Nothing like an upcoming show to get me focused in the studio. From visual meandering about, to exploring various subjects and mediums, then all of a sudden woohoo! it's time to get my thinking on canvas! My proposal for a show entitled 'In the Skin of the Forest' was accepted a while back by the SSAC (Salt Spring Arts Council). The opening will take place at ArtCraft on Salt Spring Island, B.C. this coming September.

The forest theme has been a topic that has been central to my work for the past 15 years or so, ever since I made a trip to Tofino on the western coast of B.C. At that time I lived in a city with seemingly zillions of people, Toronto, Ontario. While in Tofino I wandered through the sanctuary of Canada's only rainforest. I realized that it was only a matter of time before it would likely be gone. With sketch book and camera, I immediately began to document. I wanted to take the phenomenal feeling of dripping moss and fresh, pure air home with me. That was the beginning of 'my affair with forest', dense forest, rain forest.

What is now evolving in my work is the exploration into the understory and even the tiniest of creatures that live in the skin of the forest. It's the most beautiful of worlds and until humans wipe it out, for the moment I feel privileged to spend precious time wandering about in it.

Now I'm off to my studio to savour and perhaps save some of that experience...