Pale Blue Colour Experiment - January, 2015
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 10 x 8 inches
Icarus and Daedelus - November, 2014
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 20 x 16 inches
In my First Aid training, one of the instructors told us one time, "If the patient does not obey commands, he is probably unconscious."
This statement of the obvious got me thinking about obedience in general. Obedience isn't very popular these days, and perhaps it's because, as a society, we are losing consciousness.
The story of Icarus and Daedelus is a parable about obedience. Icarus was an ordinary teenage boy who hardly paid attention to anything he was told. He didn't like rules, and he usually zoned out when people were giving him instructions. But in order to escape from the island where they had been exiled, Daedelus, his father, came up with a plan. He created wings from bird feathers, and attached them to a frame with wax. He made two sets - one for himself, and one for Icarus. He instructed Icarus how to use them. He also said, "Don't go too close to the sun, in case the wax would melt, and you would fall into the sea."
Icarus scoffed at his father. Obviously the old dolt didn't realize that the atmosphere gets colder when you fly higher. Proud of his youthful wisdom, he flew up as high as he could go, and as he got too close to the sun, the wax melted, and his wings came apart.
As Icarus plunged into the water, his father wept, but could not stop for him. Nor did the farmer stop for him, for he was busy with his work - indeed, the farmer was never aware either of Daedelus, flying high above him, nor of Icarus, drowning in the sea below him. He saw only the rocks and weeds that had to be cleared from the field.
Icarus himself realized too late the price of disobedience, and it was only as he was gasping for the breath that would never come that it began to occur to him that he was not, in fact, wiser than his father - that, indeed, he was not wise at all.
"Breathe" - September, 2012
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 16 x 20 inches
This was for a play called "Breathe" that took place at the Epcor. It was produced by the Fire Exit Theatre under the direction of Val Lieske.
"Wildfire" - August, 2007
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 16 x 20 inches
This was the experience of seeing the forest fires just across the lake from my Dad's place in the interior of BC, and wondering whether the brave pilots of the water planes would be able to put them out.
Inspired by the Inklings
