March 1st – October 31st, 2008

Cambridge Centre for the Arts
Cambridge, Ontario

Artist Statement

The 100mileART project in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada culminated in the creation of an icon called, The Naming of the Animals, created entirely from natural materials found within a 100 mile radius of the Cambridge Centre for the Arts. Both this icon and the method of creating it witnessed to the important role that we as human-beings play in the world: Seeing the potential for further beauty in what surrounds us. Recently our culture seems to be plagued with doubts as to the goodness of humanity’s presence, and while our position on earth can be abused terribly, our ability to beautify the world is even greater!

I was very excited to work on this project and hope it presented something worth considering, a blessing and encouragement, but most of all, a fun journey and a beautiful end.

In the News

Panning for Pigments, YES! Mag. →read it
Encouraging faith through beauty, Nurturing Faith. →read it
Local Colour, Canadian Geographic. →read it
Scientific research: What’s wrong with this picture?, CBC News. →read it
The 100 mile ART Project, Faith Journal. →hear it
100 mile ART Pallet, The KW Record. →read it

Related Posts

Cambridge Centre Project: Fin | November 1, 2008 Yesterday I closed down the exhibition for the 100 mile ART Project: Cambridge. It was also my last official day as the Artist-in-Residence for the Cambridge Centre for the Arts. Reminiscing with Tamara afterwards, I tried to explain the odd feeling I had that we had moved in a circle during this project ...

Exhibition: Opening Photos | October 6, 2008 I’ve had a couple of photographs sent to me from the opening night of the exhibition. In retrospect, I wish I had arranged for someone to document the opening by taking photos but that was one thing that I forgot to plan. The photograph on the left shows Dale Nikkel leading up to his song about ...

Exhibition: Show | September 27, 2008 On Friday night the exhibition opened! A crowd of nearly 100 filled the exhibition space, the hallways and the reception area. One of the things that I have enjoyed in putting together this project is the variety of people it brought together; and this evening was no exception. We had the full ...

Exhibition: Preshow | September 26, 2008 Well, tonight’s the night: The 100 mile ART Project exhibition opens at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts at 7:00 pm! Come out and see first hand the treasures collected and the pigment colours created. For the first time tonight the icon created for this project, Adam Naming the Animals, will be revealed. It ...

Painting: Animals | September 25, 2008 With the mass tones applied I can begin to apply other colours and create images. Egg tempera is unique in the way an image is created. Rather than creating with a neutral tone and then applying shadows, tempera painting works best when a dark mass tone is applied and highlighting layers are added. While ...

Icon: Painting | September 24, 2008 So, it’s time to get down to work and begin painting. It’s been a long road to get to this point (as those of you following this blog will attest to) and it is very exciting for me to begin. The colour that I chose to begin with was the Maya Blue. This is because, to ...

Painting: Preparing Colours | September 23, 2008 Before I can begin painting, I need to take the different colours that I have prepared and grind them with the egg yolk binder. Without this yolk mixture the pigment could simply be brushed off. The oldest icons used beeswax as a binder, but after the iconoclast controversy the binder typically used was ...

Icon: Etching | September 22, 2008 With the gesso finished, the drawing is transferred to the panel. This drawing is called a cartoon and is always fully to scale. Once I have the image transfered onto the panel, the entire drawing is etched using a sharp point. These inscribed lines will remain slightly visible even after layers of paint have ...

Panel: Gessoing | September 20, 2008 Gessoing is a messy and demanding job and once it has begun it cannot be stopped until completed or else future layers will never quite adhere properly. Gesso, which is a mixture of hide glue and a type of chalk, is the intermediary between the wooden panel and the paint layers. It starts off as ...

Panel: Frame | September 19, 2008 Once everything is glued and braced I usually make a frame around the outside of the icon. This is made by carving out the centre section of the icon’s board, thus leaving an outside edge. There is a certain extra amount of work caused by doing this but the inclusion of such a frame ...

