that they’re willing to put everything
on the line to get it I bet just about
everybody in here has think back to when
your baby and you’re about to take that
first step you’re moving towards
something that you really want that step
turns into 2 into 3 next thing you know
you’re running around accomplishing all
sorts of things and over time you get
comfortable with your accomplishments
and then somewhere down the line most of
our accomplishments starts with them
driven by the idea of comfort now I’ve
realized that the only way to keep
evolving as a person is to identify that
I’m in a comfort zone and break out of
it for me this is the only way I’ve ever
really grown so let me give you some
examples of how this has helped me in my
life I grew up in the Yukon just outside
of Dawson City I lived in a small log
cabin on the bank of the Klondike River
I grew up in this isolated part of the
world with a kind of a freedom that
allowed my imagination to really explore
its limits so thanks mom and dad and
when you grow up in these isolated parts
of the world your your future can kind
of seem laid out for you it’s beautiful
right so life can get comfortable so
I’ve always had a bit of an adventurous
side so I guess the first true leaped
that I took was when I decided to move
away and become an artist so I left the
Yukon taken with me some wonderful
memories but a really truly deep
fascination for light because it’s so
far north when it’s light up there you
know all summer it’s light in the winter
you get about six hours of daylight but
when it’s bright out it’s like nothing
you’ve ever seen before sunlight
glistens off the snow it dances off the
hoarfrost and it kind of makes the ice
come alive and what I’d call like a
silent symphony
it’s unexplainable it’s like being in
the presence of everything and nothing
all the same like all at once time
stands still it was in the Yukon where I
fell in love with light I put my ice
skates on and I’d skate up the river
minus 40 below zero temperatures just to
experience this I get back home cozy
little cabin my mom would have to
massage the blood back into my feet it
sometimes it was like 50 below and I’d
learning for me as a child was difficult
because when i try to read something the
words would jump all over the page and
move around so as a result like school I
was home-schooled Andrew schools never
really something that interests me so I
focused on developing my talents and
skills in another way so I’m a
self-taught artist and I started drawing
using charcoals I do mainly animals and
other nature scenes so I fell into the
realm of realism I was teaching myself
as I went so I thought the more
realistic I could get the image to look
the more I was progressing so I got
pretty good at charcoals but it didn’t
take long for me to start to want
something that was a little more of a
challenge something that was more unique
to me as an artist so this challenge
came to me when I was I was actually
prospecting with my dad we’re digging I
think digging in some rocks and I
noticed that the the ground would change
color the further and I dig and so I was
like all of a sudden was like what if I
layer up paint and then carve into it to
release the image so I couldn’t get this
idea out of my head you know i was like
thinking about this i told a couple
people and they’re like stick with what
you know you know stick with what you’re
kind of good at this is a
here but I you know I this wouldn’t
leave me so I eventually went out and
got some good paint then I started to
layer it up now keep in mind there’s no
there’s no manual for carving paint so
this was a learn as you go process I had
to throw this piece and a deep freeze in
order to keep it cold enough for me to
like cut into the pain when it was done
I noticed something that I hadn’t
anticipated the image would change
depending on the light of the day so
this to me was a bit of a breakthrough
and it’s kind of become the fundamental
catalyst for the continuation of all my
work to make pieces that move and change
depending on how they interact with
light so it was kind of like you could
say that this technique was kind of
being guided by the light now everybody
knows that where there’s light there’s
shadows so now I could use shadows to
make the audience as I travel up and
down the piece instead of color so
figuring this out took me about a year
of my life but it rewired my brain with
kind of understanding that i wouldn’t
received if i hadn’t taken the steps to
initially challenge myself now everybody
knows that time is money so i figured it
was time for me to figure out a faster
technique so i wanted to incorporate
what i had learned from this experience
like i wanted light to remain the key
factor and figured that I’d probably
start incorporating gel into this so I
came up with the idea if I if I put
paint in between layers of gel I can
achieve a similar effect to that of the
carving and it worked like this piece
here is the same same picture it’s just
from different angles so when you walk
by it you can see like stuff spray off
I’ve always believed that doing things
the hard way leads to a greater
understanding and this wasn’t any
different with this technique I make my
own tools I’d to the ends of sticks to
make brushes and i would use like little
bottles with needles on the end of them
to apply paint in between the layers of
gel and without the use of conventional
tools it made it really hard for me to
control the outcome so this forced me to
approach the whole thing with stronger
and ten more focused and even still I’d
get a little bit of you know Smee Ridge
colors would run a little bit they’d
evaporating leave little sporadic
anomalies and like imperfections and
this became something that actually
really liked after a while you know so
breaking away from the comfort zone of
using conventional tools actually helped
my process evolved so I built a large
body of work with this technique and I
tackled all sorts of different subject
matter just to prove to myself that this
technique was valid yeah this stage I
knew that getting my work out to the
public was the next step like I wanted
to see how these pictures inspired by
light would affect people or how people
