click to enlarge

My thoughts get smaller as they stretch into infinity

They would've reached the moon if they didn't blow away.

The marriage of Heaven and Hell

click on image to enlarge

"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,

Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.

From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.

Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing

from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell."

William Blake

Boxing Day!

click on image to enlarge

    December the 26th is Boxing day in Canada. We celebrate the holiday every year but nobody's really sure what it means. Is it when we are supposed to put all the presents into boxes? Are we supposed to throw away the empty boxes? Is it about boxing fights?

Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas-time always means perogy making time to me

    When I was a boy we used to make hundreds of perogies in preparation for the big Christmas eve party my parents held every year. We would make so many that we froze a bunch of them to eat for the rest of the year.

   We made potato, potato and cheese, sour kraut, and blueberry ones. Our little 

fingers were busy filling and folding and squeezing. Filling and folding and squeezing...

    My father always liked to be the one with the cool job of flattening the dough 

with the rolling pin and making little circles with the cup, while my mother would boil them and place them out on the counters to cool down.

    We had a real assembly line happening and the kids as usual being the lowest 

life-form in the room got the most laborious part of the job.

    We weren't stupid and we weren't going to be taken advantage of. Walking 

off the job was impossible. Dad wasn't very quick but he had a rolling pin in his hand. Mum would've seen our scheming anyway and made it impossible. There was no way we would have ever made it out of that door.

    Sometimes the only recourse a worker has is sabotage! I filled every perogy 

I made that year with dough. In Canadian-Ukranian parlance these clumps of dough were referred to as 'sucker perogies.' 

    My brother and sister were on board for the revolution but they didn't commit with the full hearted intensity that I did. I only made sucker perogies and made them really fast because it was way easier to make them when you didn't have to worry about the filling falling out.

    When Christmas eve came about, Dad instantly knew who the instigator was. It was obvious. I made no secret of coveting his rolling pin.

    That year, I spent the whole Christmas eve hiding behind chairs giggling and 

spying on the angry adults trying to eat their perogies. They had to eat every one of those balls of dough. Every last one of them. 

    Ukranians always finish everything on their plates. We can't help ourselves. It's in our D.N.A.

    

    All the adults hated me that year, except for Mike Wolynski. 

    He liked them!

    My punishment was that I had to eat every last one of the sucker perogies that remained. My mother put a lock on the freezer so I couldn't throw any away when they weren't looking. I wasn't finished until February.

    Perogies are serious business for Ukranians during Christmas.

Choose your path very carefully

click on image to enlarge

 
    Years ago I was tattooing this design from one of my sketchbooks
onto a friend's arm. I was fine with tattooing the image onto him but
I didn't feel right about branding him with the words.
    I never invented these words. They have a history as do all proverbs and aphorisms. An image often has several layers of meaning but these words were very specific.
    I knew his girlfriend a little. She was such a sweet-hearted girl.
He really lucked out with her.
    I couldn't...
    I tattooed the devils on him but left the scroll empty.
    No mercy...born to lose... Should a tattooist be telling people
what they should or shouldn't put on their own skin?
    I have this awful habit of thinking things to death
and that's what I did to my tattooing career.

The child is father to the man

click on image to enlarge

MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How do you like it? How do you like it?

click on painting to enlarge

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

click on painting to enlarge

Ontario study finds that fewer children are enjoying reading

   With our obsession for high test scores and empirical methods of measuring 

success, we're taking the enjoyment out of education. My kids have too much 

homework! Even if they know the information and lesson already they're 

expected to complete it. 

   My son has a new interest every few months and I think that's valuable too. 

He doesn't have the time to explore them properly because he has to regurgitate

lessons that he's already finished digesting.

   With the pressures of global competition our schools are pressuring the kids 

too much. We don't want to create little robots. We want innovators! 

Most importantly, we want them to grow up and be capable of enjoying 

this wonderful world.

It's happening all over but here's the study I'm referring to:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/12/12/reading-decline-report.html

 This comic from the 1960s reflects the culture of the time.

My modern eyes can't help seeing it like this:

click on image to enlarge

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

click on painting to enlarge

Perhaps you are feeling overwhelmed...

click on image to enlarge

Kisses, Killers and Crybabies

click on painting to enlarge

Foolosophy

click to enlarge painting

Foolosophy

click on painting to enlarge

My newest sketchbook

     I asked my wife, who is Swiss-German, if 'Im alter von wunder,' means, 'in an age of wonders.' She was in a hurry so didn't pay very much attention to it and just said, "yes."
     Later she said it sounded a little awkward.
     Too late! I already painted it on the cover.

click on image to enlarge

It's true that we are living in a very interesting age. Are we not?

Foolosophy

click on painting to enlarge

This freaks me out

click on painting to enlarge

When I was teaching myself how to draw, I spent a lot of time looking 

at the art of the Renaissance. The paintings of hell haunt me to this day. 

