August Art Exhibition

A bit of a busy morning for me, today. Moving art work up and down stairs, getting everything in place for my August art exhibition.

The painting that I’m hanging in the photo above is the smallest one in the entire exhibition. It may be small in size but the history behind it makes this painting one of my all time favourites.

In 2006, I had a two week long visit in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. My main purpose was to share my artwork with the community by donating a very special art peace to the local high school. In 1998 I had accidentally designed the world’s first ever National-Interconnected-Animated-Rendering series entitled Canada: Glorious To Be. In a nutshell – each of Canada’s thirteen provinces and territories will receive one peace of artwork for the project to be completed. Each of the thirteen artworks is also a frame of animation. It may take me twenty more years to finish this art project. More info is available on my website: http://www.bitsandpeaces.com/Canglointro01.htm

While in Rankin Inlet I also conducted another ‘Art For Earth’ class for the youth of the community. What a blast!!!! We all had a great time. This class took place each afternoon for three afternoons. At the end, each student had completed there own painting of the Earth, Moon and Sun.



During the second afternoon the students were a bit more animated cuz they grew to know that I was having just as much fun as they were. One of the students asked me to paint a peace symbol on her face… then another student and another. Soon, all the students had peace symbols or happy faces painted on their cheeks.

At one point during the class, I looked around and noticed that half the students were gone. Then I heard giggling in the back bathroom. I knocked on the door and it suddenly opened and I was attacked by fierce wild animals. These girls were having way tooooo much fun painting their faces. I can’t not smile when I think of these memories.


Late that night I was sitting outside of the hotel I was staying at, thinking about how sad I was that the art classes were now over. But how could I stay in a bad mood when the most spectacular light show was dancing above my head – just for me. For almost one full hour the aurora borealis – or northern lights – danced and swirled in the skies. I’ve seen these lights on several previous occasions in different parts of Canada but nothing like what I saw tonight. It was magical!!!

I wanted to go back to my hotel room to get my camera but I knew that if I did the light show would be gone when I returned… so I lay back and opened my eyes wide to take it all in.

Later, I found myself tossing and turning in bed… I was very tired but I couldn’t sleep. I got dressed and went for a very long walk out of town on the only road. At one point I left the road and began walking through the tundra, where I found a smooth flat rock and I laid down and watched the stars. Then I had an idea!

I had one canvas left in my art supplies and my idea was to have one more class with the same students and this time all the students would take turns painting an image inspired by my experience in Nunavut – with an inukshuk and of course the northern lights. The students would work together and the final painting would be my own personal souvenir.

Thank you to the students of Rankin Inlet for filling my spirit with all the wonderful memories we created together.

One thing that delights me is that to this day I still get emails from three of these young artists.

If you attend my art exhibition be sure to help yourself to a free peace stik-er that I left there – just for you!!!

Jim