Industrial Art

Timmins

2011-08-26T15:57:00.000-04:00

Timmins

Mixed Media on Canvas

8x10

2011

Hollinger Headframe Demolition

2011-02-22T22:42:00.000-05:00

Hoist

2010-07-04T19:07:00.002-04:00

Hoist: Britannia Beach; British Columbia Museum of Mining

Regular pencil on sketchbook paper

8x10

2009

Panoramio - Photos by Industrial Art

2010-07-04T19:05:00.001-04:00

Panoramio - Photos by Industrial Art

I just discovered that when you add a Google location with your photos, you can also upload them to Google Earth, where they might actually get used!!!! Haven't put up many from my recent excursion to Australia and New Zealand, but here's a start from Tasmania.

And this is a...????

2010-06-14T23:14:00.004-04:00

Beaconsfield Mine and Heritage Centre

Beaconsfield, Tasmania (Australia)

Thought this simply beautiful, so it will probably find it's way into some further exploration. I have a feeling that this piece of equipment may not be mining-related, as there were other things like butter churns in the fore-museum.

Water wheel powered stamper battery

2010-06-04T16:22:00.002-04:00

Noranda smelter ca 1990

2009-12-06T13:29:00.002-05:00

Smelter, Noranda P.Q.

Pencil on sketchbook paper: 9 x 11

2009

Timmins

2009-07-29T10:50:00.003-04:00

Timmins

2009

Mixed Media on Canvas: 8x10"

Hollinger Headframe: Timmins Skyline

2009-05-04T19:35:00.004-04:00

Hollinger, Timmins

2009

Mixed media on canvas: 8"x10"

Timmins: Head Frame

2009-04-17T21:14:00.004-04:00

Timmins: Headframe

2009

Mixed media on canvas: 8" x 10"

This piece is based on a photo of a photo on display at the Hollinger mine tour in Timmins. It very much reminds me of the hoistroom view (or what I remember it to be) when I was a kid in Noranda and taken to the mine where my Dad worked.

Rio Tinto: Timmins

2009-04-10T13:56:00.004-04:00

Rio Tinto Minerals-Luzenac Inc; Timmins Operations

2009

Mixed media on canvas

8"x10"

Lorne Street, Sudbury

2009-03-29T19:53:00.005-04:00

The Imperial

2009

Acrylic on canvas

8" x 10"

Nothern Breweries, Sudbury

2009-02-09T11:29:00.002-05:00

Northern Breweries, Sudbury

2008

Mixed Media on canvas, 8" x 10"

Sudbury

2009-02-03T10:37:00.002-05:00

Sudbury: Water Tower from the Kingsway

2009

Mixed media 8x10"

Schumacher Corners towards Pearl Lake

2009-01-31T01:07:00.006-05:00

Schumacher Corners towards the McIntyre and Pearl Lake

2008

Mixed media on canvas; 8x10"

When I look at this, I see all roads going somewhere else. But the heart and soul of the community is built between these massive icons. Housing is sometimes raw on the rock, and very individual, also reflected in the commercial sections. Few buildings look alike, and have the timelessness of the once temporary gone permanent. You can walk to work.

Mine buildings: Timmins area

2009-01-28T20:49:00.001-05:00

Tisdale Hotel

2009-01-18T12:33:00.002-05:00

Hollinger #19

2009-01-06T11:34:00.003-05:00

Based on an old photograph of the Hollinger #19 in Timmins, Ontario.

Montreal architecture

2008-12-30T09:43:00.003-05:00

Headframe

2008-09-04T10:17:00.002-04:00

There's an awful lot of gold in these, er...hills. This mine is no longer operating, but my understanding is that the headframe and property is being maintained.

Hamilton

2008-08-27T17:22:00.003-04:00

Hamilton....some ideas

2008-08-22T17:11:00.004-04:00

Sketch painting - don't want to take this any further...was simply working out some ideas.

I have yet to figure out...

2008-08-19T16:22:00.002-04:00

...how to post images nicely in this space without losing everything.

Meanwhile, I haven't got the courage to call myself a photographer, but these are the images I'll be working from over the next little while.

Hollinger Mine: Drilling

2008-08-19T16:10:00.003-04:00

McIntyre #11 and Pearl Lake, Schumacher

2008-08-18T16:09:00.003-04:00

Copper Cliff

2008-08-11T11:39:00.000-04:00

Smokehouse

2008-07-21T20:52:00.004-04:00

Visited Ste Marie among the Hurons this weekend and was captivated by the light in the smokehouse. Love the tang of woodsmoke, and while in search of the 'perfect' feeling, it was amusing to listen to other tourists hollering "PETA! Argh!" in a holier-than-thou fashion.

