Welcome (back) to My Newsletter: 3 Art Updates

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Welcome to my blog/newsletter! You may have signed up for this a long time ago when I was getting it started…and then I made one entry and left it at that. I’m back! This time is for real. I will be sending out approximately one newsletter every month or two. If you don’t remember signing up for this, but we are friends or family…it is possible I just added you to the list 🙃. To everyone here, I appreciate you! This one is some updates about recent projects, but in future I plan to share works in progress, ideas, and more. I hope you stick around!

1. Foot by Kayak

About a year ago we hosted the official screening of the Foot by Kayak film, created by me and my brother, Liam. The screening was incredible: a turnout of over 75 people packed the dining room at the Wolfe Island Hotel. We had to scramble to add chairs, and people were standing behind the bar and sitting on the floor! Hearing people’s laughter and reactions let us see the film with fresh eyes, after hundreds of hours of editing. Thank you to everyone who was there, and thanks to Linda Krakow Eaman for the photo below.

If you’d like to watch the film, it is available on YouTube: Click here to watch it on YouTube.

2. Wolfe Island Gallery

In more Wolfe Island related news, I am excited to have artwork displayed in the Wolfe Island Gallery this summer, along with many other incredible artists. The paintings I have hanging there this year come from some little fun series I’ve been working on and which have not made their way onto my website yet. There is a chicken series and an ongoing series of miniature paintings, which will probably both be the subjects of future newsletter/blog posts.

Something about my face and pose in this picture reminds me of photos of me as a little kid…

And a better view of just the art.

3. Calendar!

And finally…the calendar. Some of you may know that I made a 2026 calendar last year. I was really happy with how it turned out, and I’m really grateful for everyone who bought it. I have started working on a 2027 version and I will be attempting to do some kind of pre-order list, so if you are interested or know anyone who might be, keep your eyes out for a newsletter in the fall which will have a preview of the calendar and more information on how to let me know you want one.

Also, a correction: If you have the 2026 calendar, you may have recently noticed a little issue with August. I guess I really liked August 23rd and thought that August 31st was not all that important. Please get out your pens and make the corrections you see in the image below! And I promise, next year each date will only appear once!

A little August correction…

Last year’s calendar.

That’s all for this one, thanks for reading.

Top Ten Books of 2024

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Illustrations by me

I read 80 books in 2024. These are the top ten.

Here is how I read: every Saturday morning. Most nights before bed. Anytime I am waiting for anything, anywhere. Sometimes eBooks on my phone: I know everyone hates reading on screens, but this way I can have a book everywhere I go. I listen to audiobooks on my half hour walks to and from work.

Anyone who has migrated here from my soon-to-be-defunct Instagram account will hopefully remember my yearly top ten book posts. Before I delete my Instagram archive I’ll rescue those lists from past years and maybe eventually post them here.

Because this is the first post on my art blog, I decided to draw a small image to go with each book…here they are:

1. Passing, by Nella Larsen

1929

“A brilliant day, hot, with a brutal staring sun pouring down rays that were like molten rain. A day on which the very outlines of the buildings shuddered as if In protest at the heat. Quivering lines sprang up from baked pavements and wriggled along the shining car-tracks.”

This is a spell-binding short novel. Set in Harlem in the 1920s, the novel follows Irene, who encounters her childhood friend Clare and discovers that she has been “passing” as a white woman and is married to a racist white man. The novel follows Clare and Irene’s increasing fascination with each other and each others’ lives. The ending will blow you away.

2. The Bog Wife, by Kay Chronister

2024

A unique blend of magical realism, horror, gothic, mystery. The characters are all painfully real: sometimes loveable and sad, sometimes deeply unlikable, but very well-developed, which made this novel stand out amongst other contemporary horror/fantasy/magical realism books I've read in recent years.

The characters—five siblings navigating parental death and ancient rituals—are all adults, with adult problems and personalities, but this story has echoes of middle-grade fiction adventures where orphans have to survive strange circumstances after the death or disappearance of their parents (i.e. Narnia, Series of Unfortunate Events, The Boxcar Children, etc., etc.). I read this in 2 days.

3. Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, by Salman Rushdie

2024

A memoir. It is what it says on the tin: reflections on the circumstances before, during, and after the knife attack on Salman Rushdie in 2022. My first thought when reading this (which may have been influenced by the trashy mystery novel I had just finished) was “oh yes, this is what good writing is like.” I highly recommend the audiobook, which is read by the author.

4. The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. LeGuin

1971

“Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is the wind blowing on the grass.”

The first book I read in 2024 and maybe the best. Er’ perrehnne.

5. The Hearing Trumpet, by Leonora Carrington

1974

Surreal, flawless, perfect. Unexplainable. It starts off with a bunch of hilarious old ladies, and eventually expands to include the holy grail, an ice age, werewolves, poisoning, two-dimensional furniture painted on the walls, bees, and witches. Among many other things.

6. Syllabus, by Lynda Barry

2014

I am going back to my Goodreads page to write these reviews, and all I wrote for this one was “!!!”. Helpful. I loved this because it embodied the experience of being a teacher and an artist, teaching art while making art, and how the two practices meld and overlap. I learned a lot that is useful for my own art practice and for my own own teaching practice, from this chaotic book.

7. The Book of Delights: Essays, by Ross Gay

2019

Writer Ross Gay decided to spend a year writing a short essay about a delight (or joy) every day. The result is surprisingly varied, nuanced, beautiful, sometimes painful and a reminder of the goodness in humanity.

And it’s way more relevant and less corny than I am making it sound!

8. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, by C.G. Jung

1962

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. It may even be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.”

This book details Jung’s focuses throughout his life. He discusses dreams, the unconscious, visions and premonitions with as much factual reality as he discusses his relationships with real people and the scientific side of psychology. I don’t think I’ve ever underlined more passages in a book.

9. Witch King, by Martha Wells

2023

A good solid fantasy novel to pull you into another world. The story unfolds between two timelines in a way that feels like you are reading a novel and its sequel simultaneously. Often in books with two timelines I find myself preferring one and being annoyed with the other by these are both very compelling. The characters drive the story, but the world-building is fascinating.

10. Penance, by Eliza Clark

2023

Disturbing. Really accurately captures the extremely unhinged energy of tumblr dot com in the 2010s. If you were ever a teen on tumblr, and/or if you have ever had even a passing interest in true crime, highly recommend this book. The framing narrative (a female author writing a book about a man writing a book about girls) works really well and adds to the creepiness.

Honourable mentions:

  • Water, water by Billy Collins (2024)

  • Voice Lessons by Eve Krakow (2024)

  • Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2003)

  • Red Rising by Pearce Brown (2014)

  • Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki (2023)

  • Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (2011)