My Studio: The 503 at 7:05
My early morning commute on Toronto's "Red Rocket" which includes drawing on my iPad. It is rare to see it so empty but I am fortunate to get on near the beginning of the line. Welcome to my studio!
My Route: Queen Street East Heading West
A view west from Toronto's quiet, traditional BEACHES neighbourhood. I travel these tracks down this street every morning in a half awake, half asleep state when I paint my mind.
Selfie
A self portrait of Jim Kinney, Age 54. Many days I am tired and long for the time to dream and to play.
The Kiss of Death
Would this be my last dream? Is this light before me the one that lurks behind the mind's eye? The one that has been attested to in near death experiences? What dreams may come in this stillness? I let myself slip below the surface.
The Grains Of The Plenum Warp And Weave The Stuff Of Dreams
In hypnopompic or hypnogogic states (the space between wakefulness and sleep) phosphogenic effects reveal multi-coloured granuals that dynamically coalesce to form concrete images that, in turn, dissolve back into amporphous anonymity only to reappear transformed into another fantastic image. It goes by the popular name of "lucid dreaming." We have almost lost the ability to induce and promote this state in modern society. It is the dream factory in a putative state just prior to experiencing parallel auditory and ambulatory halucinations.
Many of my dream-based imaging seeks to emulate this phenomenon by using random clouds of tone and colour to "pull" images from its contours in what I liken to a form of "Digital Frottage."
(This is difficult to see without zooming in at a high magnification).
Many of my dream-based imaging seeks to emulate this phenomenon by using random clouds of tone and colour to "pull" images from its contours in what I liken to a form of "Digital Frottage."
(This is difficult to see without zooming in at a high magnification).
Bushmen, Shamen, Dreamers and Clowns Of The Nth World
We have suppressed the culture of dreams and substituted them with highly contrived imagery that kills our creativity and our ability to make connections to an important, transformative thought space.
All but a handfull of visionaries in stone-age culturess have retained and continue to invoke the power of dreams to learn and inform the awake state but these have been devalued by characterizing them as unenlightened anachronisms from a pre-scientific age. Only now, as we move to the age of the the 24-7, hyperconnectivity of the internet-where centrist, hierarchal forms of thought and control break down-do we revisit the importance of the dreamer.
All but a handfull of visionaries in stone-age culturess have retained and continue to invoke the power of dreams to learn and inform the awake state but these have been devalued by characterizing them as unenlightened anachronisms from a pre-scientific age. Only now, as we move to the age of the the 24-7, hyperconnectivity of the internet-where centrist, hierarchal forms of thought and control break down-do we revisit the importance of the dreamer.
One Toungue Dies as Babel Crumbles
The dichotomy of language is its ability to both bind us and keep us distinct and seperate. It could be argued that one language provides a basis for thinking as one. This may serve a greater good but could also serve abomination. Language can be ironic and exclusive too. Creating and promoting class distinction. We should be mindful of how, in the age of the internet, a structure exists that could facilitate both the suppression and the promotion of independant thought. There is a time to think and act as one and a time to stand apart. In this day we are called to do both with aplomb.
Gabriel Dances With The Phoenix In Eden
At the epicenter of the emergence of modern, western civilization humanity and other agents of the Gods bear witness to our sacking of the mythical Eden as we set out on our own to build the world in our own image.
Inca With the Poppy Eyes
What did the Inca priests see in their narcotic states? What compelled them to take countless human lives in the service of the greater good? It is an exhortation to be wary of our own present-day priesthoods and the power that they wield. It begs one to consider who today's high priests are and who or what they are sacrificing.
Jacob's Ladder
Up, Down, to the side, there IS no escape. It is right here right now…unitl you step accross the next threshold.
Ghost Tree Feeds on Desolation:
We are a blight on the landscape. Our "footprint" is a jackboot. We excoriate the earth's life-giving skin and plaster it over with a poultice of blacktop, brick and mortar. Against all odds, the very things that sustain us fight for their own survival, eeking out an existence on the now toxic grounds that give succour to them.
The Last of the Behemoths Swims the Styx
Apocolypse is neither a place nor a time, rather, it represents a sickness of the soul. It is a radical disconnect from the world around oneself to the extent that one acts in a manner that is entirely self-interested and, ironically, self-destructive. The good times are relegated either to a distorted and sentimental past or an improbable afterlife. The here and now have little significance beyond fulfilling a cravings of infantile narcisism. The prescious and precarious gift of the "other" in the here and now are seen as obstacles to one's hunger.
Leviathan
An abstraction on the seductive and deadly beauty of the Portugese Man Of War. Pain and death can often present itself in mysterious, colourful, lively and awe-inspiring ways.
Exoskeleton
Our technologies continue to acccrete on us—further buffering us from visceral connectivity to our environment and, ultimately, separating us from it and making empathy for the natural order difficult. We are becoming hermetically sealed in a techno-sarcophagus of our own making. The minds eye reveals the holy mountain—the mind that can bring its own dreams to fruition and, literally, move mountains. Ironically, our hubris prevents us from grasping the full consequences of the unbridled, uncritical realization of those dreams. In the process we become architects of our own nightmares.
