Delays and Apologies

First up - happy birthday, Meg!

Next, I’ll make a half-hearted apology for keeping a relatively low profile lately. I’ve been too busy to blog. Oh well, I’m sure you’ve been getting by.

Life is good. My Ron Hawkins interview goes live at midnight over at blogTO. At a total of 1,500 words, I had to cut out a lot. Everything about the artistic side of Ron’s life hit the cutting room floor, so I thought I’d share a little of it here. Ron’s also a painter, and you can see his work over at Victimless Capitalism. I don’t know a whole bunch about art (but I knows what I likes), so I had my friend Patrick (a genuine fine arts grad) give me his opinion:

They’re pretty traditional — oil on panel is definitely old-school, a technique dating back to the early northern renaissance. The subject matter is fairly realistic, but with a bit of exaggeration of features as well as some expressive distortion of form. According to the listings on the web site, the paintings are somewhat small, which emphasizes the their intimate quality, as if he’s not trying to make some kind of grand statement, but just making art for himself and the people close to him.

Also, they’re really good! There’s a couple that I really like.

Sidenote - Patrick also used to work at an art supply store with Dave Alexander, the drummer from Lowest of the Low (Ron’s old band) back in the early ’90’s. Dave’s also a painter.

I also didn’t get to mention the work of Kirsten Johnson who did a stellar painting of Ron’s daughter. Ron showed it to me when I picked up his CD at his place, and I had a place for it in the original version of the article, but it didn’t make the final cut, so I’m doing what I can to give her some link love.

Other Stuff

It appears I have a growing reputation, by the way. I’ve got serious inquiries coming through the old contact page, some of which I’m actually considering. While I’ve taken a pass on writing about a certain Superbowl-related contest, I’m doing an interview tomorrow with the singer from Toronto band Shortwave, who are putting out a new album produced by former Boys Brigade frontman/Grammy Award winner Malcolm Burn.

By the way, I’m loving CBC Radio 3 today. They introduced me to Donovan Woods this morning. Lovely music, and by shortly after noon I’d lined him up for an interview. I love the internet.

Also, the irony is delicious; WordPress’ spell check engine doesn’t recognize “internet” as a real word.