Interventions
There are interventions and then there are interventions. I’m never short on inspiration for creating art. Recently, inspiration came from the creative genius of Beyoncé and Jay Z’s music video for their 2018 song “Apeshit.” We watched it in my slavery course.
Read more
Structures That Bind
I was reminded this week about an interview I did recently for Discover Abstract Artists (see some excerpts below). If you follow me, you probably know that my art is inspired by “historical and contemporary social justice issues.” Well, a good example of this process (from inspiration to canvas) happened last week… I’m currently teaching a course called Slavery and Global Ethics. It’s about the institution of Atlantic slavery and how modern global (aka Western/capitalist) ethics were shaped by slavery. It’s fascinating! And hard….
Read more
Of Queens and Porters
Serendipity! I think that word refers to a happy coincidence, but I’m using it for a useful coincidence… If you were in my world history class when Queen Elizabeth II died, you’d know what I’m getting at—”British imperialism” just happened to be the scheduled topic for that very week. How serendipitous!
Read more
Lost and Found
Have you ever lost something profoundly meaningful to you? Something that’s only meaningful to you? I did. In the midst of my divorce 10 years ago, a box of my most precious belongings went missing. I was told it had accidentally been thrown in the trash.
Read more
Scars of Injustice
This was one of my very early paintings, ca. 2014. It’s called ‘Scars of injustice’ (20″x20″) and is in a private collection in Vancouver. I’ve been reminded of this painting recently because of discussions about the similarities and differences between Ukraine and Syria, both victims of Russian invasions. This painting was done while I listened to the stories coming out of the besieged Old City of Homs…
Read more
After the Storm
Recently in my world history class, we explored WW2. I got to show my students this adorable photo of my dad (baby) on VE Day. If you’re new to following me and new to my blog, you may not know that the focus of my academic work is on lived experiences of armed conflict and post-conflict contexts. Here is a link to some of my work on this. My art has also been used for book covers about people in contexts of conflict. See below:…
Read more
Smash the Patriarchy!
This term I’m teaching courses in political science, anthropology, and history. I wear many hats at my university. This is the joy of being an interdisciplinary scholar. In many cases, it makes me less employable for a full-time position because most departments want someone who did their PhD exclusively in that field. While my master’s and bachelor’s were in history, my PhD included history, political science, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and gender studies. So, when I teach disparate courses, I play a game—I look for crossover between…
Read more
On the Postcolony
This week I visited my family in Ottawa for the first time in two years. My parents are some of my best collectors, which means I get to visit many of my old paintings when I’m there. Here is one of the paintings hanging in their dining room. After I painted it in 2016, I wrote what I had inspired me to paint it. Here’s what I wrote: From October 2016: I spent the month of August back in northern Uganda. It’s an uncomfortable feeling…
Read more
Surprising History of Golf… And What’s That Got To Do with My Art?
Somehow I have ended up being a golf mom. If you know me, golf is NOT something I would ever associate with on my own. But, when my middle son was 10 he had the opportunity to be sponsored to join a golf club… and he fell in love with it. Then my youngest son did, too. To me, golf had always represented an exclusive, privileged pastime. Historian Amber Njoh (2008) explains that the “need to distinguish the colonized from the colonizers commanded importance in…
Read more
Asemic Writing
Asemic writing is a provocation to thought; and the thinking it encourages is not that of a system or science. It is open-ended, based in wonder and wondering. Schwenger 2019 In many of my paintings, you can find asemic writing (see some examples of my asemic writing artworks below). My kids call it “scribble writing,” which I think describes it rather well. But there is a lot more to asemic writing than just scribbles, and that story is rather beautiful, in a philosophical kind of…
Read more