Not yet titled

I made this photo in the darkroom back in March. It has not been digitally altered or worked on in any way; all the manipulation of the photo, developing and printing was done by hand. Photos used were taken in Iceland.

Mycetelights

Gull in Stanley Park

Not exactly sure how the exposure turned out this way, but that’s the beauty of film cameras.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

the high tension wires hum on a still day
hear them when the cicada buzz dims
when the sea gulls that gather in parking lots are quiet and fed
these new towers we watched them raise already rust
red brown mascara tears streaming from each bolt
and we all stop and look and ponder impermanence or whatever
or just listen to the hum when the cicadas level off
when the gulls are restful in the sun
the hum is steady and low and, people used to say, cancerous
carcinogenic like chewing gum or cigarettes or the sun
empty lots near the big towers at low prices for thrillseekers
for those of us who don’t mind telling friends and neighbours, no
it’s just a myth, and, anyway, do you hear the hum?
wait for the cicadas to fade into the trees and the wind to slow
and no sea gulls here but the crows try hard to do their job
seeing the need for a creature that eats fries off the ground
and carries on loud conversations in single syllables
and scowls and gets scowled at
as they scream loudly to anyone who will listen and understand
HELLO, YOU DON’T KNOW ME, BUT I AM A CROW
perhaps adding AND I AM IN THIS TREE
or swooping to the ground to investigate a dropped lunch
filled mouth quieted so we can hear the hum
warming our ears; subtle underneath the 17-year cicadas
that squirmed out of the ground to socialize and fuck and die
ratcheting buzzsaw sound that sweeps across town in great waves
and we’ll all miss them in the 18th year but we won’t know what’s gone
we’ll notice more hum, more gulls from further away
and we’ll breathe in the thick summer air
and exhale our waste in a long sigh
and try to sleep under the towers, looking up
watching airplanes cut long scars into clear sky

No Stone Unlearned

From hundreds of miles away, you feel them in your stomach—
Colossal irregularities in the crust of the earth,
Landlocked  fleets of celestial shipwrecks,
Conceived long before
The earth had even dreamt you up.
*
They communicate through streams of thought,
Exchanging bodies of water, pools of knowledge,
Making up their mind, then questioning their sanity,
About inch-long migrations
That will take millennia to complete.
*
The majority of them are piling up their efforts,
Wide at the base, building loosely upwards,
Erecting rocky fingers in atmospheric corridors,
Ignorant of their destructive nature,
In hopes of caressing the underbelly of a cloud.
*
Now and again you see this happen,
A perfect cloud, disembowelled by obsidian hands
Crafted in an aggressive deep-earth furnace.
Its vaporous insides rush down the mountainside,
A phantasmal army of a medieval soldiers in full march.
*
You resist the urge to get lost in the shattered horizon,
Simply observing the subtle mannerisms of these earthen giants.
In time, you learn their language and they become so simple.
And in time, you even find a way to put up with the guilt
Of having gotten used to the beauty of this place.

Zombie Survival Kit Night-Light

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen–

the title says it all.

Here is my zombie survival kit night light. It can either be lit by an attached flashlight, or it simply charged by any light source to glow in the dark, thanks to a special paint I used for the back of the case. I made it for a friend that thinks zombies are awesome because—let’s face it—they are.

The case is made out of a spaghetti box.  I used the cardboard backing of the box as the main frame, and the top (which was clear plastic) as the “glass”. I spray-painted the box with metallic spray paint and dabbed it with newspaper to give it a galvanized look. I carved a hole in it for an old clip-on flashlight. I also covered the edges of the box with reflective sheet-metal (which came from a cookie tin), so that the light would better reflect onto the inside of the case.

I took little Royal Jelly vials (after drinking the Royal Jelly over the course of a couple of weeks) and removed the labels by soaking them in hot water. Then, using a syringe, I filled them with a blue liquid made by soaking old marker felt in water. I capped the vials with their original cap, although I had to hot-glue them shut so that the cap would stay on and no liquid would come out.

I put them all together on the plastic tray that they originally came in, except I cut it so that it looked nicer,  and I held them in place with electrical tape which I found outside on the ground. Then I glued that tray onto a piece of an old hard-cover book that I had been using for a collage, and I attached a syringe (no needle, obviously) that I had from a science kit.

Total money spent: $0

I hope you enjoyed my completely upcycled artwork :)

Prairie wind reconstruction: Sunset musings

The vastness of it all sneaks up on you.
Dimensionless space,  stretched out, thoroughly kneaded into existence,
and lain down onto an otherwise absent landscape.
It’s immediately clear that this is a place where life is not something that’s granted,
But rather, something that must be earned.
*
The winds have no problem tearing your flesh clean off the bone. They will indulge,
Exposing your porous architecture, and allowing to billow the vapours held within.
The heavy smog will then secure your head,
and make you watch your own stowed-away corruption
Interact with airborne distillates of oil-rig city shame.
*
The misplaced smell of rich earth is sure to want to mingle,
An impractical joke, this land—the troubled sister of a terrain more productive,
Raised by hordes of farmers wielding impressive tools, terrible habits,
And indecent techniques which they forced upon her unwilling body, time and time again,
Tilling her group-ravaged soil into traumatized dirt, barely held together by unbounded roads.
*
These roads are lined by small, compacted rodents— casually, yet almost reliably.
Given the sheer size of the machinery responsible for this, and modern developments in hydraulics,
It’s unthinkable that the drivers felt any sort of impact when going over these creatures,
Yet every sunset, for a split second—though they convince themselves otherwise—
They’re visited by thoughts of burrows and unexplainable cravings for specific grasses.
*
They say the last glimpse of the sunset is always a false one,
That the sun has already set and as the atmosphere refracts its rays,
The spectacle we’ve come to love is a big, magnificent lie.
If that’s the case, then this place that’s almost entirely horizon,
Is surely home to the biggest, most magnificent lies of them all.

