This week I announced the existence of this blog to a number of artists in my community. I felt nervous after the email went out. Would anyone care?
I am grateful for the positive and encouraging responses I received. It has opened up a dialogue with others that may never have happened otherwise. That is what I was hoping for.
I realize that I can’t connect with everyone. But connecting with a few people with some of my posts makes the blog very worthwhile.
Thanks!
My goal is to produce a new posting every week, so stay tuned.
The war in Ukraine is bringing up difficult financial, political and ethical questions for Canadians as we respond to the Russian invasion.
When I completed my PhD in physics in 1971, the Cold War was still a dominating concern. I was looking for a career in science and wanted a job that brought adventure and travel as well as research. I felt very fortunate to get a job with the Canadian Department of National Defence at their Victoria laboratory.
One of the top missions of the laboratory concerned the defence of Canada from Soviet nuclear attack. I joined a team of scientists making field trips to the Canadian Arctic to develop new sensors for detecting Soviet missile submarines infiltrating Canadian waters. The classified research was added to Canada’s inventory of defence capability.
Me in the high ArcticArctic Research Camp, 1973
By the 1980’s the Cold War thawed when the USSR dissolved and imminent threat of nuclear war seemed to disappear. I moved on to do research in other areas of defence concern.
In retrospect the Cold War seemed like ‘paranoia’ and an over reaction to political rhetoric. But nuclear weapons are real. I would never want to go back to the fear and sense of impending doom that coloured politics during those decades.
Ethical Issues
To be honest I have an ethical unease with my career as a defence scientist. I was contributing to the arsenal of military systems. I justified my work by saying I was developing sensors not weapons. They were for defence and not offence. But I have no control over what our leaders do with the military systems that are stockpiled.
Inevitably when war comes, it’s the innocent people who suffer the most. Even though my family were mainly not involved in the fighting of WW2, there were long lasting consequences that are being felt for decades. That is another story.
The Ukraine conflict is giving Canadians difficult choices.
Are we going to risk escalation and wideing of warfare to support Ukraine?
How do we contain or stop aggression?
When do we stand by or when do we intervene?
In the background is the threat of nuclear war. We would all lose.
“We had to destroy the town in order to save it”.
What motivates us to want war? For some, belief trumps all. “Better dead than red”. Give me liberty or give me death”. Is war justified in certain instances? Is it analogous to saying we bombarded your body with radiation to kill off the cancer? The cure justifies the collateral damage. Fighting may seem justified, if we are struggling for our own survival, but its not so clear when other lives are at stake. Isn’t love of humankind a higher calling?
I have no answers for myself on these ethical problems. They are no longer just abstract questions, they will demand a response and action. Even inaction is an action that will have consequences.
Leadership
I hope we have picked leaders who are people with moral courage and compassion. Leaders who see a bigger picture, willing to make difficult choices on our behalf and share in the challenges that arise.
Sonar image of a shipwreck: science can create magical imagery
It’s mid March and Nova Scotia is once again enveloped with snow. Yesterday was sunny and glimpses of tiny green shoots could be seen in the bare brown garden. Now it is all buried in snow and the sky is a dull weary grey. My winter of discontent is prolonged awhile longer.
How I wish it were May with the warmth of spring well in hand and the garden full of colour and new growth. Just 2 more months from now I will feel so much better. But will I?
I can’t waste those 2 months waiting for happiness. As each year passes I hear the clock ticking too fast already. I really want time to slow down, or stop.
My step mother-in-law has been in the hospital for several weeks awaiting tests. She’s not much older than me. Only a few weeks ago she was enjoying life, and now her life is on hold, with possibly an uncertain future. How quickly circumstances can change.
A friend departed to a Caribbean island for an escape to sun and warmth. I feel a certain envy, but I am still here.
I need to take today for what it is, not for what I want. My disappointment with the weather slowly changed during my morning walk. I felt content in the muffled silence of a snowy day.
Painting Snow Scenes
Snow creates interesting painting opportunities. The trees are transformed into rhythmicly beautiful shapes. White is such a pure and special colour that can unify a composition.
White Wonder, Acrylic on Canvas
Contentment
I have my health, and I have my sanity. I can be content to be who I am today, right now. Today is a good as it is ever going to be, if I make it so. So I will.
I am in my studio working on a new painting, a portrait of my son who is now a young man. I realize that my studio is cramed with paintings. In this large room there is a storage area stacked to the brim with large 30″ x 40″ and larger canvases. There are half a dozen large landscape abstracts in shipping bags stacked by the wall. There are 30 or more 16″x 20″ figure paintings and equally as many plein aire landscape paintings balanced above the storage cupboards. I have drawers full of pastel and charcoal figure drawings, sorted and labelled. I have computer files full of images of paintings and drawing that have sold and photos of paintings that were painted over when the canvas was reused. Almost every wall in our house has a painting or drawing framed and displayed.
There was a time when a painting was treasured because of its rarity. So few of the works I started were worrthy of keeping. Most of my so-called artworks were destined for the waste basket or recycling bin. It seemed so fortuitous that I could produce something worthy of display.
Over the years slowly but surely, my technique improved and my success rate increased. I learned to evaluate the work in progress and to find ways to repair and change the ugly parts. I could recover and transform bad works into better ones. I don’t throw so many works away anymore, but my inventory is starting to overwhelm me.
Despite the wonderfull array of past works, I am compelled to get in the studio and create more. It’s addictive and compulsive. The most important art for me is the one I am working on now. The full experience of painting is so fulfilling it cannot be thwarted. There is joy, frustration, comtemplation, “ah ha”,perserverance, discouragement. Ultimately there is a often a deep satisfaction that comes from all the struggling, puzzling and energy required to fill a canvas.
My Studio
Even after the completion there is the desire to improve. I want to create that elusive image that is closer to perfection than currently possible. I want to paint another one. That is the addiction.
Here is my portrait of a young man, the newest work on my easel.
This week’s news has been dominated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Like everyone else in the West I feel this strong emotional reaction to the headlines and the aggression that underlies the situation. I feel helpless that there are few or no levers that I can pull to affect the situation. I feel like a witness or bystander to a terrible tragedy playing out on the world’s stage. I feel outrage that peace is secondary to idealogy and political power.
I have lived a long time. When I was born in 1945, the world was still in the midst of World War II, and atom bombs were falling on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The terrible costs to human life and the worldwide destruction shocked humankind. There was a strong belief for “no more war”.
Why has that sentiment been forgotten?
It seems the world has been battered by tremendous new unforeseen problems- like COVID, and climate change. These problems are immensely difficult to understand and to solve. We are looking for simple answers to complex questions. It becomes easier to blame someone or something for the problem. Like the 1930’s conspiracies suggest a scapegoat and we the public become increasingly polarized and opinionated as to the cause of our discomfort.
Intermal Strife
I can feel this desire to solve the COVID situation by blaming someone (the government restrictions, the politicians, the Chinese, etc.) In reality no one and everyone is creating our crises. The polarization begins inside of me. My desires for answers conflict with the desire to return to normalicy. How can the world find peace when the turmoil is also roiling inside of me? I have no answer.
Expressing Emotion
I want to pay homage to the old masters who were so able to capture the spectrum of human emotion in their paintings. We can see the turmoil and angst in their figures as they struggle with their situation.
In 2020 I wanted to convey the desperation I was feeling as the COVID pandemic was sweeping the world. The paintings of the old masters inspired me to create a collage of humankind coping with COVID.
I also created a pastel work in cooperation with another artist (Sue Reeves) for the Roepost Project. The work addressed our reaction to the call for help.
These images express some of my reactions to the Ukraine Invasion.
