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Drawings
Mostly from art school drawing classes or a few years later, before all the charcoals and pastels were packed away in a storage locker to await the muse's second coming.
Lightning Storm
A slideshow of still frames taken from a video Mr. Pink shot of a two-hour lightning storm over Vancouver's English Bay.
Tarot Cards
I designed a tarot deck between 2000 and 2001, during a rare stretch of un- or at least under-employment. I sank obsessively into the project, researching traditional meanings for all 78 cards and paring them down to a keyword list that I kept on my desk so I could triumphantly cross off each one I completed. The whole process was like a protracted scavenger hunt; searching classical art, comics, sci-fi and fantasy compilations and my own photos to find the perfect combination of personal and metaphysical symbolism.
The strangest of many coincidences while I was making the deck was the High Priestess card, which I completed in August 2001 and emailed to friends and family a few days before a virus took me offline. All the files on my computer were in danger during those tense days — but then, as world events unfolded traumatically thereafter — the days stretched into weeks. When my computer was back up and running, I immediately designed The Towers card (above). A few days later, looking through the cards I had finished just before the crash, I finally saw the High Priestess card again for the first time since August and I stared at it for a long time in disbelief.
New Orleans Post-Katrina
My friend Nicholas visited New Orleans immediately after Katrina and spent a frustrating month battling beauracracy and narrowly avoiding being arrested for walking the streets after the curfew was in effect. He was able to help too, delivering food and water, directing people to shelters and listening to their stories. He also took these pictures.
Vancouver Skies
Most of the year our beautifully clean, safe and temperate city is a study in greys. The 40% grey sky; mottled, glassy grey waters in the local bays, inlets and harbors; an expanse of impassable grey ocean beyond that, stretching off into infinity to meet the great, grey beyond at the horizon. There are a few days, though, when Vancouver makes you forget all that. These are some of those days.