I'm not at all sure about the accuracy of the reenactment, but if it is, then this is 16th century food processing and primary manufacturing of hides in Canada.

Objects are closer than they appear

2008-06-27T21:31:00.004-04:00

Sporadic entries, I know. Howver, I have booked myself an exhibition space in August, and had better get up to speed. I honestly don't know where to start - but as I was browsing through the photos and pics that survived the demise of the ol' desktop, I found this. Epitomizes the city for me...all the energy is in the getting there and back again.

Getting off the Gardiner and playing with Photoshop

2008-04-29T21:36:00.004-04:00

(or it's equivalents).

I like playing with pictures, for any purists out there who think that photoshopping is cheating, well, think twice. I think it's important to get it right it the viewfinder, but his step is often a mediation point for me and some further drawings. Photoshop? It's a tool....same as a pencil.

Anyway, I have a major clog in the creative artery, but this random point and shoot caught my eye because it's all the signage you need to get "to the downtown Toronto". (A city I live right on top of, but don't know and should; a city I would like to explore some more; a city who's sense of beauty I haven't figured out.

Getting off the Gardiner: Toronto

2008-04-29T21:25:00.001-04:00

Anyone notice I took a year or two off?

2008-01-18T12:13:00.000-05:00

Hamilton: Sharpie; digital manipulations. Took the sketch, scanned it, and played. What happens to the original drawing is yet to be seen.

Doors Open Hamilton

2007-05-09T11:52:00.000-04:00

Well, what a wonderful surprise THAT was! A huge thanks goes out to Rod Paget, whose hard work, enthusiasm and all sorts of other good things brought together a number of artists who enjoy a fascination with things industrial. Our work was mounted amongst the machinery of the powerplant of the old Westinghouse/CAMCO property, or what is now the McMaster Innovation Park.

I have about 1,000 new reference photos....and heaven knows where to start, so I chickened out on what I wanted to do (a fairly complicated structure) and started with a few simple shapes to see where that led...

Still driving me nuts

2007-04-24T20:43:00.000-04:00

The struggle continues

2007-04-10T10:33:00.000-04:00

How about this, then?

2007-04-09T17:17:00.000-04:00

Maybe this? Okay. Maybe Not.

2007-04-09T17:13:00.000-04:00

2007-04-02T12:55:00.000-04:00

Drawing is not "like getting on a bike"

2007-04-02T00:49:00.000-04:00

Everything is crooked, light and dark have gotten mixed up - only one reasonable passage. I have been fighting with this. It's HUGE for me (3' x 3') instead of tight little sketches. The paper is really wierd - very spongy and takes an enormously long time to dry. Quite weak in spots - I've already torn it in 3 or 4 places. So I've taken to overpainting hte whole thing to get free and loosend up, and just making a bad situation worse.

Here come the iterations. I never know when to stop, except when it declares itself finished or fully wrecked. I'm finding the "creative process" is really pissing me off.

Technical Difficulties

2007-03-13T20:11:00.000-04:00

It's been so long since I was blogging regularly that I have forgotten how to upload a picture. Or, at least I thought I did, but then it turns out BloggerBot just doesn't work, and now I'm stuck with these rather skimpy picture sizes. You can get better resolution if you click on them, but I'm not so happy about that.

Guess after all these corporate efforts to make things "easy" (Gee THANKS Google, Picassa, Blogger....), I'll have to learn html after all.

Old drawings, paste and scrap paper

2007-03-08T12:13:00.000-05:00

"Annus Horribilus" ... a year of memories.

2007-01-10T11:35:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back. I haven't done any artwork for almost a year (and a rough year it was). I could out-do most people in a "my year was worse than yours" contest. Nonetheless, it's over. History. And today the sun is shining, however briefly.

First things first, cleaning the studio, which is housing empty Christmas storage boxes. Finding a large number of unfinished projects and an even larger number of objets d'art (or junk, depending on your point of view) requiring glue, clamps and missing pieces. I'm curious to see what will emerge -

Unless, of course, it actually snows! In which case, I'll be off with my new skis.

