I’m the Toad Rock, Mt. Loki painter. It is my intention to report enough aspects of my creative process that we sort of meet.

I live and paint and teach in Queens Bay, outside Nelson B.C. I also live and paint and teach about all over, mostly B.C., Alberta, and Sask. these days.

I sort of slip back in time instead of forward, I think it’s because I’m overwhelmed and confused by the present. Nothing bad about the future, just that I only know about the past and painting it most every day. For quite awhile now, I’ve been painting where ever I can see what I want to paint. This makes me a plein air painter artist.

I’m also building my own house (for 25 years). I always worked on my own cars (better cars now as I’m within 10 years of almost brand new).

About 35 years ago I came to live in the Kootenays. Just travelin’ thru but my axel broke on my 1951 Dodge Truck, and before I escaped I met some guy (Roger Aylen) who offered me space to build a cabin\shack 10 miles south of Silverton.

Since I was finished with art and society, I took an honest swing at ‘getting back to the dirt’, a sort of ‘hippy homesteading’. The good news is that, that lasted until Christmas as I had a double thick plastic wood & tin house that stood near 30 years. The other good news is that I very soon began painting again. After 12 years of fruit picking, construction, tree planting, house painting & gardening, I started painting full time. Always, during everything, I always painted.

I guess painting led to teaching. I just seem to get people painting or making art all my life. Then another 25 years stint of teaching & going places to paint and quite often teaching.

Now-a-days I’m easy to catch for going into the mtns. With small or large groups, mostly to see it and plein air paint it. A few days to a week is a good time space.

The past 3 or 4 years have brought me closer to A.Y. Jackson, Emily Carr and just more recently, Lawren Harris [as I was classically educated in the art and university systems of the united states, M.F.A. Univ. of Wash. 1965, Spencer Moseley, Adviser]. So my emphasis was more toward the European artists, especially the French.

Paul Cezanne [and Rene Magritte] were very important to me during early formative years. After painting about 20 views of Mt. Sainte-Victoire on location in Southern France, in 2001, I realized great value in attempting to walk in the footsteps of the great masters who were meaningful to me.

I have painted and taken student painters into the mountains often during the past 8 to 10 years; especially the Purcells, Selkirks, and Canadian
Rockies.