Flower of Modernity

I’m a firm believer that a piece of art carries its own motivations, its own intentions, and it’s own story outside of what its creator had intended. I know a large part of what makes an art piece meaningful is the subjective experience of the viewer interacting with it. Through my experience creating art I’ve also learned that my own subjective experience with each piece I make is evolving over time. My former bandmate and friend Barbora once said before playing one of her songs, “the meaning of this song hasn’t yet communicated itself to me”(or something along those lines) and I remember thinking...

Damn... I ain’t ever thought of it like that...

But time and time again it proves itself true. Some art seems to take on the qualities of a premonition, seeing into the future. One day you open the page to something you made 3 years ago and it is alive in the present moment more vividly than it ever could have been in its time of creation.

Flower of Modernity is this for me. At the time of its creation 2.5 years ago I made it in a rush (along with about 5 other pieces) out of scrap parts so that I could present it in an exhibit called Hot Metal Arts. I allowed my intuition to take the wheel as I abandoned my perfectionism and surrendered to the moment, welding pieces in place without concerning myself with the outcome. The piece required a name for the exhibit, and i decided on Flower of Modernity.

I’ve been learning more about modernity through my studies at Emily Carr.

Last night as I was passing by this piece in my house I had to stop myself to contemplate, given my new knowledge on Modernity, does the name still apply to this art?

I had a profound moment of truly understanding this piece for the first time.
Rising out of the maple base is a long auger drill bit, typically used for drilling concrete. It spirals upwards to meet this rusty, eroded resemblance of a failed flower of life. At the base, a corroded railroad braces it in position, as the piece appears to stand tall in anticipation, waiting for something positive to come of its situation.

To me the drill bit anchored into wood, spiralling upwards represents humanity distancing itself from nature. Through means of industrialization we move further and further to what we imagine will be humanities utopia. The flower of life is a symbol of geometric perfection, and the primary building block of the universe. In this representation it is a glitchy, incomplete, flawed attempt at creating unity within its structure, much like the reality we have created for ourselves in our increasingly modern dystopia. 

FORGIVE ME for my lack of optimism at this time, but it’s hard to stay positive when we chop down the majority of the old growth forests responsible for the air we breath, and the biodiversity of our nature. We scrape the sea floors with reckless abandon to take what we need, feed those who can afford to be fed and discard the rest. We displace food production so that globalization is the only practical means for most people to maintain a holistic diet, and we blame the individual for being responsible for the monster carbon footprint left behind by industrialization, capitalism and corporate greed.

We need to pull our shit together y’all. I ain’t even talking about a Utopia, I’m talking about the basic survival of our species on this planet. 

Earth gon’ be aite!

But humanity needs to decide as a collective whether we are going to be a part of the future of this planet, or just a remnant of an ancient past.

An Anti-Monument to Youthfulness

This was a project from last year. The task was to create a monument, or in this case, an anti-monument. This particular sculpture, as an anti-monument, speaks to the reality that many of us have to live with daily. The reality that, as much as our minds, hearts, and spirits may be thriving with vitality, sometimes our bodies are just not on the same page. 

This art piece challenges the conventions of the “ideal” human figure in all of its glory and fitness, and offers a more realistic lens so we can empathize with those who aren’t afforded the same luxuries. 

In many cases, those luxuries aren’t grandeur feats of running marathons,  doing hill sprints, or traversing the himalaya’s. These luxuries can be as simple as walking to the bathroom, or getting in and out of the shower, or bending down to tie your damn shoe!

So who am I to build this anti-monument to youth??

What does this rusty-ass, creaky-ole, scrap-steel, spring loaded, hand-crankable slap-stick of a sculptural art piece have to do with me on a personal level?

Well let me tell you. I traversed the himalaya’s. Last year, about this time.

But it came at a cost…

We had made it through 5 days of hiking up, down, up down, up down, and up again, until we were near the high pass on the Manaslu circuit in Nepal. I was doing quite well with walking sticks until near the 5th day when I started to notice the pain in my leg. Fortunately, i was prepared with a knee brace that kept me going. I had anticipated this, although I was trying with all my power to avoid it.
My knee had finally felt recovered from my previous injury, which occurred snowshoeing through the mountains of British Columbia, but it wasn’t recovered enough.

The 6th day was a day of rest to acclimatize to the elevation. In a couple of days, weather permitting, we would go over the pass and continue our hiking down the other side. 

But after a couple days waiting, the weather was not permitting, and we were going to need to begin our trek back down the way we came.