2006-04-11T10:04:00.000-04:00

Hamilton: Steel mills

2006-04-10T09:24:00.000-04:00

Feed Mill, Carp Road

2006-04-03T12:18:00.000-04:00

Feed Mill, Carp Road, Ottawa-Carleton

2006-03-02T12:05:00.000-05:00

Blue: 404 and 407

Blue, blue, my world is blue

2006-03-02T11:55:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure I like this one, but it's the first drawing I've done in a long time. This last month or so, I've been back and forth pretty regularly to my parent's home in St. Catharines, and for 5 hours of those days, the 407 corridor looks pretty much like this.

And for some odd reason, I love the "corner" where the 404 and the 407 merge. One of these days, I'll get it "right".

2006-01-26T12:33:00.000-05:00

Leslie and Davis; Newmarket

Thank you, Dad

2006-01-26T12:19:00.000-05:00

I was just looking through a drawer of old artwork for a fitting tribute to my father who passed away two weeks ago. He took me underground at Strathcona Mine just before he retired as Chief Mine Geologist; and it was that visit that was pivotal to the direction I wanted to take as an artist.

I couldn't find anything from yesterday's work but the tentative beginnings of a visual response to mills, mines and smelters. From almost thirty years of ideas, it's interesting that the ones I pay attention to now are far more emotionally charged, although less industrial. It's time to put the two together.

2006-01-12T13:00:00.000-05:00

The Origins of photoshop.

Out from the dungeon and into the rain

2006-01-12T12:46:00.000-05:00

Long time, no post. Christmas and household renovations and a major case of feeling the artistic fraud.

Y'see, there's an exhibition coming up - and all those masterpieces inside my head have not been freed...far from it. After procrastinating to the point that I actually cleaned out the dungeon and my abyss of a studio; the deadline to get work to the framers finally scared me enough to do something.

I'm seriously thinking of taking up a hobby that requires nothing more than hitting a "print" button. Like blogging.

2005-12-21T09:23:00.000-05:00

Hamilton: Bunge

Under construction

2005-12-21T09:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it's obvious that I've been doing everything BUT post; and today's image is very much a part of a work in progress. An earlier drawing prompted a well-thought comment, and as I was answering it, I realized that I had had other intentions for that drawing....and just never got around to realizing them.

So what you're looking at today is , once again, the result of fooling around in photoshop before I take the image back to the studio with the glue and scissors. I'll often play with something here on the computer - saves me a great deal of wasted effort (nope, the green sky doesn't work); as well as allowing me to stay glued to my current videogame and trick myself into thinking I'm doing artwork.

What the drawing was going to become was a world of blue, etched by yellow. I didn't get what I wanted in photoshop either, but then, just about everything is still under construction.

2005-12-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

Hamilton: Collage, photoshop

It's not steel scenery after all...

2005-11-29T10:17:00.000-05:00

The one below appears to be soybean/canola oil plant. At least, that's what the sign on the fence said - Bunge - that, and do not enter, etc. etc.

Like I could get my "chauffeur" to stop while I climbed a fence.....

2005-11-24T21:52:00.000-05:00

Hamilton, Ontario. Steel scenery.

Hamilton: Hospitals and Steel Mills

2005-11-24T21:35:00.000-05:00

Many of you know that I lost my Mom about six months ago; and that two months ago, we discovered my Dad needed a triple bypass. That was Tuesday, at Hamilton General, and all went very well. And is still going well. My brother and I drove down together and also had a great opportunity to catch up with each other.

Since my brother acted as chauffeur, he was kind enough to take a quick runabout the steel mills and whatever else was in the neighbourhood. I learned quite a bit - he's a metallurgist and quite knowledgeable about the varied questions I had - "Why is there rifling up smokestacks?" "How do you extract oxygen from the air?" "What's the difference between Stelco and Dofasco?" (Seems Dofasco's the place to be).

They have a vibrant and vocal arts community with a new gallery. Sudbury was similar in character - a working town that snorts "We've got culture too!" And boy, do they ever.

You're going to be seeing a few renderings from my "drive by shootings" - lots of rotten shots, but tonnes of great material. This plant intrigued me because:
a) it looked hard to draw, but would render well in Sharpie and shoe polish
b) should I play with it, it would work very well in blues and yellow
c) it's a puzzle how parts interconnect - and this feels like a 1,000 piece jigsaw

I still don't know what the place is; or it's function. And brother HAD said "Don't ask what these plants are because I don't know".

2005-11-23T09:43:00.000-05:00

Ignition coils

Oil sprays, rust, oil leaks, winter tires...