Panel: Joining and Bracing | September 18, 2008 Jointing the wood panels together is a perfect job for the casein glue that I created using the milk from Harmony Organic. The reason why it is worthwhile to create a special glue for this purpose is that casein glue, once cured, is waterproof. Given the amount of water that the wood will ...

Panel: Planing | September 17, 2008 There was a time when I planed all my wood from rough to finished, and on smaller works I sometimes still do, but when there is a whole slab measuring 20 inches x 8 feet I like to get some of the rougher work done on a machine. So, after marking out the different ...

Panel: Woodworking | September 16, 2008 With everything decided about what the icon is to look like, it is time to begin creating the wooden panel for the icon. In a finished icon, the panel upon which it is painted is like the foundation in a building. How long it will last, and in what condition, are dependent upon how ...

Icon: Drawing | September 15, 2008 After many hours of sketching the plants and animals of the region, I’ve begun work on the icon’s cartoon. With so many elements to balance in the icon, it has been interesting to make sure that each is placed in the right spot. But, after a couple attempts, I think it is coming ...

Icon: Drawing Research | September 10, 2008 While the icon I’m creating is called, “The Naming of the Animals” there will be other kinds of created things present too. I’m looking forward to drawing from the mammals, birds, trees and plants found locally and including them all in this icon. Earlier this week, our Sunday afternoon walk provided some inspiration for this ...

Moving on … | September 8, 2008 I recently finished Moby Dick, the 1851 book by Herman Melville. One of the many wonderful passages that caught my attention is this one from chapter 32, “Small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything!“. As of ...

Maya Blue: Pigment Trials | September 5, 2008 The final step in making the Maya Blue pigment involves heating it. Without this step, the indigo pigment does not gain any special durability. When I was reading about this process, I was surprised at it’s implied simplicity: Mix together and heat. However, something that I am finding out is true for many of these ...

Marl Lake: Preparing Maya Blue | September 3, 2008 So here we are! After preparing the polygorskite and the woad it’s time to make my Maya Blue pigment. Maya Blue is a really interesting pigment. By itself, the blue of indigo darkens to black over time but once this plant material is embedded into the polygorskite clay, the results are amazing permanent. Instances of Maya ...

Kintail: Mars Yellow | August 29, 2008 Only one step remains in creating my first Mars Colour … Turning sand to magnetite, magnetite to iron, and iron to green vitriol has been a real education for me but with those steps successfully accomplished I had created the base for my yellow pigment. The best results I’ve had so far proceeded from the following process: ...

Winterbourne: Poplar Tree | August 26, 2008 The story of collecting the wood for the panel of this icon is one that I realized I haven’t told yet in this blog. So here it is: On February 5th, 2007 the temperature in our area went down to -32°C. To the Mennonites in our area this meant that it was the perfect ...

Kintail: Green Vitriol | August 25, 2008 Creating an iron bloom was very exciting for me, and if iron ore had any use as a pigment I’d be quite content to stop here; but it doesn’t. My next step in creating a good Mars pigment involves changing the iron ore into iron sulphate (or Green Vitriol). There are a lot of different ways ...

Newtonville: Woad Pigment | August 22, 2008 With the indigo released from the woad leaves all that remains to be done is cleaning. The liquid, which is a dark green to begin, is carefully moved from pail to pail always adding clean water between. Between each pouring the pigment must be allowed to settle before it can be decantered again. And, little ...

Kintail: Bloomery | August 21, 2008 The other part of my first attempt that I wasn’t happy with was the lack of good walls for my bloomery. I’m not naturally someone who likes one-time use items and there was no hope of reusing the half melted stove pipe. So, I went looking for good firebrick … There was a place across the ...

Newtonville: Indigo Whirl | August 20, 2008 I may have gotten a little off track with my magnetite collecting, but there is so many interesting things happening right now that it’s hard to report on them all! You’ll remember that the indigo leaves were left steeping in hot water. After the indigo tea had been made I strained away the vegetation (it makes ...

Kintail: Magnetite | August 19, 2008 The magnetite collected at Kintail is great to have but there was one problem: Sand. No matter how careful we were I would guess that only 10% of what were carried away as magnetite. To solve this problem I decided to levy the one property that is indicative of magnetite: It is magnetic! After putting the ...