Hard North.

The moment requires your constant attention.

Road signs are standardized throughout the province—

Childhood streets in unfamiliar settings.

It’s best not to let that false sense of direction

Become a false sense of security.

 

*

The next fifteen kilometres are notorious

for deer running into open traffic.

At 120 kilometres an hour,

A collision would ensure protection

From what the future has in store for them.

*

Don’t be so quick to reprimand these creatures.

The only thing they can look forward to

Is another city that clings to the map,

boasting an oversized monument to the mundane.

This is where you’ll be spending your night.

*

What little hope the weather spares this ghastly town,

The casinos snatch up with gluttonous fingers.

This is the sort of town where you can rest assured

That the alarm clock your motel is missing

has been pawned down the street for a midnight gamble.

*

There are mice living in the ventilation.

Try not to think about these things.

Home is not a day’s drive away.

You’d be racing your own shadow.

Tonight, all streams flow into the Arctic Ocean.

Have you seen the little piggies, Crawling in the dirt?

Treasure Trail

There she goes…

There she goes again
But don’t tell her she’s an artist
She doesn’t want to know

It’s not a skill
To her it’s just being human
And I think she may be right

She truly is a human ‘being’
Not just another human ‘doing’

Cloud Pillars

you are green clouds perched on the tallest pillar,
you are the lowest flowing dreams of humanity.
keeping us on our toes always reaching for more,
you reject the selfish and reward the kind and true.
to believe the book is to doubt your brilliance,
to trust the theory is to ignore your mastery.
would you dare to dream of a man-less place ?
i know that i could not live in a land that lacks you.
your mind knows great and grand of a world without me,
a perfect earth so clean and whole, an entire soul.
my memory knows not of any terrible sadness yet felt,
if you were to leave me for that memory not forgotten.
to forgive the crippling burdens we bestowed upon you,
a cure lingering into the howling years we eagerly await,
your answer to our sinful ways…
we may die before we hear.

Returning Home

Little did I know,
That twenty years from that day,
All that would be left of the body
Was a sebaceous patch of dirt,
Saturating the curb,
And colonized by roadside weeds.
-
The road that led into the expansion was still the same,
It was perhaps the only thing they hadn’t changed,
An aged thoroughfare that the metropolis could reap,
A makeshift umbilical cord to an artificial placenta,
Spewing out a workforce,
And shipping in a new franchise each day.
-
It was in a single afternoon that our community was shattered
By a pump-action shotgun, in a trembling hand.
Maybe just one shot was needed, but I remember ten.
Four went into the hundred-pound dog, but a few hit the girl.
I doubt anyone thought that it would make a difference,
But they still took her to the city, wrapped in a limp blanket.
-
It was the owner himself that put him down.
He had no reservations; the girl was also his.
When they took her to the hospital,
They left the hound by the curb,
And there, he would stay, like a shameful disease,
Even after the town was bought out.
-
They say he had been getting sick,
But nobody could have predicted this,
No one ate that night, or was able to sleep.
And even twenty years later,
It’s hard to get those images,
And that false sense of guilt, out of my head.
-
But coming back here,
And seeing this fertile land sterilized,
paved over with asphalt and concrete,
This stained piece of road,
Of undeniable history,
Is the only thing that’s beautiful.

Acnestis

His fingertips begged the door forward,
Deadlatch cocking like the hammer of a gun,
Barrel pointing accusingly
At his head, but only in his mind.
-
Inside, a radio hissed indifferently,
Keeping away the awkward silence
And circular self-criticism
That follow indecision.
-
She was splayed across the table
Like a mis-strewn peninsula,
Her supple features were made subtle,
Under unsympathetic plastic.
-
While he paced the night away outside,
She had waited here for him,
Quiet, patient, uncomplaining,
But then again, she had no choice.
-
And, of course, neither did he.
Everything was as it should be;
A whole night of weary walking
Had landed him back in this room.
-
The sun’s rays, uninvited,
Creeped in like a wartime gas.
He covered up his sleepless window panes;
This was no sight for the sun to see.
-
And with an air of excitement and surrender,
He removed her from her artificial wrap,
Spread her apart in a razorblade ritual
And consumed her crystalline curves

Nothomerica

I apologize for the poor photo quality. You should just come and see it sometime.

The inspiration for this piece was revealed to me from shade cast by the foliage of a Chinquapin Oak (Quercus muehlenbergii), a tree far from common in our area. Among the objects seen in this include an axe handle, a dog’s head, an arrowhead, a facial profile, and a man leaning against a wall.

Decorative Bean Pod

The large pods of the Kentucky Coffee-Tree can make a very unique canvas for acrylic paint tribal patterns. Here is my first attempt: not great, but I am pleased.

YGTDCARCP

work’n for the man every night and day.

FUUUU-

If you are at all farmiliar with the stupidity found on the internet, then you will undoubtedly understand the intense silliness of these artworks. It is pretty stupid, but I felt that I should share my frustration of botanical gardens failing to properly label their specimen plantings through this style of artwork, which is a collection of “memes”. The second artwork effectively portrays the many flaws which exist in books designed to aid in the identification of plants. Make sure to click for larger view!


Entheorizing.

This is a visual response to Terence McKenna’s “Stoned Ape” theory of human evolution. As always, feedback and discussion is not only welcome, but encouraged and appreciated. I made this using Photoshop brushes and filters, and it is the first in what will hopefully be an artistically productive next little while. Click to see the full-size image. Part of it is missing in preview mode!

–ioni

Japan – not so foreign.

My lovely Japanese sister Misaki.