I was very nervous for my physical health, but fortunately our guardian angels came to fly us out of there. And by guardian angels, I mean an emergency helicopter evacuation due to a global pandemic!! (Thank you COVID, for real.)

Today I continue to recover. Rather than taking a passive approach to healing i’m attempting to build strength. Running small distances each day, doing polar-dips in the ocean every morning as cold-exposure therapy.

This whole experience of physical injury has helped me realize the value in having a healthy body, and how it is something we shouldn’t take for granted. I know even in my worst condition that i’m fortunate to even have legs at all. There are many people out there who have it much worse than me. This art piece is my way of saying to those people, I see you. 

I hope that through my pursuit of a degree in Industrial Design I can do my part to make life a more accessible place for those with disabilities. 

Eleven Thousand, One Hundred and Eleven Days

Last night I had a dream…

I was in a big hotel, the hotel had a swimming pool with a big buffet. It must have been my last day staying at the hotel, because I was nervous they would look closely at my buffet-pass and see that it had just recently expired… They noticed.
I was trying to find a group of my friends, or family at the swimming pool, but it appeared I was lost. I went to the elevator, down to the parking lot, where there was a kid who kept kicking a ball at me trying to get me to prove something to him by kicking it back to him in some awesome way… I wouldn’t. Soccer was never my sport. I eventually ran away, back into the elevator, where I was having an awkward confrontation with a new person. I was relieved when the door opened and I emerged from the elevator to a new pool, much different than the previous one. This one seemed to be some type of hidden gem. Much quieter, and peaceful.
As I approached the pool I noticed something peculiar about it, everyone was moving in a counter-clockwise, single file chain around the pool. And even more intriguing, they were all holding a Tibetan Mala in their hand.

Each person was in resemblance of a Monk, moving around the pool in prayer, chanting as they went along. There was one Monk watching over everyone who noticed me as I approached the pool. This monk seemed to be leading the rest in their ritual. I had a strong desire to join them, and just as I went to enter the water, I remembered that I had my Tibetan Mala tucked inside my shirt. I removed it, held it in my hand and proceeded into the water. I looked up just in time to make eye contact with the lead Monk, as she smiled gently and bowed her head ever so slightly in acceptance, I began moving with the others.

I was only in the water a few seconds when it started to burn my eyeballs! I looked around and noticed there was a critical piece of equipment missing. Goggles. I knew that my partner Hannah had a pair and so I started calling out to her. My call began to crumble under the weight of my tired lips. I called some more, each call peeling me from the reality of that water, those monks, the prayer, the ritual, the peace that it brought me, until I transitioned into a new reality.

I was reborn slowly into this morning, to the sound of my own voice, grumbling for my girlfriends swimming goggles, “Hmmgghfffff…….. hmmgghhfffff………..”

——————————————————————————————————————

So that is how I woke up to such a momentous day. Intrigued by the imagery of the monks and the peace associated with them, and amused by the comical nature of my awakening.

11,111 days, what a milestone!

I awakened to the morning sky shining timidly through our bedroom window, Light bouncing off many boxes, furniture, plants and floorboards. Remnants of a weekend of hard work, moving, and transitioning into our new home in Kitsilano (Vancouver). It was a peaceful morning. One of many more to come, as I sat down on the soft flokati rug to do my morning meditation.

I am a creature of habit, as I believe us all to be. I can be quite disciplined in my rituals, although they often don’t stick for an extended period of time. What I’ve learned in the last few years of actually getting to know myself is that once my discipline begins to falter, I must tend to it heavily in order to prevent it from becoming completely derailed. It takes a long time to develop long lasting habits. I try to keep it to one thing at a time, most of the time. Last year it was intermittent fasting for a few months, and this year it is a morning meditation.

I’m starting simple, 10-20 mins. There is really no better way to start the day then by integrating conscious breathing into your waking reality. I imagine myself unifying with all of the world and life around me with each inhale. On each exhale I explore my own individuality, uniqueness, and how it contrasts the external world around me, and then the cycle repeats.

There is abundant beauty in the world around us, we just need to wake up to it, literally, and figuratively.

I am truly blessed for the opportunity to live up to the 11,111’th day of my life, and to be able to share my nuggets of experience with whoever cares enough to read them.

Thanks for bringing your light in to the world, and thanks for contributing to mine.

<3

Reap the fruits…

When we moved into this house in April, all we wanted was to start a garden.
We were so eager to get started, we built planters and organized soil delivery. We knew that we were only guaranteed to stay in this house about 6 months, but we decided to give gardening our best shot anyways.