Kintail: Collecting Sand | August 18, 2008 Ever since my attempt to make iron ore failed I’ve been asking myself why? Many times in my life after something hasn’t gone according to plan that failure has actually became an opportunity to better understand my work. I guess in reconsidering how something works, and fitting into that a new experience, I’ve come away ...

Marl Lake: Polygorskite | August 14, 2008 At the same time that I am creating my indigo pigment I thought I should also get things underway in purifying the Marl I collected. What I really want to have from that Marl is a clay-ish mineral called Polygorskite. The other part of this marl is calcium carbonate which I can dissolve quite easily ...

Newtonville: Harvest | August 13, 2008 Coming back from collecting “Maya Blue clay” gave me a renewed excitement about my woad plants. While I had high hopes initially about my plants, and put a lot of time and effort into creating a place where they could grow, my plants haven’t come up like I had hoped. Maybe there is just too ...

Marl Lake: Marl | August 12, 2008 Since I began this project I have been pining for a good blue to use in my icon. Growing some woad and thereby having indigo to use was a wonderful start but certain concerns were always in the back of my mind as to whether such pigment could really be counted light-fast. So I kept ...

Dundas: Flake White by Modern Process | August 11, 2008 While I really love the idea of following the historic method for making flake white, I have also decided to try and create this pigment using some of the newer methods developed within the last century. I’ve come to realize that in making flake white I am creating a pigment by taking my ore through a ...

Kettle Point: Bloomery Sand Afterwards | August 8, 2008 Over the past few weeks a slow but steady change has been happening to the bowl of bloomery sand that I’ve been weathering. As you can see from the photograph above, it has become a good raw sienna colour! When it first began to rust (changing from an iron ore into an iron oxide) I noticed ...

Dundas: White Crust | August 7, 2008 I have been eagerly waiting to see what will happen in my attempt to create flake white and I am happy to write that the process of changing my ore into a carbonate is going well. As you can see the little medallions have quickly begun to develop a white crust!

Point Clark: Seashells | August 6, 2008 Heading into the August long weekend my family and I decided to take a short vacation. We headed up to Hanover and then explored the region, visiting places such as Walkerton, Kincardine and Durham. While our choice of location was not done with this project in mind, there did happen to be one ...

Amulree: Casein, Part II | July 29, 2008 The separation of the casein isn’t anything overly difficult. I took a stir-stick and gentle stirred the casein which helped it pour out of the bottle. The whey I simply poured off, but the casein I put into a piece of cheesecloth. With this done I could wash the solids, and after ...

Amulree: Casein | July 24, 2008 After a couple of days outside the milk has separated into two parts as you can see. The white firm mass on top is called curds and the supernatant is called whey. Before you take a look at this and think, “Yuk!” consider when the last time was that you ate cottage cheese? Because ...

Kettle Point: Bloomery Sand | July 23, 2008 If you’ve been following along, then you know that my first attempt at firing a bloomery furnace didn’t amount to much; at least that is what I thought … It has been raining quite a bit this year and this constant moisture has had an unexpected effect that I noticed today: The sand in the bottom ...

Conestogo: Bad day | July 22, 2008 Today was not a good day in Conestogo. When I woke up this morning, it didn’t feel like a good day but I told myself that it would be one because I would chose to make it one (such notions are never foolish until one looks back on them I suppose). But it ...

Amurlee: Milk | July 21, 2008 So, why milk? Milk is the base of a natural adhesive that is still in use today called Casein Glue. Casein is what gives milk its white colour and it can be separated either by adding a light acid to the milk (such as lemon juice) or simply leaving the milk at room ...

Amulree: Cows | July 18, 2008 “I remember seeing the milk. I remember the fields. The wheat is very, very tall. Some of the cows were tall and some were little. I had strawberry ice cream and Michael had chocolate.” - Claire, age 5 I was excited when Harmony Organics decided to sponsor the 100 mile ART Project in ...

