Avonian Place — Windsor, NS

Knowledge of self is the endlessly renewable source of our life’s vitality; the place from where healing begins.

I’ve surrendered home, studio, and most of my earthly possessions in order to get more comfortable in the water for a little while. 

With a new lease on life — vitality growing by the day — I travel nomadically from project to project as a perpetual act of faith.  

This is what brought me to Windsor.

A community coming out of a denial-of-self  moves toward revitalization.  

The process begins with individual men and women willing to surrender some measure of their own vitality to the whole.

We come into a community in order to find out about ourselves, paradoxically. 

Working within community serves as a mirror. Doing so helps us catch a glimpse of how we understand who we are, what we believe, and our place in the world. 

The more who find the courage to do so, the sooner and stronger our collective experience of community will become. 

Working in this way is an act of faith.  It is a process.  Learning to trust the process is key to shared creativity.  

Speaking from personal experience, the health of one’s body is priceless.  In that way, how does one put a price tag on a community’s vitality?

The Avonian Place mural became a testing ground for a creative approach to painting murals. It was designed to radically explore notions of value and vitality, in service to a bigger picture.

On paper, setting relative market value(s) for a wall is a simple task.  In ‘real life’, it gets complicated, like trying to pin a price tag on the Emperor’s  new clothes. 

The value of public art to a community is undeniable, as global statistics prove beyond shadow of doubt.  The full impact of these cultural artifacts is hard to measure. This is especially true when trying to account for the intangible qualities of inspiration, creativity, and cultural enrichment.

It is these intangibles that are the true gift(s) of the work I do.   

We immediately removed the strictly transactional aspects of exchange from the negotiation table. We replaced them with a commitment to fluidity with the WTBA. The goal was to encourage a broadly meaningful conversation about value throughout the community.

We had a good deal if the association covered material/equipment costs, along with room, board, and some gas for the tank.

It was made clear that upon project completion, the board could compensate me for my time and efforts according to their discretion.

Over five nearly unbroken weeks of daily production, the matter of an artist fee was not once discussed. 

The work simply began —  as an act of faith — in process we trust.  

As the winds and rain of the passing hurricane trailed off toward the setting sun, I plunged my entire first full week of production into an unscheduled process of reconstructive wall surgery.

Every inch of that wall (not covered in plywood) got scraped down to something solid.  Multiple buckets of grout and countless tubes of caulking were poured into every nook and cranny. This ensured the building and its new look would remain seaworthy for many more years to come.

The workload — FAR more than I’d bargained for — was beyond grueling.   When I arrived in NS, my body was still very depleted from a six-month autoimmune flareup. Chronic discomfort plagued me as I picked up the tools of my trade.  

The efforts exceeded what I had initially prepared to offer in terms of discomfort. Yet, in an odd and most beautiful way, every minute of this work became tonifying to my diseased, damaged body. Hand in hand with the wall, my body began to improve overall.

We get out of life what we put into it. 

This is the labour of love.  

When one guy on the street cleans up his yard, it enhances the environment. Without needing to say a word, it encourages others to follow suit.

The public response to what was taking place from day one was overwhelming.  People shouted out encouragement from morning to night. They were thrilled to see this old landmark getting some love, impressed by the scale of the challenge.

One of the most frequent comments shared was along the lines of:

“Whatever they are paying you is not enough.”  

For those who took a bit longer to chat, jaws dropped to the floor. This happened when I shared that no professional fees had been discussed. I had no idea how much the town would decide to pay me for the work I was putting in. In very real ways, that wasn’t the point.

Most were in a state of bewilderment by this leap of faith. We all agree however that a shift in our personal and collective notions of value was desperately needed.

Common to all is the realization of how little change we have left in our pockets after leaving the grocery store. This was due to rising costs of hyperinflation, corporate gouging, and fragile supply chains.

While the painting itself has come to an end, the life’s work of this mural has only just begun.  

Per my arrangement with the WTBA, I covered the meager costs of my room and board. Additionally, I received a very modest but meaningful contribution for my time and effort for this project.

The dollar amounts never really did matter at the end of the day. I exceeded all expectations in meeting my personal metrics of success.

It’s one of my great pleasures in life to watch a large-scale mural coming to life in a community, with its gently unfolding and deeply magical effects.

Tides are changing. Too long I’ve held onto money for dear life. It has now become a cruel taskmaster, whose whip pulls pounds of flesh with every stroke. 

I will no longer work for that guy, especially now that I’m learning to swim.

Building a strong community is one of the most important investments of my time and energy. Doing so may in fact be our greatest ‘survival currency’.