would respond to them and I wanted to
document this whole process so I was
talking to a really good friend of mine
about this and he happens to also be an
excellent photographer so we decided
that we were going to take our work and
put it up in parks and alleys and
streets all over the city when we
initially tell people about this they’re
like I don’t know why would you hang
something that you know you can sell for
money in the street I was like well
that’s where an honest energy of the
and besides if I hang my artwork up in
these weird spots it’s more likely to
get a response so with the help of a few
friends we went out and we started
placing artwork up in alleys
photographing it and then we blast it up
on social media and pretty soon
everybody’s response turned around
people started to really want to get
involved I took one of my large pieces
down to a nearby construction site and
we convinced the workers there the the
crew to hoist it up on their crane cable
so we could get an image of it hanging
in the air and they were like really
they’re happy to do this you know so
this was really cool because now we are
getting the community involved with our
project you know not only were they
accepting it they were happily assisting
us and encouraging us with what we were
trying to do so breaking out of the
conventional way of displaying artwork
really was paying off it encouraged me
to keep moving forward with this
confidence I figured I’d go down and
approach the port of Metro Vancouver and
see if we could get in there to take
pictures of cranes hanging off of there
you know the cranes basically
and they agreed they let us in and it
was pretty cool the whole the whole
thing was amazing this is this is nuts
because no one’s really allowed in there
right let alone taking pictures so I’m
happy to say that we did this without
getting arrested because we were pretty
determined to do this if they didn’t let
us in we probably would have tried to
break in and I would have been pretty
funny but at this point we had you know
the community’s response was had gone
way way past my expectations and because
of that I thought it was time for me to
give something back so I’d realized that
people would give my artwork a moment of
their time when they were in front of it
but if they happen to cross the same
piece at night when no one else was
around like was my artwork we’re
stealing you know so I was like I
started to think about this and the more
I really liked it
I started to think of people running
down the road with my artwork under
their arm and I’m I was like now that’s
we picked the wall on a building in
gastown and we decided to leave a piece
there and this piece was this was an
experiment and the piece was intended
that to be a gift for the person who I
thought would be giving me the best
compliment ever and so I wrote on the
back I wrote if you’re reading this
you’ve been involved in a social
experiment please take this home put it
up on your wall all I’m asking you to do
is photograph it in its new environment
and then send me a picture along with a
brief description of how it’s affected
you and we left it there photographed it
went home the next day sure enough we go
down the piece is totally gone so I’m
like that was quick you know I thought
it would at least take a couple days
right and so it was gone and I didn’t
get an immediate response and I started
to get kind of discouraged you know I’d
put a lot of time and energy into this
project and for it to be just to be left
unanswered was a little bit
disheartening so I thought you know was
it too much to ask for that brief
description I don’t know I kind of but
anyway about two weeks later we were
contacted by The Huffington Post and
they wanted to do a story on the whole
project they had seen a post on social
media by the person who found the art so
when the story came out it was a great
story but it was a bit of a
misrepresentation about what it was that
I was trying to do the headline read
I was like come on like the person that
wrote the article must have never heard
sometimes when you take the leap you
don’t always land where you think you’re
going to but I learned something that I
hadn’t learned you know like I’m with
all this stuff I was like okay this is
one of the most important things that
I’ve learned in all of this is it’s what
the it’s what the the viewer takes away
from the art piece that gives it true
value given that piece up made me feel
really good you know it brought balance
back to this whole thing like the
community gave me something by like you
know all this amazing like feedback and
so giving that what it was like keeping
a balance that’s important can’t always
be take right so whenever I’m I gave it
away it made me feel a little bit better
even that even though if I would have
sold it you know so with this newfound
knowledge you kind of have this new
responsibilities now from that point
forward every piece that I was to create
not only needed to be aesthetically
appealing to its audience it needed to
have some sort of a connection on an
emotional level or be like purposeful on
a deeper level because that’s what
important art is it’s purposeful are so
learning that led me to my latest series
I’m making paintings of old fishing
lures and I’m using them as bait to draw
now sinking these things in the water
has also added a layer of community
involvement and it’s been you know I’ve
been working hard at getting this out
there to the world for the last little
while I’ve been working with all a lot
of really good photographers from around
the Vancouver area and it’s it’s it’s
been amazing so now as a child was
terrified of reading and writing because
the words would move around when I look
at them but I’ve dedicated years of my
life into creating paintings that move
around when other people look at them
you know so looking back I realized that
the very thing that I thought was a
weakness may have been the thing that
helped push me to take this leap what I
once thought was an inadequacy has kind
of become my gift of the world so you
got to remember it’s not always going to
be warm in the sunshine but you got to
take that step first step out into the light if you want to grow thank you