Conestogo: River Walking | July 16, 2008 It was a hot day here in Conestogo, so it was perfect for a little of this and a little of that. After putting the studio back in order (charcoal makes quite a mess …) in the morning I attended to a number of small, ongoing projects. After the worst heat of the day was ...

Kettle Point: Bloomery Results | July 15, 2008 After the charcoal was all burned and the fire had died down I began poking around the bloomery’s floor to see what the results were. At first I was encouraged when I hit something solid with my long steel pole. And, carefully, I drew out a large mass. But, once this mass was removed I got ...

Kettle Point: Bloomery Firing | July 14, 2008 On Saturday morning I fired up the bloomery. The charcoal was a little troublesome to get started, but once it was going it got very hot in the bottom of the furnace. Gauging the firing consists of measuring how much charcoal is burning every ten minutes. Once I starting adding two pounds of charcoal every ten ...

Kettle Point: Bloomery Preparing | July 10, 2008 In retrospect, all I can say is that preparing the iron pyrite that I’m planning to use to make my iron ore was a lot of work. First, I needed to crush up the pyrite nodules. For that I got to work using my cast-iron mortar and pestle. This isn’t really the work that a tool ...

Kettle Point: Bloomery Setup | July 9, 2008 So, I can create iron using the pyrite I collected earlier! The question still before me is whether I can create enough to be useful as a pigment? In an attempt to do so, I am going to try and create my own bloomery … What is a bloomery, you might ask? A bloomery is a ...

Kettle Point: Test Smelting | July 8, 2008 Before trying anything more grand, I thought it would be a good idea to test smelting a little bit of the calcified pyrite (now hopefully magnetite) to make sure that it would melt into good metal. But, melting iron takes a bit more effort than melting lead. Consider that lead has a melting point of ...

Kettle Point: Cooking Pyrite | July 7, 2008 A lot of what I’m using for this project doesn’t require much processing. Many of the rocks that I’ve collected can simply be ground up and used for colour (and I really enjoy that fact!). But, there are a couple elements that I’m curious to explore in a bit more depth to try and understand ...

Dundas: Stack Setup | July 4, 2008 With all the ingredients prepared all that remained was to setup. Researching some of the different methods used to prepare flake white was very revealing. I think that I will probably try a couple of different methods, but to begin with I figured I’d start at the beginning. The “Stack Method” is considered ...

Dundas: Smelting for White | July 2, 2008 In preparation for turning the galena collected at Dundas into flake white I needed some kind of guinea-pig (I wonder if such a phrase is still politically correct ..?) to test my proposed processes for turning such a metal into an oxide pigment. I don’t know why it came up in conversation, but my neighbour mentioned ...

Sebright: Different Greens | June 30, 2008 While the green earth I collected from Sebright was a nice colour once ground, I have been curious what effect a couple of different experiments might have upon it. What you see in the above photograph is the two extremes I ended up with. The colour of the pigment when ground up originally is roughly ...

Sebright: Green | June 25, 2008 With the arrangements made, Reiner, Maggie and I headed up to the other side of Orillia to visit the Attia Quarry in Rama Township. Eid Attia, the owner, had mentioned that we would need to go to the new quarry if we hoped to find some of the, “green stuff” but we had arranged to ...

Sebright: Glauconite | June 24, 2008 The final colour of my pallet that was still eluding me had been green. My only consolation in this frustration is that it has been is shared by every artist going back hundreds of years. There just aren’t many naturally green pigment sources out there. Historically, an artist’s choice boiled down to either malachite (which ...

Arkona: Weathering Rocks | June 22, 2008 A lot of the work that I’m about right now is involving some more complicated processes in the hope of creating some brighter colours.  These are quite fun, in their own right, but here is something that has turned out very effective that isn’t complected at all. About a week ago I put a few pieces ...

Cambridge: Dufferin Aggregates | June 20, 2008 With the city of Cambridge being the centre of the 100 mile ART Project, it was important to me that I find some pigment within its city limits. It was suggested that I contact Dufferin Aggregates, a local quarry, and see if I could search around their operation. In talking with Mark Graves, the pit manager, ...

