Lately, I’ve been exploring randomly put-together paper shapes in the photo studio. The results are surprising considering it is only paper. Guess lighting is everything when coaxing out interesting shapes and shadows. I have a specific workflow involving a 4 x 5 view camera. The music is by William Basinski.
I decided that the esthetics of my desk workspace demanded a unique solution for holding my fountain pens rather than a soft cloth on which to lay them.To that end, I remembered my billet of ebony wood I’ve been hoarding for years now and wondered how hard it would be to carve out a shallow […]
I was super honoured to be invited to participate in this year’s Society of Estonian Artists exhibition in Toronto. Even though my roots are Latvian it’s nice to know that the Baltic diaspora likes to support one another. Of course, it helps that one’s work is appreciated, regardless of ethnicity. For those who don’t know, […]
Here’s my baby brother with his baby, Lija. This photo dates from the 1990s. The last century! Time flies when you’re having fun! Like most of us, the term “fun” may not always apply to every moment of a life well-lived. In the thick of it he and his partner Anita raised three beautiful daughters […]
Here’s a video illustrating some steps on how I print a seven colour reduction woodblock print. For those who aren’t familiar with the process, it’s a method of making an intricate multi-colour print using only one block, which is printed over and over again on the same paper with different colours after subsequent parts of […]
Dawson author Dan Dowhal threw out a challenge for me and other printmakers in the form of a commission to make work based on a ‘seed’ word. In my case, it was “riffles”, as in sluice box for capturing alluvial gold nuggets, etc. when digging for gold. This is part of his initiative called The […]
I’ve taken to making ‘woodcuts’ and ‘wood engravings’ with nothing more than an iPad and stylus using a simple drawing application (Tayasui Sketch). Essentially, I use an additive/subtractive approach to making marks for developing the drawing so that it looks like both a wood engraving and scratchboard. It takes me a long time to do […]
Here I sit while travelling and away from the comforts of my Yukon studio since December 27th, 2018 spending the new year in Ontario, Portugal and Spain. At the moment, we find ourselves in gorgeous San Jose, California visiting family. Away from my “comfort zone” I’m not always super enthused with that situation. I can […]
Time to display my “race“ card in time for the 2020 American election! Nothing rankles more than to hear people, especially in the media, speak of the US President as the “Leader of the free world”. Utter arrogant nonsense and grievously insulting to those who understand how leaders are actually elected. Millions of people living […]