With the Council’s support, I am planning to continue a life-long exploration of what it means to be alive and to find and express beauty/vulgarity through visual art, music, video, photography and multi-media that explore Pure Non-Dualism (PND), the concept that there is no separation between experiencers and their experience. This belief also challenges the almost universally held tenet that we live a world that contains and is structured in dualities, with good and evil being central to that belief system. PND argues that’s not true; that there is no meaningful opposite to the Being and the consciousness through which we experience life.
The rationale for this exploration is found in my own personal experience and the spiritual teachings of Jesus, Sri Ramana Maharshi and the spiritual masterpiece, “A Course in Miracles” and its companion works, “Journey Beyond Words” and “The Other Voice.”
Ramana expresses the essence of PND succinctly as quoted on my outdoor installation in Douglas Fir, The Spirit of Prince George, 2014, in Prince George when he states: “To know the Truth of one’s Self as the sole reality, and to merge and become one with it, is the only true Realization.”
I have created a webpage to support this application.
One major artistic risk I have taken and continue to take is to create some works, but by no means all, that explore the use of the shape viewed by many in the West as evil: the swastika. I use the shape on a personal level as I quite simply find it beautiful and use it as well to experience its impact through the reactions of others. I have also been influenced by the late Canadian artist, ManWoman, who championed the reclamation of this symbol.
My use of the swastika led to me being fired from my position as communications officer for the Omineca Arts Society in Prince George, BC in 2019. I would like to feature the paintings that led to my dismissal and some of the communication from my appeal to the Human Rights Tribunal of BC to have my dismissal overturned, which was denied. In the initial ruling, which I appealed, the Tribunal Director stated:
“My understanding of your complaint is that you consider the use of the swastika in your art to be a matter of artistic freedom and speech, which I appreciate. It is true that the swastika is a symbol found in many cultures throughout history where it holds a positive meaning. However, the swastika holds an extreme negative meaning based on its use by the Nazi government during World War II; and because of this, is looked upon with zero tolerance.”
In my appeal of my denial, I suggested that the Tribunal Director consider recusing herself for finding our society had “zero tolerance” for the use of the swastika and while my dismissal was still upheld, the director did amend her statement by stating, “A better use of words would have been ‘…it is looked upon with zero tolerance by many in our society.’”
This is just one way my art takes risks, but what needs to be appreciated here is the fact that the director chose to allow that “some” in our society might look on the symbol with tolerance and it’s that tolerance of the few versus the many, to look at a symbol and making a conscious decision about its meaning, its good or evil if you will, that is at the heart of much of my work. It reinforces my belief that we literally choose at any moment to see the non-dual Truth of existence (succinctly put in one word, Love) or, instead, identify with the illusionary belief in duality that leads to fear and the righteous anger of the oppressed and victimized.
Another work that has involved an artistic risk is Death from A to Z by Adam Lanza, a quilt that visually explores the Sandy Hook killings in Connecticut in 2012 when Lanza killed 26 people, most of them elementary students, in less than five minutes using an assault rifle. The quilt features 27 baby bibs that were available through the Kid’s Stuff section National Rifle Association website at the time.
Please note that I’m not asking the Council to adopt my point of view, but I do hope what’s supported is my wish as an artist to visually express these ideas.
The discrimination against my use of the swastika, which I referenced in my proposal to design a Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa, has led me to create a password protected page on my website that explores the use of symbols of national and cultural identity, which I invite you to view.
The discrimination has continued in 2026 through my being denied the right to produce the image using the Edmonton Public Library’s 3D printer.
Not all of my art deals with PND or the use of the swastika as I find myself visually responding to the beauty of the world I see and often want to capture or express it, particularly but not exclusively, through some of my painting and photography.
There is no time in my life that the world has been fully at peace but it seems, at this time, as if the world is becoming even more polarized. Examples of how I use PND to address this polarization can be found in my essay “Pure Love Comprehends All” and my PowerPoint “The Object of Man’s Creation”, which I presented at a World Religions Conference in Prince George.
A Google search on Piet Mondrian notes the artist hoped to “save the world by replacing chaos and individualism with universal harmony.” To do that, Mondrian developed ‘Neoplasticism,’ an abstract visual language meant to heal a fragmented, war-torn society and usher in a utopian era where art, design, and daily life were perfectly unified.”
I would like my work to contribute to that ideal by having as many people as possible view it through its public display in August 2027. While much of my work addresses issues from a rational point of view, some of my work deliberately seeks to use humor as a means of reaching past an individual’s resistance to new ideas, generally understood as the ego. My “Happy Face Series” is an example of this kind of initiative.
While one sometimes despairs at the state of the world, I believe it’s important to continue to be a voice for the promotion of positive ideas and the visual devices and forms that can foster them by reaching out to as broad an audience as possible. It’s my hope that the Council will choose to sponsor me in this effort through providing me the means to create works promoting the positive nature of existence and the means to exhibit them.