Dundas: A Little Success | June 18, 2008 It isn’t much, but using a very pure sample of crushed galena I managed to smelt a little bit of my ore. It has been a learning process for me, here is what I have found out so far: It turns out that it is important to do a two step process in creating this ...

Dundas: Smelting Attempt | June 17, 2008 Smelting a rock is something new to me. While I have crushed and then refined many different minerals, and made colourful pigments from them, this process is something I’m unfamiliar with. Without me writing too much about it, you can probably guess from the photograph above my first attempt at smelting ore didn’t go according to ...

Dundas: Separating the Galena | June 16, 2008 The galena collected at the LaFarge Quarry in Dundas was very pure but it also came mixed with other minerals. This posed a problem, because if I wanted to easily smelt the galena, it would be important that my sample be fairly pure. After researching some different methods that are used in modern industry I made ...

Mars Black: Kettle Point | June 12, 2008 I’m very happy to report that I have had some immediate (although unexpected) success with the pyrite nodules collected from Kettle Point: I have created Mars Black! Mars pigments are a group of synthetically produced iron oxide colours which can range from yellow-red-violet-black. They represent a purer form of the same material that gives colour to ...

Arkona: Good Pigment? | June 11, 2008 The weathered pyrite collected at Hungry Hollow in Arkona was a wonderful surprise to find. Today my children and I took a few pieces of what I had found and processed it into powder. After cleaning the samples (something that my two oldest did a very careful job of) we put our samples into my ...

Arkona: Hungry Hollow | June 9, 2008 Before we headed back after visiting Kettle Point, Reiner suggested that we stop by the Hungry Hollow in Arkona.  This is a famous location for collecting fossils that is made up of the same geological formation as Kettle Point but at a lower level geologically.  Besides, it sounded like fun, so we headed over. After parking the car ...

Kettle Point: Handfull | June 5, 2008 As much as I think the spherical nodules collected at Kettle Point are wonderful simply in their circular outline, what is inside is even more interesting: The metallic luster and brass-yellow hue of this, “fool’s gold”.  If you look carefully in the photo above you can see that such samples have two distinct layers.  Around the outside of each ...

Kettle Point: Pyrite Nodules | June 4, 2008 My pyrite nodules aren’t much to look at presently, but I’m hopeful that they will be very useful. In researching pyrite I’ve come up with a few interesting facts about using this mineral as a pigment: Naturally, iron pyrite is a brown colour and it has been identified in the paintings of the Italian Renaissance painter ...

Kettle Point: Pyrite Nodules | June 3, 2008 This is one of the very unique places I have been looking forward to visiting for this project. Kettle Point takes it’s name from the round boulders, or “kettles”, that emerge from the underlying Devonian shale beds of Lake Huron. These natural wonders are actually concrentrations of calcite crystals which grew over many centuries around ...

West Lorne: Yellow Bole | June 2, 2008 It really is a small world: In reviewing some of the places that the 100 mile ART Project has gone, Maggie read about the Mastodon tusk from West Lorne and it turns out that she lived in West Lorne for many years. She went on to say that there were cliffs of clay around there ...

Conestogo: Many hands | May 30, 2008 This week I received some unexpected help in the 100 mile ART Project: About 40 grade-seven students from Laurentian Hills Christian School in Kitchener! On Tuesday and Thursday of this week Mrs. Lisa Eelkema and Mrs. Shirley Huinink brought their students on a field trip out to Conestogo to collect some river rocks and then afterwards ...

Newtonville: Planting | May 28, 2008 With the ground prepared only one things remained to be done: Planting the woad seeds. Here again I had little helpers and, by the end, I think we had worked out a nice system.  I did the plowing of a shallow trough (using the old hoe my grandfather gave to me) and my children followed and ...

Newtonville: Making Beds | May 27, 2008 Now that the ground was open I could begin creating a proper field.  In this endeavour I had wonderful help.  While I raked and piled the dirt into mounds, my children followed and threw the stones off to the sides.  As I’ve noticed happens with kids, what began as a chore slowly morphed had more ...