Bricks Weed And Birds- Blight On The Glass Menagerie
We "Paved Paradise and We Put Up a Parking Lot…and some Condos…LOTS of condos!" We have experienced a long period of unbridled and uninspired development in many of our urban centres where liquid crystal facades hide the utilitarian agenda of warehousing. It is devolopment on a non-human scale that is consuming our legacy of architecture and putting the death grip on scaled, livable neighbourhoods.
A New First Lady Of The Empire Of Revolutionaries Emerges
The impact of 9-11 has rocked the foundations of our deeply-held assumptions about value, power and truth. The event has caused us to question the images and ideas that we have clung to in blissful ignorance as we dare to seek answers for which we are woefully unprepared and, to a large degree, unwilling to contemplate. The implosion of the twin towers at ground zero rent the bedrock of our identity and caused us to ask: "Are we really free? Can we liberate ourselves from our assumptions? Who is fighting for freedom? Who is fighting to keep us enslaved? Where did our legacy of Revolutionary thinking and action go to?"
Our old notions of freedom and well-being are beginning to seem more like luxury items rather than goods we hold and defend in common--instead they seem to be increasingly enjoyed by the few at the expense fo the many. Is the average joe ready for revolution or is he/she content with a dwindling share of the good?
The loss of freedoms that were hard won are being overshadowed by a fear of an "other" with their own ideas of revolution and freedom that are positioned in our popular media as being antithetical to our own. We are called on to be vigilant and to defend the status quo and these exortations are married to sentimental and jingoistic imagery. GI Joe may well ask: "Why should I fight for a status quo that no longer exists—to defend freedoms that I no longer enjoy? Who and what am I fighting for?"
Our old notions of freedom and well-being are beginning to seem more like luxury items rather than goods we hold and defend in common--instead they seem to be increasingly enjoyed by the few at the expense fo the many. Is the average joe ready for revolution or is he/she content with a dwindling share of the good?
The loss of freedoms that were hard won are being overshadowed by a fear of an "other" with their own ideas of revolution and freedom that are positioned in our popular media as being antithetical to our own. We are called on to be vigilant and to defend the status quo and these exortations are married to sentimental and jingoistic imagery. GI Joe may well ask: "Why should I fight for a status quo that no longer exists—to defend freedoms that I no longer enjoy? Who and what am I fighting for?"
Portrait of the Artist as Young Wisdom
The artist presents clear and present danger to the status quo. His or her ability to show our lives in stark relief from a myriad of perspectives challenges our dominant metaphors. Historically, those that could not be won over or co-opted in the service of advertizing or propaganda were vilified and marginalized.
How many of today's artists have been coopted into the service of moving products and promoting brands?
Hope springs eternal in the heart of the young artist. This was inspired by a young art student of mine who is poised to lead a new generation away from our present coordinates of the collective mindset.
How many of today's artists have been coopted into the service of moving products and promoting brands?
Hope springs eternal in the heart of the young artist. This was inspired by a young art student of mine who is poised to lead a new generation away from our present coordinates of the collective mindset.
Fire 45
An homage to the halcyon days of vinyl when music was a valued, purposeful and focused pursuit. A time before music was distilled down to O's and 1's becoming a lowly commodity whose economic value was reduced to ZERO and consumed in isolation by ONE.
Smoke 'N Blood
Rare Earth Roots Reggae gives me deep spiritual rhythms with which to contemplate the meaning of life and one's connection to the world we have been fortunate enough to experience. We live life daily between the poles of ecstasy and pain and we should be mindful of our blessings and the struggles of others.
Thanks to Bob Marley, The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Delroy Williams, Peter Tosh, King Tubby, The Jamaicans, The Meditations
Thanks to Bob Marley, The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Delroy Williams, Peter Tosh, King Tubby, The Jamaicans, The Meditations
The Lady in Orange
A not so flattering characiture of my beautiful wife.
Angry Loch Fyne Slaps the Feet of Glen Kinglass.
A drawing from memory of one of my favourite haunts in my childhood home on Scotland's West Coast
Snake Eyes
Sometimes I just wannabe whimsical and playful.
Thunderbird Medicine Man Dreams a Panther.
In many ancient neolithic cultures young men would be sent off into the wilderness where, through meditation and deprivation, they would experience visual, auditory and somatic hallucinations. They would often dream a spirit animal that would be totems of their power and character.
Nannabush Rides the Streetcar to Extinction
In First Nations' folklore, Nannabush was, like the Aftican Anansi, a trickster whose wiley ways could catch you out and show you for the fool that you were. She brought laughter and mirth, often at the expense of your trumped up sense of self. According to First Nations' people she is now lost to us who inhabit an age that seems to be strictly business. Laughter is lost to us and nowhere could this be more true than on board the morning streetcar.