2005-11-23T09:41:00.000-05:00

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

Ezra Pound

2005-11-18T08:42:00.000-05:00

Please don't sit on me

Horny Chair

2005-11-18T08:31:00.000-05:00

I've posted this rather interesting piece of furniture here for Kendall; who often includes chairs in his abandonned landscapes; often poignant and reminiscent of the life these places once housed.

Meanwhile, at the Georgina Pioneer Village; there sits this particular piece in the Sutton West train station. It's difficult to imagine a pioneer with too much time on his hands; but this creative soul must have wondered what to do with his collection of cattle horns, so he decided to sit in it.

2005-11-14T13:06:00.000-05:00

From the Georgina Pioneer Village: found in the train station

2005-11-08T08:52:00.000-05:00

Woodstove: Georgina Pioneer Village.

2005-11-07T07:45:00.000-05:00

All the leaves are gone, and the sky is grey. Yes, I'm California dreamin', and I just had an oilspray. The kitchen is covered with kleenex and report card material, and hopefully these other duties will provoke inspiration.

2005-11-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

Leslie and Davis Drive, Newmarket.

2005-11-04T10:11:00.000-05:00

ROM: Still working through this drawing. (Acrylics and shoe polish)

Edward Burtynsky

2005-11-03T09:28:00.000-05:00

Truth is, I've been battling boredom. I don't like anything that I've "created" - it's lacking both spirit and surprise. I keep hoping I'll find something in the process to spark and ignite a new direction, but it the meantime, it's WORK. One rather interesting feature did catch my eye, ad I am remiss for not sharing this guy's stuff with you sooner.

The National Post's Saturday Night insert has a great spread on Toronto photographer Edward Burtynsky; and I realized that I had completely neglected to include his work in the links. Even more oddly, because he's one of my "heroes" and his books would make a nice Christmas gift for me.

An interesting comment in the write-up by Mark Pupo:

"It's not every day, however, that you encounter a lessone about industrialization in images that are so hypnotically, rapturously beautiful".

Hmmmmm....

2005-11-01T12:38:00.000-05:00

Royal Ontario Museum - preliminary

2005-11-01T08:10:00.000-05:00

Royal Ontario Museum. Again. I thought this by far the most interesting "exhibit". I'm not keen on the final product (according to the maquette) - reminds me of the pyramid at the Louvre gone mad. Mind you, I don't much like the pyramid at the Louvre either. Marrying the old with the new seems to cheapen both; although their offspring can be quite elegant - such as the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. I wax loquacious.

2005-10-31T12:50:00.000-05:00

Davis Drive ad Leslie; Newmarket

Doodles, Drafts and Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian

2005-10-26T07:53:00.000-04:00

I've often wondered how any of my napkin drawings were going to end up at the Smithsonian if I have to clean out my purse everytime I'm looking for the car keys. Somehow, though, these napkin drawings were kept, and are here for us to enjoy. Check out the similarity between the designs for the new Royal Ontario Museum extension and the Maidenform Bra.

2005-10-25T10:16:00.000-04:00

Royal Ontario Museum

2005-10-24T07:34:00.000-04:00

Royal Ontario Museum (Preliminary Sharpie sketch)

2005-10-23T17:50:00.000-04:00

Newmarket: Water tower behind the 404 Mall

2005-10-21T08:55:00.000-04:00

Newmarket; Water tower behind the 404 mall

2005-10-19T10:46:00.000-04:00

The industrial household....pasta maker, again.

2005-10-16T00:28:00.000-04:00

The Industrial Household: PS Pasta Maker

2005-10-14T18:12:00.000-04:00

One place that needs some industry.

2005-10-12T10:26:00.000-04:00

Transmission towers, Brampton.

Birthdays, blogging and big black books

2005-10-12T10:04:00.000-04:00

When I started this blog-thing a little more than a year ago, I can honestly say I didn't think I'd keep it up. Artwork always got put aside for errands, tasks and an excuse-du-jour. Most of my stuff is stashed in drawers, scattered piles and overstuffed shelves in my "studio"; in reality, a storage heap next to the kitty litter and weeks of unwashed laundry.

Artwork needs an audience. Since galleries and exhibition opportunities aren't lined up to keep me busy, I had thought this blog concept might be a great way to be the star of my own show yet still be private (and yes, for those of you who DO know me, I harbour a certain shyness about these sort of things). Failing that, the discipline of regular posting might coax some work out of me that would have remained forever in my head.

This post marks the last page in my sketchbook; and the first time I've ever "finished" a sketchbook in less than a year. But now the struggle begins: those first bright white pages of a new book are frightening. I don't have an artistic idea to save my life and I'm in the mood for a change.