Newtonville: Plowing | May 26, 2008 With my neighbour’s land being made available, my biggest problem was solved, but there was still a lot of work to do. The evening after I had received permission to plant my woad in the back of Chip’s Garage, I walked around the small field and wondered if I could make this land ready using only my shovel ...

Newtonville: Land | May 25, 2008 Before receiving hundreds of woad seeds I had to answer one question: Where could I plant such a crop? My wife’s response to taking over her entire garden for the year was not favourable … I had to think outside the box. Our neighbours to the east are Chip’s Garage; a family owned mechanic’s shop and ...

Newtonville: Look what came! | May 22, 2008 I am very excited to report that I received in the mail yesterday my package of seeds from the Cottage Gardener. Mary and Dan Brittain, the owners of this wonderful organic seed company are one of the sponsors of the 100 mile ART Project and they have very kindly shipped me 360 woad seeds. Woad (Isatis ...

Dundas: Quarry Visit | May 21, 2008 In a pit as large as the Dundas Quarry I quickly realised that finding any rocks of interest was going to be like looking for a needle in a hay-stack; that is unless you have a very knowledgeable rock-hounder with you! Thankfully Reiner and Maggie were also visiting the quarry and they invited me to come ...

Dundas: Quarry | May 20, 2008 Visiting the LaFarge Quarry in Dundas is quite an experience. The quarry opens it’s gates twice a year to rock-hounders and, because I’m a member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Gem and Mineral Club, I was able to attend. Everyone met on a side road, and when I arrived and saw the seventy odd cars already there ...

Conestoga: Eggs | May 15, 2008 I think that now is as good a time as any to show one of the chickens that is going to be providing a very important element in my icon: The binder.  The yolk from her eggs will be acting like a glue to stick the coloured powders I create. In a later entry I’ll talk ...

Paris: Part II | May 13, 2008 While in Paris we traveled to another location that held the promise of gypsum.  Parking in the downtown, we followed a trail along the south side of the river keeping our eyes peeled for more white rocks. I was looking for a white, powdery rock such as we had collected on the other side of the river, but ...

Paris: Plaster Thereof | May 12, 2008 The town of Paris is a beautiful place to collect.  The whole town seems to have the right mixture of straight, hard stone lines and soft curving hills, but I had a special interest beyond that in my desire to find the gypsum I needed for making the icon’s gesso.  I had always assumed that ...

Limehouse: Trail | May 8, 2008 I knew that the village of Limehouse is located in an especially beautiful area before my son and I traveled up there to hike.  My grandfather built his house on the edge of Limehouse (and Stewardtown) because he liked the area so much and as a boy this meant that I took many day-long excursions exploring the local geography. I ...

Dundas: Galena | May 7, 2008 The last sample provided by Reiner Mielke from the Dundas quarry was of the mineral galena. Galena is a natural form of metallic lead sulfide, and herein lies my quandary … Lead. Is there any proper use for it? Over the centuries it has ended up in some pretty questionable places. A history of lead could ...

Arthur: Glue Finished Shot | May 6, 2008 After all my adventures in glue making, I simply can’t resist posting a photograph of my jar of finished hide glue.  Tomorrow I’ll start something new in a completely different direction …

Arthur: Glue Batch Finished | May 5, 2008 I am very excited to write that after another couple of hours in the warming oven my glue came to form a nice, thin layer in the pan.  So I peeled it out of the pan and put it on paper to dry-out.  Unfortunately I couldn’t peel it out in one big piece (it would have made a ...

Arthur: Final Setting | May 4, 2008 The morning after I set out my reduced glue liquor I found that it had set, but not to the firm state that I had hoped. If I was to use jello as an example, I found that my glue had set to regular jello rather than the “jiggler” consistency I had hoped for. ...

