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contemporary Canadian folk art

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Suite 2, The Coal Shed,
402 William Street, Wiarton, Ontario

roguegoat@hotmail.ca

By Appointment Only.

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It’s hard to see why in this photo, but this is one of my favourite skies ever. There are some days in the studio that I get really critical about my technical skills, when my vision of what I want the paint to settle into is far from what I manage to make happen. Sometimes it’s just a bad day where my heads not right, not focused...more accurately, the days my ego & self impede just letting the work answer to itself. Partly it’s just the zig zag of creative growth...you have to question your abilities to want to do better. I know sometimes when I talk about this, people want to cheer lead me out of that feeling. Honestly, I don’t need it! I think the questioning is healthy and integral to doing better. I am so irritated when people say you shouldn’t question yourself...of course you should! But also acknowledge your successes and deeply know your value and accomplishment. So...this sky. The days I wrestle with pushing this technique are validated by the days I finish this sky and think, “Fuck yeah! I’m balancing an intuitive technique with an element of randomness in a controlled way on a surface and scale it’s not typically used on”. David Lee Roth high kicks and rabbit binkies of joy all around. 😜

Excuse the the extra crappy photos...which I’m actually editing on here for a client’s first (and hopefully last!) look before the finish goes on. This has been a challenging commission. The client wanted four seasons, day and night and the Three Sisters featured ,but initially wanted four equal sized panels that spanned the same width as these five. But I felt (rightly or wrongly) that the Sisters needed to be central or they would skew the compositional balance over four panels. The four seasons are more difficult to convey with coniferous forest, so a bit of artistic license to pull out some of the evergreen density and add in deciduous trees was taken. I tend to baulk a bit at the seasons motif...it feels a bit gimmicky and fights against the quiet minimalism I prefer in our work. So, you really have to pay attention to the subtle cues indicating a season change in this set. This span was also just a little outside the normal range of plank length we can access, so required two pieces and cutting different sections from each and still trying to keep a grain flow. And...the client wanted six roots in the centre piece to represent family members, which meant balancing that density too, alongside ensuring each panel worked separately but the whole still had flow. Although it’s great that clients are always more impressed by the work when they receive it in person as they don’t represent well in photos, it’s also challenging for them to know from these shots if it’s perfect for them. I edit them a little for brightness, as the overhead fluorescents dull and flatten, and a bit for structure, as the dimensionality can get lost...but not for colour, saturation or contrast. There’s a fair amount of anxiety on my part at this stage as to whether or not the client is going to like it. Anxiety that’s very at odds with my own sense of it being successful, and the facet of commission work I like the least.

A few weeks ago in the evening, a porcupine appeared at the top of the pear tree. He took one bite out of each pear he carefully chose and threw it to the ground, just like I tell the children not to, and then off he went...the quiet gentleman of the forest. And he didn’t return the next night nor the next, despite our anticipation. Josh & I were staring up into the tree Monday at chore time, wondering if the pears at the top of the tree had fully ripened and I remarked that perhaps that was why “our” porcupine had appeared and disappeared, that his visit was to test the crop and it had clearly not been ready. He would return at a time that suited the wisdom of a forest beast attuned to the sweetness of August pears and we would then know through him. Sure enough, a rash of pears appeared on the ground in the morning, marked round by distinctive teeth finding gleeful purchase in the ripest of flesh & tearing it off with a dedication to thorough consumption. And so we knew that harvest had come earlier this year than last & it was time for Josh to endeavour to reach the branches our lumbering, prickly, connoisseur reaches with ease. While we would have discovered this anyway with our daily tastings, it’s a special benediction to emphatically know something through the guidance of something wild. There is the wisdom of beasts and the ingenuity of ladders and the seamlessness of some days with both.

This is Tip. He’s come to live with us & guard my lambs from the increasingly bold coyotes. He came with two very fat lady sheep, one without ears, as they froze to the ground when she was born a triplet in the night in winter & her mother couldn’t keep her warm. Tip has beautiful eyes & thighs, even though he gives the overall impression of having been in a few too many bar fights. Josh became overly mesmerized by the former attribute yesterday, paused too long staring directly into Tip’s soulful depths and received a point blank, corn laden llama spit to the face. I LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED. Taryn is likely the only child in his grade one class that both started school for the very first time AND got a llama. He’s also probably the only kid that told his teacher that he was very good at listening & being very still “because of rabbits”. The Day that Tip Came & The Day that My Days Became All Mine memorably being one and the same.

A little window on a commission coloured by the love of friends for a newly wedded couple with a love of Glen Affric, where their love of adventure first took them. Pouring over reference photos of Scotland while autumn softly calls with falling light & crisper air has allowed a graceful transition to the season of show organizing and prep, which will in turn fold into winter adventures in bleak and dramatic Scottish seas. *We had a few guest artist cancellations so are taking license to abscond from any responsibility to abide by “regular hours”...the studio is now only open by appointment, it’s all mine again AND IT’S DELICIOUS. 😜

Happy Birthday, first born! Collector of strange, dark art & tattoos...for which he always seeks the original artists or asks permission to get their work rendered. Generous, golden heart...provider of hugs, movies, candy & toys to littler siblings, concerts & rides to friends yet also a hardworking, money saver. Self confessed comic book nerd, nostalgic sentimentalist. 😍

I have only ever bought one matching outfit with a child and that was this summer, from this Sunday’s pop up guest, @mapleandruby . Krista has an incredible eye for fabric “inspired by nature and ...imaginative play”, (campers! beasties!) uses sustainable fabrics wherever possible & her “grow with me” designs ensure longer wearability, maximizing use. AND SHE MAKES ADULT SIZES! 😍 The sweatshirts Krista made for Taryn and I (although pictured on Thomas as a.) Taryn is away & b.) Thomas doesn’t mind sweaters in 30 degree weather) are buttery soft, fit exactly right & are incredibly well constructed. I saw something of Krista’s posted on @thegeorgianartisanshop (I think?!) & discovered that she is lovely & local (Elsinore is about half an hour away)...and almost bought our crazy house too!

This little movement. Sweater weather approaches.

Bed time snacks.

As if it’s August! This month we will be having a different local & loved artisan as a guest in our studio each Sunday. I’ll be sharing how I know them, their work & thoughts & their path through Bruce/Grey/Simcoe to the studio each week. First up this weekend (it’s also the annual Village Fair!) is @wandering.jenn who makes incredible scrollsaw cut illustrations of lakes, coastlines & topographical elevations of your favourite places. We met Jen as part of the Ontario art carnie circuit, but she happens to live in one of my favourite villages, dated one of our friends way back, and has similar views on tending beasties, living with dirt, snuggling boys & following your path, literally & figuratively. Jen was the maker of our favourite soap, but had to leave the incredible business she created because of allergies to the essential oils. She reinvented herself (one of the most admirable traits in a human being, in my opinion), hooked up with one of Josh’s extra scrollsaw’s and now is wayfinding by placemaking. It’s a special fortune to love a particular lake, shoreline, creek or river. There is a section of Lake Couchiching, the river bend at Fireman’s Park in Clarksburg, the Coldwater river behind my dads old store, Maclean Lake,Peasemarsh & Woodland beaches on Georgian Bay that I belong in, no matter if I never visited them again. And slowly, I knit our little Lake Charles into my knowing. What places of water do you hold in your heart? #brucegreysimcoe #wiarton

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Welcome
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Rogue Thoughts…

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