Anatomy of a Single Painting.

This painting, Ticker, is a piece with a time line and a story to it like no other I've created before. Sure, there are some that were spawned from a more personal experience or emotion, but none have accumulated a story for itself like Ticker has.

In the early spring of 2006, I was stumbling drunk at the Tavern in Brandon, Manitoba, where I ran into Andy Mazer, a guy I'd met through an ex-girlfriend. We barely had the chance to get to know one another, but we saw a few things eye-to-eye and, anyway… I told him I was moving. About fifteen minutes later, I found myself paid in full for a piece that hadn't even been conceived yet and that I had promised would be sent to him within a short time of me settling in Calgary. The preliminary sketch for this piece was started in Brandon, Manitoba the day before I left. Then, I moved to Alberta, where over the course of 8 months it inched towards a completed pencil sketch on watercolor paper. Then, when life took me to California, it came with me where it was eventually inked, painted, framed, displayed, taken down, packaged to be mailed back to Canada, but then opened only to lose it's frame completely and somehow found its way into a dark corner where I forgot about it until tonight, when I was packing up my stuff to move back to Brandon once again.

Let me explain something; this painting has been the topic of conversation with homeless people at Karma Coffeehouse, been torn out of my hands by the wind and chased down the shores of Santa Monica, made for curious questioning from US Customs and seen some wild nights at Angus Oblong's place, on his coffee table, (where it's amazing to me that it survived without a wine stain). It also - and this is perhaps the closest it came to being destroyed - toppled over the back handrail of Susie Dietter's house with me, where my shoulder was displaced, my ribs were bruised and I was momentarily knocked out. When I came to, I was bleeding, nauseous and riddled with cactus spines, but the drawing was all I cared about. Go figure. It was covered in dirt and green stains from smashing into whatever leafy shit it hit below. I was panicked… but, with a little attention, it survived. So… what the fuck is wrong with me? With all that history attached to it, how the fuck could I have forgot about it? Un-fucking-believable. Here it is, October 19th of 2007 and I'm still not sending it off. Instead, it's coming back to Brandon with me on the 30th, where I can finally hand it to Andy in person and offer him my pinky finger in shame. He'll probably want my head.

My close friends know this, but maybe everyone else should, too; I'm an irresponsible asshole. You would think that a gesture as trusting as upfront payment would motivate me to focus on the project at hand, but, nope; my irresponsibility runs deeper than that. I know I fucked up, yet I also realize that - even with the best of intentions - I would probably do it again. I'm all screwy in the head that way and I never want to feel this way about a painting again… so, please, if you're ever interested in commissioning a piece, just remember to treat me like a dumb dog and don't give me my treat until after I sit pretty.