you know, making some much needed cash for the long cold winter ahead. struts and owens are hosting their 12th annual symposium of art a little later than usual. tonight is the big costume party at georges, and a few days ago i got to see vancouver artist jason fitzpatrick getting his spine tattooed while his friend made bloody prints off his back from the ink and blood - very interesting. shotgun jimmie released a sweet new album and is doing a mini autumnal tour with steve lambke and the gang known as construction and destruction, so when steve was here a few weeks ago he told me something funny... back in august i had to take down a wasp nest in the yard (which i later used in my struts installation) but these were no ordinary wasps... these ones are extra vicious and attack your eyes, and decided to build their new home far too close to my puppy's nose. so needless to say a few beers and an eager pal got me ready to tackle the nest. i suited up with some winter gear, and donned my super duper welding goggles. steve took a funny picture of me and put it on his site, where a reviewer mistook it as a photo of him and used it. oh yeah, and i turned 37 a few weeks back. woo woo. november here we come!

september - GOOD NEWS: my two week show turned into a six week art-a-thon. woo woo. it made me so very happy that more folks got to see it. yay struts. michael flaherty and his bicycle rehabilitation project came to our lovely struts gallery and fixed almost all the bikes in town. he raised the handlebars on my mountain bike and replaced the gear cables, and he also fixed the wiggly pedal on my sweet free spirit. i affixed an old basket to my mountain bike, a la a little inspired ingenuity and my good friend franny's help. BAD NEWS: my mommy's not feelin' so shit hot, that's sad... she's a cool lady. then a few days ago our new neighbours had all our privacy removed. it was a devastating loss, and i don't know how long it will take me to adjust to the new over-exposure. such a shame indeed.

august - this month started with a bang indeed. sappy fest rocked this town inside out for the second year. we got to see chad, and the constantines... and dog day, and of course eric's trip, among many many others. where would we be without paul? sackville is so lucky to have him here. as soon as the music ended and i recovered from so many late nights, i got to work finishing up the art for my living is easy show. i took over the whole house, as once i built something, it had to displace another thing - we are full to the gills and it's all my fault. i installed the show last week (which took for f'n ever!). i had no way of knowing if it would all work until i had it in place and lo - it worked. what a relief. otherwise, august has brought more blooms to my garden and some froggies to my pond experiment. it's been a cool summer, short and late, so i'm doubtful that my sunflowers will make much headway. but i've still got hopefully a month before the growing comes to a halt... we shall see. my pal jim is making a new record and it contains my new favorite song - bedhead... check it out!

may june july oh my. spring was later than last year, so thusly may was whence i began to dig and rake and plan all things outdoors. i've spent more time out in the yard than ever this year, and i don't really even have a garden. but over the past few months we've planted about forty trees, i built a new garden especially for my new clematis, and we are in the throws of pond experimentation... i heard frogs eat slugs, and frogs like ponds... so we built it, they've yet to come. oh, and we have a firepit now too. what else... work of course, the usual web updates, newsletters and magazine work... plus a great big handful of volunteer work for struts and faucet... postcards, dvd, anniversary art.. and sappy too - a little web, a little print. right now i'm gearing up for my living is easy show in august. it's starting to take shape in my head, rather than just being this dark nebulous nagging feeling, i'm incredibly excited. i can't wait to get it installed... but thankfully it's still a month away, as i have a big old bucket of work yet to finish. oh boys, sappy is coming up in a week and i can not wait. i've been looking forward to this all f'n year. my best pal tommy will be-a-visitin'. sweeet! in other news, thanks to julie's polaris nomination, my swan pond video might just get some airtime on bravo or much music... otherwise back to the festival submissions. i really really like the no fee festivals best. what else... oh my bike collection is growing like crazy. my cruddy but faithful old norco was finally replaced with a bevy of bikes. first was the pink one, but i gave that away to a friend when someone offered me this bike they'd won but never used. i immediately pimped it out, and on it's maiden drunk-in-the-dark ride home, the pedal fell off, then so did i. before i could fix the pedal, this lovely lovely came into my life for cheap. who could resist her? even though i've repaired the raleigh, i only ride this gearless wonder. i haven't had back-pedal brakes in three decades. it's awesome. okay. some random things, and i think i'm done here. until next time.