Dundas: Sphalerite | May 2, 2008 Here’s another sample provided by Reiner Mielke from the Dundas quarry; it is a mineral called Sphalerite. Sphalerite is a native form of zinc sulfide and, according to my research, can be ‘white’, to ‘honey-yellow’, to ‘brown or reddish’. My own powdered form is light brown in colour but I have yet to see if ...

Arthur: Reducing Glue | May 1, 2008 Today many different things have happened, but in the background throughout I have had one eye on my pot of glue liquor.  I kept it at roughly the same temperature as when I was steeping the pelts and little by little the water went down.  I’m surprised at how much of the liquor is actually water! With ...

Arthur: Preparing Pelt | April 30, 2008 I checked on the rabbit pelts a couple of times since I submerged them into the limewater to see if the fur was loose enough to remove. Now that it is, I can begin my glue making attempt! By this time, the hair came off very easily and there wasn’t much work in it. ...

Dundas: Celestite | April 29, 2008 In May, the LaFarge Quarry in Dundas will be open for a field trip to collectors associated with local gem and mineral clubs. I plan on attending this rock hounding opportunity, but Reiner has been good enough to provide me with some samples beforehand so that I can test certain minerals found at this location for their use as ...

Conestoga: River Rocks | April 28, 2008 As the water has continued to recede from the Conestoga River I have continued to explore the different strata that become exposed.  Since these layers are best visible from the river, this weekend I ventured to climb into the river itself and get the best vantage I possible could for collecting my rocks.  The spring-time water is ...

Don Valley: Cleaning Rocks | April 24, 2008 Since the rocks I collected from the Don Valley Brickworks were all mud-covered I really only had a very rough idea of what I had collected on my trip.  So, with some toothbrushes in hand, my children and I began to clean these little treasures. Some of the rocks really don’t have any merit as pigment, ...

West Lorne: Newspaper Article | April 23, 2008 Susan Andrews, from the St. Thomas Public Library, was kind enough to send me a copy of a newspaper article about the find of the mastodon tusk in West Lorne. It is from August 21, 1947. The mastodon tusk that Peter Russel donated to this project was a real treat for me and has added ...

Don Valley: Limestone | April 22, 2008 I recently visited the old Don Valley Brickworks in search of some unique minerals.  The brickworks was created in 1889 by three brothers John, William and George Taylor. There work was creative, using the different materials present at this site to create a variety of brick types. They were also prolific and by 1907 they ...

Arthur: Rabbit Pelts | April 7, 2008 When I proposed the 100 mile ART project I was all too aware that my experience in using entirely locally collected materials had a few holes in it; glue making is one of them. Glue shows up in many areas of painting an icon: The woodworking, gilding and gesso work all rely on a ...

Mastodon Black: Firing | April 4, 2008 Firing eleven-thousand year old ivory is a bit of a nerve wracking experience. During this process I began to rehearse in my mind what I would say to Peter Russel if something went wrong; and if I would ask for more to make a second attempt … Early on in my attempts to make ivory ...

Conestoga: Sunday-walk Treasures | March 29, 2008 This afternoon my two oldest children and I went out for a walk in the old Mill’s run in Conestogao. This area is beautiful and something we treasure. It was just above freezing, so the snow still covered the ground, but we could hear the water was running well. As we followed different paths we ...

Mastodon Black | March 15, 2008 In the beginning of my search for a good black I knew that I would be burning something. There are a couple of minerals that can be used to create black, but usually the black on an artist’s pallet is made from the carbon left over after something has been subjected to the fire. And, ...

Conestoga: Bog-Iron | March 3, 2008 Four and a half years ago my family and I moved to Conestoga; it is a very lovely village, and little by little we’ve begun to discover a little of it’s history, too. One evening as I was reading a publication of the Geological Survey of Canada by C.W. Willimott (which was published in 1906 and ...

Cambridge Centre for the Arts: Introduction | March 3, 2008 The Cambridge Centre for the Arts, a community arts centre, was opened in May 2001. It is owned by the City of Cambridge who is responsible for its management and operation. The City works co-operatively with the Cambridge Arts Guild. Ratified by City Council in January 1998, the Cambridge Arts Guild acted as the guiding ...