When we moved in it was spring, and the leaves had not yet grown in. We cleared beds, made new ones, we ordered soil (far too much of it, unfortunately), and we planted our seeds.
All the while, I am continuously reminded of that saying, “to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”.

In our case we were planting a garden with the hopes that we’d be at the house long enough to reap the fruits of our labour. We knew our living arrangement was a short-term one, but we followed through with our goals and we planted the damn garden!

As the spring months transitioned slowly into summer, the trees around the property started growing in heavier and heavier. We watched as our dreams of a prosperous harvest faded deeper and deeper into the shadows. Our seedlings sprouted! But not much more… Between raccoons and skunks eating our dwindled crops, and the reality that there was not nearly enough sunlight to grow 95% of the veggies we intended to grow, we inevitably lost interest, and gardening became just another thing we had to do in our already busy lives.

Today is a big day, we are once again moving to a new house in Vancouver. It is a bittersweet, to say the least, as we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time at this house. We are also very much excited to start a new adventure of making a new house into a home! So as i started shovelling dirt, trying to deconstruct the garden bed we put so much time into making, i noticed a little orange nub sticking out. It was in-fact a carrot. Not just any carrot, this carrot was a fine specimen, perfect orange with a divine tapered shape, from its bulbous head to its elegant stringer root. It was the perfect carrot! Except for one distinct feature… it was about 1/8 of the size of a regular carrot.
Excitedly I started rummaging through the dirt for others like it, i found multiple mini’s, each as exciting as the next. I decided to go and check the beds on the north side of the house, where they received more sunlight. More carrots, but these carrots were BIGGER.
I’m talking like 1/4 of the size of a regular carrot, so you can imagine my excitement! I shook off the remaining dirt from a deliciously red carrot and shoved its end promptly into my mouth to take a bite.
The sweetness of the carrot coloured my tastebuds in warm hues of delight and satisfaction as i minded the dirt crunching between my teeth. How many others like it? About 8… I took them to the kitchen to wash and put on display for when Hannah was to return. Today we feasted on the fruits of our labour. We feasted on the optimism and initiative of our past selves. It certainly didn’t fill our stomachs, but for that brief moment in time it filled our hearts, and that is enough.

A blog…

2021 is already a banger!

I’m just hear trying to make the most sense out of the world as it seems possible to make. I needed a place to compose my thoughts. I could write them in a book, as I usually do, but I recently listened to a podcast by my friend Blake Rupert “Rupert Radio”, which was encouraging other’s to go public…

My hope is that starting a blog might open up dialogue which leads to further learning and understanding of the world and people around me. If nothing else, I’m confident it will show me the workings of my own consciousnesses, ego, implicit biases, and straight up ignorance. I’ve lived a privileged life and I’m coming to recognize that. I dwell in a comfy-ass bed with a beautiful companion in a warm-assed house in a safe neighbourhood while working part-time and going to full time University, all on the Unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people.
In short, life has been kind to me, and it is my intention to make the most of it, and give back where I can.

I’ve been a long time journal-er. To push it even further, I’d say I’m a very avid advocater for the advantages which are inherently entwined within the context of keeping a journal.

It’s like a therapist you could keep in your pocket, yo!

“I’m not really a writerrrr…….”
Bologna.
People tell me this but they are lying to themselves. I can’t blame them, it’s intimidating to start!

In my opinion, the way to become a writer is through the act of writing for yourself. Embrace the awkwardness of engaging in the experience of LISTENING to the Self, through the medium of writing. There’s a lot going on in there. If your head is like mine its probably playing 2 songs on repeat while trying to remember the lyrics to three others. In order for us to truly slow down enough to appreciate the subtle nuance of the everyday life, we need to prioritize self care and focus our attention on the spaces between the larger events of daily life. We need to search the cracks for the moments of stillness, breath slowly and gently into those spaces and expand them so we can occupy that space more fully, every time we come back. We must make these spaces our sanctuaries, a place of love we can always come back to.

Learn to appreciate the little moments in between.

Journaling is a tool we can use to cultivate awareness of each present moment and unify ourselves with the inner voice of our truest Self. A blank page is a mirror we stare into and our soul’s stare back. To be honest with the page is the quickest way to get to know that inner light which guides your intuition.
And a heightened intuition is always a good thing, Right?

Well thats about it for my daily wisdom. If I make these ‘blogs’ any longer I’m sure no-one will read them [they’re mostly for me anyways(lol)]

Stay true <3