april - work work work. spent a whole week with my mom. nice. my youtube channel is slowly but steadily getting seen.

march - julie animation is done!... i've posted it on my moving pictures page, and on youtube... myspace etc.

i cleaned up my studio. awesome.

february - madly making art, a party dress, and a cake for the super duper valentines day celebration at the owens art gallery. the sweetest little thing... art auction/dance/fundraiser. my favorite day of the year, indeed. then back to work on various projects on hold... so many. aah.

january - a happy new year all around. stereophonic rocked! i bought drums. a nice big old set, making me so happy. mmm. drums. spent a few weeks designing a magazine layout, nice work if you can get it. i do hope to get more.

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december - it just snowed... so pretty ... but oh so cold.

december - i finished my rickenbacker... it's in latest work.. sweeet!

november - the gallery had it's agm, and surprise surprise, i'm still on the board for some reason.

november - attended the silverwave film festival in fredericton. saw some awesome stuff, and met some good people. can't ask for more, really. and as an added bonus, i have new wheels for the winter, which is always nice.

october - attending a two evening workshop with the talented and lovely amy lockhart. here's what we made the first night (last night) as a group. super fine! here's what we made the second night.i learned so much. thanks a bucket amy. you are awesome! I really need to slow down the movements. i always forget to. your fabulous notes will help greatly.

october - had the most awesome weekend ever friday jon rae and his fabulous river played at georges. i had some dear old friends a visitin'. 'twas indeed a grand time. then with little to no sleep, off to halifax for a wedding of another dear old friend, where i saw even more dear old freinds, and again got little to no sleep at all. but what an awesome weekend. weehaw! the lovely and beautiful bride will be providing us with links to all her fancy photos as they become avaiable. can't wait. she was soooo very stunning.. and the kicker.. they drove aaway from the ceremony in stanley kubrick's 1973 orange mercedes benz, loaned to them by a pal of theirs. what an awesome sight that was. pretty pretty.

october - symposium! yay. chok full o fancy performances 'twas. highlight for me was daniel barrows' beautiful performance on thursday night, every time i see your picture i cry. wow. thanks daniel. and oh! open studio artists marc bell and amy lockhart will be residing in our fair town throughout the month. cool.

october - semi-finished the struts gallery website. it's up anyway... but oh so incomplete.

september - reactivated my splash page remote control. sweet. plan to keep adding channels with whatever i come up with...

september - say cheese was accepted to the silver wave film fest in fredericton. my award from calgary fringe arrived. just particleboard, no cash love. i thought fringes were mandated to pay artists... but what do i know? ...nothing!

september - got my cd exchange mailout done! wahoo.... i am a new, and perhaps just a short-term member of the north american lamplighters' association... a small group of music lovers, who trade mix cds monthly... but the postage is a killer for me.. so that might keep me out of it for next year. my contribution was, of course, 100% can-con! yeehaw! itunes made a mess of things, though, stopping me from using two songs after seven disks. here's the track listings for the extra curious out there: disk one; disk two (just tracks 9 & 25 changed) man, was it way way harder than i thought whittling down everything i wanted to put on there to what would actually fit... really hard. my appologies to all the amazing musicians that are not therein, i wanted to include you all... you know it!

say cheese was just accepted into the continental drift international short film festival in saint john, late september... check it out if you're in the area.

plans are in the works to make a series of very short animations for a new music opera, with dr ian crutchly and the motion ensemble. exciting.

august, my marvelous mom's quilts to hang in new brunswick and mississippi.

