b. 2002.



When we would drive, sometimes we would pass the yellow car with the red sign above it. It was close to my house and the place where they would give us food stamp stickers. The highway was there too. Just a little down the road. When they build that mall, we would sit outside in lawn chairs. And my brothers and I would take our shirts off and walk up and down the way. Our mom thought it was hysterical. When I went to camp, we would dance, and in front of everyone I twirled a girl, she was older. But all I can remember is my yellow plastic watch. The new house was orange.

Over the highway was a bridge. And when I passed under it, I watched as a train moved. I walked up the grass. The red vans at the top of the hill, parked one by one with the last one having a flat tire. Now he takes me for drives sometimes. His car is blue and his shirt gray. And when he says goodbye, I shoo him until I can't see his car. The grocery store sells orange tangerines with little green stickers. So those are the tangerines I buy.

I was born in Ottawa ON. My dad too. But my mom flew around, her dad was in the military. I am an artist enrolled at the University of Ottawa in a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Maybe all my work is just how much I like to watch cars and people talking on the street. When I was a child, I would draw. And then I moved to taking photos, and making music, and never touched painting until two years ago. And now I make colourful boxes and mail people my ideas. When I have an idea, I test the idea. How can this idea work? Can it work? I imagine drawing like writing out my ideas. Highways, signs, card tables, feuds, big apples, people, lovely people, parks, places I have sat at, places I have seen, places I barely remember (those are fun), scooters (the motorized ones), scenes, many things. I draw many things. But I am trying to see how an idea, thing, place, translates from my brain to the physical world. And this tells me a lot about how I think. I can see the trace of where I was thinking and where that’s lead me. Sometimes I draw with my eyes closed, because then you can really see where your brain is taking you.