R7 Nuclear Tablecloth

R7 Nuclear Tablecloth
48x48" oil on panel
Corporate collection


The day I was etching in this large panel coated with red oil paint, it was announced over the radio that the nuclear power station at Chernobyl had exploded, and a cloud of fallout was spreading over Europe.

The image of a mushroom cloud, which of course has nothing to do with a reactor explosion, is symbolic of the word and idea of nuclear. The idea is that nuclear physics has a continuous influence over our lives, and the shadow of abuse of power and its sudden disruption of our quiet existence (the domestic checked tablecloth and the blue and white cup). A flurry of ravens (persistent ideas) is sent swirling away by the force of the explosion.

I was greatly affected by the notion that an event on the other side of the world could change our lives here. Although this is not an ‘anti-nuclear’ painting, it is meant to draw attention to the precarious stability of our lives.

Flame and ash,
Ash and cold,
The end of days.

None remains to save,
Is He then also dead?
Without me, can You exist?

Despair exists, despair
That grins from faceless
shadows
Burned and fused in the
concrete sphinx.

Aeons ago
The fiery gaseous cloud
Blossomed into earthly
Splendour.
Will the promise of glory be
Shattered by the sons of Cain?
-George I. Bernstein (from Winter Apocalypse)


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R6 Rose in Kitchen

R6 Rose in Kitchen
24x36" oil on panel
Private Collection

The first painting in the series to employ the checkerboard motif that became part of the Nuclear series. Rose and I were fascinated with the light patterns on the kitchen floor, and she posed there for the drawing. She spent several days sitting in her leotard on the cold floor and feeling, as she put it, “a little strange about anyone walking in.” This is a good likeness, and Rose’s husband approved. The raven shape appears in her hair, and the raven himself is supposed to be hopping across the floor, just out of the picture (his shadow appears in the floor).

Although it took me days to do the checkerboard in the curtains, and I swore never to do it again, I went on to use the motif in several more paintings in the Nuclear sequence. As in the other Nuclear pictures, the red checks represent order and peaceful domesticity, the chaotic shadows in the floor reflecting the turmoil outside the window (the world outside).


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R5 Trail and Raven

R5 Trail and Raven
24x24" oil on panel
Private Collection

My neighbour across the lake always kept this trail cut. It led from the back of his yard, through the bush to a beaver dam at the end of the lake. The trail was really nothing more than a tunnel cut through the dense growth, and this painting catches the effect of emerging from the ‘tunnel’ and looking into the open field with its island of evergreens.

This is one of the first of the Raven Series, and it was the last painting to make use of real scenery. It was done from a Prisma colour sketch I did one fall. It was also the last picture in which Naples yellow was used, a favourite colour in the scenery series (Sgraffito Series) preceding.

After seeing Roberta's poetry, I had written to her, asking to use her work in the exhibition in North Bay (1988). The poem ‘Lyell Island’ had been printed with an ink drawing of mine (Raven and Lady 151086) in Writer’s Quarterly, but I was more interested in using it with this painting.

If they cut these trees
and the ravens fly away,
the chain will be broken and
It is I who will fall,
rootless.
-Roberta Olenick (from Lyell Island)

originally published in Writers' Magazine, Vol 10, No. 1 1988
Roberta's web site: www.neverspook.com


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R4 Rose and Raven

R4 Rose and Raven
24x24" oil on panel
Private Collection

When Rose T. first moved to our road, I said on meeting her, "You look just like I imagined the Rose in my novel." In fact, her rather exotic, Pre-Raphaelite looks made her the perfect Rose, and I asked her to model for me. She was warned ahead of time that ravens would figure prominently in the paintings. When Rose's husband saw this picture, he was mildly horrified at what I had done to his wife, who in reality is quite beautiful.

I am very fond of the viridian green and alizarin crimson combination. The repeated wing shape in the reverse shading of the sleeve, the leaves and the hands is a favourite device of mine.

Rose sat down on the doorstep, the leafy bushes framing her. Poe ruffled up excitedly and hopped right over beside her. For a moment Allan thought the damned ugly thing would jump on her shoulder. He shuddered.

Rose had seemed to be the only normal person living here. No normal person was on friendly terms with overgrown crows.

"Gronk, gronk," said the raven.

-Mary Weymark Goss, from the novel Raven

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R3 Three Ravens

R3 Three Ravens
24x24" oil on panel
Private Collection

Actually the first Raven Series painting with ravens. I was not keeping a journal at the time, so how the Raven series got started remains a fuzzy memory. I do know that I had intended to paint Northern birds. I had done a small panel in this style with gesso. I had so much fun with the ravens in this painting, I continued with them, and they became the longest series I have ever done.

Also influencing me were the images evoked during the writing of my novel, Raven, on which I was working intensively at the time.

There were three ravens sat on a tree
They were as black as they might be
With a hey down derry, derry, derry, down, down.

The one of them said to his mate
Where shall we our breakfast take?
Down in yonder green field
There lies a knight slain under his shield.
-traditional

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R2 Eden People

R2 Eden People
24x24" oil on panel
Private collection

This peculiar picture was a single idea, a 'between series' painting, I suppose. I painted it in a rather preoccupied mood, for I was thinking about what direction I wanted my painting to take. I had begun to write a novel, and was becoming concerned with the content of my paintings, and thinking even about narrative content.

I often refer to this picture as my 'back to the garden' painting, a sort of beginning over. I felt that the scenery series had been technical practice for a more significant series. This was also one of the last pictures for which I mixed colours on a palette before applying them to the panel.

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R1 Ravine

R1 Ravine
36x24" oil on panel
Private Collection

For some time I was making loose, gestural sketches of scenery, full of big, loopy shapes. I coloured them with pencils and watercolours, and was pleased with the effect, but was unsure how to translate them into oils. I began experimenting with sgraffito, using a thick layer of cadmium red oil paint over the primed panel, and drawing freely with a stylus, producing white lines. Thinking of cloisonné, I used the lines as a sort of wire frame to work within. As well, the intense red of the under-painting showed through to great effect.

This sketch was done on one of my walks, a spot along our road that caught my eye, where the wind-tossed undergrowth, full of dark shapes, reminded me of the dark wings. Frequently populated by the local ravens, who hang out in the garbage dump nearby, it is a deep V full of dense grasses, ferns and bushes. It is always dark and cool-looking, and in the fall, full of brilliant red and yellow moose maple and poplar.

This was the last scene I did, and a departure from the entire scenery series of last year. The etched lines and shading technique were already firmly established in the other scenes, but the V shape began appearing in my ink drawings, along with the wing shapes. In fact, in several watercolours and inks recently, the trees and clouds have had distinct wing and finger shapes.

There was quite a lot of joking among family and friends about the faces and shapes supposedly hidden in the foliage, but my favourite spot in the painting, and I think it is quite amusing, is the odd pale green cluster hanging in front of the black area.

Everyone finally stopped trying to figure out what direction my light source comes from; since I don't care, I don't understand why anyone else should. I think a world with such diffuse lighting would be quite pleasant.


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