#0091 "Cabin in the Clearing"

Step number 91 along my artistic journey...

This is an abandoned pioneer log cabin on Newboro Lake Road near Crosby, Ontario as seen in the summer of 1979. Someone worked very hard with very simple tools to make this structure a home. I am not sure if it is still there but will make a point of looking for it.

An important aspect of art is to record everyday life as it exists for posterity. Things and activities that form the mosaic of life that are common in one generation may become extinct for the next. If you paint something that is already on the verge of disappearing this important cataloguing of life becomes even more obvious. For a while I did just that and searched out history that still existed and preserved it on canvas. The pioneering way of life of living on and with the land is gone.

I would have painted this in the studio in the corner of the guest bedroom in our condo in Millwoods, Edmonton, Alberta. I never stopped painting even as I was learning the meteorology of Alberta.

For a while I was disguising the date when a painting was completed. People only seemed interested in the most recent painting. If a work was dated then it soon became old stuff. If a painting was not dated then it could always be fresh off the easel. Crazy. I stopped doing this silliness very quickly. It really does not or should not matter when or where a painting was completed. A work of art either works and sings to you or it does not. Time and space are relative. I discovered that I really am dyslexic and as I get older it might be getting worse which is actually good for my art.