I hope I don't have nightmares from today's painting but for the sake 

of art, I will do almost anything, even go to hell for one night!

Get busy!

click on painting to enlarge

What are the heresies of our age?

click on painting to enlarge

The quotes and aphorisms of Helen Keller are very special to me.

They didn't have dental floss 2000 years ago?

click on painting to enlarge

Wherever you are, always keep in mind you are never alone.

click on image to enlarge

A 'poem' today:

Ninety-nine suckers and a one percent man,
throwing us our supper from his garbage can.
As he gives us another morsel to chew,
we throw it back'n say, "no thank you!
Your food looks good, but it tastes like poo!"
That was pretty bold - but what's he going to do?
Take away our pay checks and our pensions too?


by Michael Em

Unfortunate Fortune

     Confucius had a really good Chinese restaurant in the neighbourhood where I 

grew up.People came from all over town to eat there but the food wasn't the big 

draw. It was his fortune cookies!

     They had the reputation of becoming true. 

     People always asked him how he did it and he would just put on this wizened 

smile and claim that his dog did all the work. His dog actually wrote them. Yeah

right, but I was just a kid then so I believed him. I tried to feed his dog in order to 

get on his good side. 

    I never saw the dog talk or write. He didn't even seem to be a very

smart dog. Once I fed him my paper napkin and he ate it.

     One day he came out with an idea that made his restaurant truly famous. He put 

seven fortune cookies into the batch that said, "you will soon become very rich."

     Maybe he was afraid of success. I don't know why he did it but he made a

formal announcement that there is a fortune cookie in every batch that stated, 

"you will become very dead."

    Nobody ate at his restaurant after that except for tourists, drifters, and us. My 

Dad wasn't really a risk taker. I think he just loved Chinese food. My Mum asked 

Confucius why he would do such a thing to his own business. He just smiled and 

told her that he didn't write the cookies. He had no control over the matter.

     So we just kept going there every sunday. I don't know how he even stayed in

business. I suspected my Dad would eat there during the week on his lunch 

breaks.

     One sunday Dad opened up his fortune cookie and it said, "You will become

very rich." 

     He was overjoyed but not me.

     My cookie said, "you will become very dead."

     I quickly put the cookie below the chair and the dog ran over and ate it out 

of my hand. 

     The next sunday Dad complained to him that he wasn't rich yet. Confucius

just glared at us pointing his finger and said, "you.... you killed my dog!

Get out! Never come back!"

     Dad was mad at me for weeks after that.

     He never did get rich.

   

Don't feed the Monster!

Happy birthday Mark Twain!

click on image to enlarge

Foolosophy

click on image to enlarge

Foolosophy

click on image to enlarge

Sunday Morning Coming down

click on the image to enlarge

Foolosophy

click on the painting to enlarge

Love

   Earth looked into the mirror and gazed upon his hideous reflection, "I look 
like death," he whispered to nobody in particular. Well...okay, maybe he wanted 
the moon to hear.
   "That's not death you're looking at," the moon giggled, "that's the Pacific Ocean!"
   "Grrr....nobody takes me seriously," he grumbled before he turned around and 
fell asleep.
   The moon cried.

   Maybe we didn't say it very much but we did love you Earth. You were there 
for us. No other planet in the universe was as giving as you were to us. 
We took you for granted but that doesn't mean we didn't love you.

Foolosophy

click on the image to enlarge

Foolosophy

   I love William Blake, but if I express my feelings for his art by raiding his
grave, pouring gravy on his bones, and then feeding them to my neighbour's dog,
would that still be holy?
   William Blake's ghost: You aren't paying attention! It has to be living to be holy!
   Okay, well, uh... what if I pour yogurt into your skull and let him lick it out?
   William Blake's ghost: Sigh...the yogurt will be holy, but not my skull.
   If I started licking up this holy yogurt, would I be holy?
   William Blake's ghost: click!

When the time comes...

   Do you want to become a monster? I don't want to either but I still can't change 
the horrible fact that it is indeed Monday morning.
   Please stay out of jail and don't kill anyone today. 
   At least wait until your boss turns into a zombie before you take action.

Peek a boo!

click on the image to enlarge

Angelica... part one

   As I rub the poor little dead dove back into the world of the living, I imagine that my real life is somewhere far away in space and time. 
   Suddenly, I'm back in my real bedroom in my real home and it takes me a few moments to come to the realization that I'm not even a real human being.  Nothing like one!
   I'm green and have twelve tiny noses on my bum, (like everyone else).
   I was on Earth for so long that I forgot who, (or what), I really was. I actually still love those wonderful humans that I was so close to.
   I really badly want to go back to Earth but my mother screams, "you can go back to Earth at bedtime like everybody else! Now get up and eat your breakfast!"

Is it possible for Mum and Dad to just find some way to fix this broken planet together, (without killing each other)?

click on the image to enlarge

Foolosophy

click on image to enlarge

Foolosophy

click on image to enlarge