friday, august 11. historic ford block's corner building on york and main goes up in flames. thankfully, not a typically windy sackville night.

august - just found out say cheese was accepted to AFF in halifax. yehaw. now to decide if i should stay or go. probably stay. so lonely in the city.

august -burning dvds. stamping shirts. thanks to everyone who bought my stuff at sappy. what fun that was! sorry to all the folks i didn't get to meet. my shyness and awe can be a real stumbling block.

july - completed animations... new digital collage animation, the stick man, for faucet's ok quoi?! festival thumbwars screening... in the old imperial theatre! and my digital back-up of a sadly blown-out super-8 stop motion animation, m'beep eep yeah which was started in march was just finished it so i can stop thinking about it, really... it's not my best work.. but whatever. life's too short.

made a snappy little faucet member's collage for paul. split second cuts of all the work i could find. thanks to the boys for the awesome soundtrack! i'll link to it if paul puts it on the faucet site...

pixies accepted into the calgary fringe festival and awarded best canadian short animation...

july - i'm working on it.... just found out that in august my first two animations (dawn of the pixies & say cheese) will be screened at the owens art gallery in sackville, as part of their summer film series on the history of animation... i'm not trying to imply that i'm destined to warrant a footnote in the history books, just helping to fill out a program is all...

june - say cheese was screened at the niagara indie film fest, in st catharines, ontario... and i'm busy building some websites, and trying to make art, and swim...

june - heather harkins's video valentine has now screened in vancouver, los angeles, toronto, halifax and sweet sweet sackville.

april - tres courts will be screening my super8 animation say cheese in paris france, as part of the around music programme... thanks corey, for the encouragement.

february - both my animations to be screened in vancouver on valentines day! thanks heather.

january - i recieved a batch of twenty fabulous trading cards. thanks john. and congratulations to amanda on her poetry recognition. (i love bats)

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december - i actually received a grant from the provincial arts board... now i actually have to produce the work... i can feel the walls closing in...

working like crazy this fall and winter... freelancing. no time to leisurely update this page for a few months... not that it's such a big chore... whatever... and then there was the devastating hard drive failure... but that's been replaced... so it's all good.

friendly pilot took me flying. got to see loverly sackville from above. thanks alex.

bought a used 'lectric geetar... and promptly painted purdy flowers all over it. happy birthday to me... and i sold my five-chilli-alarm car and bought a partial drum kit... just a few bits to play along whilst guitaring... or at least attempt to.

october... working on turning one of my rooms into a green screen room.... yikes it's hard to light evenly.

my super-8 animation say cheese was accepted into the glitch festival in montreal along with dawn of the pixies... they'll be screening at the Kola Note, on the 20th of october.

attended most of the 25th atlantic film festival in halifax, got to see many a film and a few old friends.

dawn of the pixies will also be screened at silverwave in fredericton, saturday november 5, 2005 at 7pm at the playhouse theatre.

leaving sept 5th for a western excursion to meet the new nephew and cook up a storm to energize the new parents, back east just in time to catch the last half of the atlantic film festival in halifax. i'll be back in action on the 25th.

dawn of the pixies has been selected to be screened at the atlantic film festival in halifax september 14-24. it will be screened at two events; the frame x frame on september 17th, and atlantic shorts on the 19th.

august 24 - mom's hip upgrade is installed! she's healing and chillin' and quilting in the sunroom, no doubt.

very silly monkey comes out of the studio - august 22-september 3, 2005 at struts gallery, sackville, new brunswick.

dawn of the pixies has been selected to be screened at the continental drift international short film festival september 23-25 in saint john, new brunswick.

participated in a lovely workshop taught by artist anna torma

dawn of the pixies was screened at the art gallery of hamilton's outdoor festival, photophobia 7 on august 11th, 2005.

caleb samuel wells born - august 3 2005 - my first nephew! congratulations corey and gill.

procrastination led me to find two whales on the google maps.