2005-10-07T07:57:00.000-04:00

Lakeshore; Toronto

2005-10-06T10:26:00.000-04:00

Sudbury, from at least 30 years ago, where winter is kind to the land.

2005-10-05T18:40:00.000-04:00

Noranda: Semi-autogenous mill

2005-10-04T09:43:00.000-04:00

Nortel

2005-10-03T07:54:00.000-04:00

Noranda; Mill

2005-09-30T08:42:00.000-04:00

Noranda, Quebec (Horne Mine) Smelter facility

2005-09-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

Britannia Mines: Mill

2005-09-27T08:08:00.000-04:00

Britannia Beach: Interior, Mill Building

Mill, Britannia Mine, B.C.

2005-09-27T07:28:00.000-04:00

Just north of Vancouver, the Brittania mine houses a gravity fed concentrator that is quite a feat of architecture and engineering, as it's built on a mountainside The mine closed over thrity years ago, but it seems now that a number of different do-gooder groups have decided to "fix it up". I was there in the early '90s and fortunately, have been spared these "transformations".

2005-09-26T08:05:00.000-04:00

Sudbury

2005-09-25T08:22:00.000-04:00

Rock Bolting II: Strathcona Mine (Falconbridge) Onaping, Ontario

2005-09-24T08:20:00.000-04:00

Rock bolting; Strathcona Mine (Falconbridge); Onaping, Ontairo

Rock bolting

2005-09-24T07:52:00.000-04:00

You don't want the "ceiling" to be falling on your head, so you put up these big steel nets that are supposed to catch loose rocks. I had the honour of doing this myself, thanks to my father, although it must be at least 25-30 years ago. It still remains one of the highlights in my life.

The original photo for this was also shot with my first SLR, with the lighting coming from our headlamps. My industrial work was once critiqued by Medrie MacPhee, who told me that I should probably leave the figures out of industrial themed work. She was probably right.

2005-09-23T08:36:00.000-04:00

Sudbury: Winter

Sudbury

2005-09-23T08:09:00.000-04:00

Sudbury wasn't pretty before the superstack was built - but much of the blame for the "moonscape" went to the smelters and acid rain. Geologists and NASA were interested in the shattercones readily visible in the rock, while tourists drove through and closed their eyes. However, the area had suffered major fire damage earlier in the century, stripping the land of trees.

We used to be able to judge the wind chill by the way the smoke left the chimneys. Only rarely did it settle in the basin, but when it ripped away from the top of the stack, it was time to dress a little more warmly.

This was taken in the early 70's; probably from highway 17 west, headed east.

2005-09-22T07:46:00.000-04:00

Kerr-Addison, V-town, Ontario, circa 1990

Kerr-Addison Mines, Virginiatown, Ontario

2005-09-22T07:40:00.000-04:00

I like this drawing much better. Unfortunately, all that's left now is the office building.

2005-09-21T09:15:00.000-04:00

Headframe; Kerr-Addison Mines, Virginiatown, Ontario. (demolished in 1996)

Virginiatown: Kerr-Addison Mines

2005-09-21T08:44:00.000-04:00

The Virginiatown area (between Larder Lake and Kirkland Lake) is basically in the centre of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, famous for it's wealth of ore. Ontario's first gold rush in 1906 happened here as prospectors, excited over Cobalt's silver boom, began looking for more, but found gold on the shore of Larder Lake instead. This became the Kerr-Addison mine. In fact, the gold for the first Canadian-minted $5 gold piece in 1909 came from Kerr-Addison. By the 1950's, Kerr-Addison had become the biggest gold mine in the country with over 2,000 employees. Sadly, though, by the 1990s, the town of Viginiatown was buried in debt, as the bonanza of 10 million ounces of gold went down south with the investors. The community was forced in the early 1990s to shut the mine over failure to pay taxes.

As children, though, we used to get quite excited on our weekend excursions, about the town with the "pink smoke".

2005-09-20T09:09:00.000-04:00

Toronto: From somewhere East-West to somewhere North.

Can't choose, so I'll use all of them

2005-09-20T08:58:00.000-04:00

I really liked the original photo taken just under a ramp, and thought it might be an interesting exercise to simplify and work through the forms. I'd actually tried this earlier on high gloss waxy paper. When I went to print the photo, it turned out the cartridges were almost out of colour, leaving an interesting set of smears and blotches over the image. Why not use those colours?

Moral of the story is that I should NOT be left alone with an entire paintbox.