Nigel Fox Artworks

My favorite English teacher in college always said “write about the things that you know.”  I believe that artists should also work from what they know; and not just writers.  It follows that creative people should reflect upon their lives, what they know and the people they have met along the way.

The tough part about creating from what you know is that the cuts that make the most impression are usually the deepest.  Reflecting upon past memories is a lot like touching a carving or sculpture with your hands.  You can feel every cut, every contour, every nook and all the “scars”.  The deepest cuts make the most impression.

A carving can’t feel back, and so too reflection can be a very one-sided thing and quite unhealthy if you’re not careful.  I learned this lesson with much pain and difficulty.  It was another lesson learned in college.  It was about a girl.  And like feeling a carving, any feelings were not mutual.  It’s painfully funny how something can, for all intents and purposes, look alive and yet have no life.  What I thought was attraction, turned out to only be attention-seeking.  I fell for the wooden doll that never came to life–that could never love me back.  I was in love with the likeness of someone and not the person.

I fell for Pinocchio’s sister.

Skip ahead a few years, after much wandering in confusion, God sent a messenger who breathed life into me.  And though I was very attracted to her, she had something that I needed so much more desperately, the Holy Spirit.

She gave all the credit for the success in her life to Jesus.  The dark reflections in my soul (aka shadows) shuddered and even scrambled to explain it away; the light was rejuvinated!!!  The cut was made!

I remember the day when we sat in her Uncle’s car, watching the distant killer whales blow pillars of mist into the golden remnants of evening light that made haloes around her most beautiful eyes and face.    She told me that I have the Holy Spirit in me.

Like the air that the killer whales need to breathe, she breathed life into me.

I will carry what I saw on those shores for the rest of my life.  I would thank her, but she would just give the credit to Jesus anyways, and so I thank God!

Now, you might be thinking that we were destined for love and great things.  And we were…but not together.  I was in love with what shone through her.  I was in love with Jesus.

We tried to “make” it work over the years, but the relationship was built on sand before it was ever built on stone.  Hearts were wounded, tears shed, paths carved seperately.

I wish to this day that I could say that I am sorry for how things worked out, but that’s probably just me over-reflecting.  After all, things haven’t been all that bad.  She’s now happy working as a pediatric nurse at BC Children’s hospital and I’m happily married as an artist.

And now, like most of my stories, I leave you with a paragraph pertaining to a perpetual platitude applied to personal perceptions.  Good art is like a reflection of who we are.  Great art is a reflection of who God is.  It’s healthy to reflect upon who people are, but it’s healthier still to reflect upon who God is.

Or, as the very centre of the Bible states:

  “Far better to take refuge in God
than trust in people;
Far better to take refuge in God
than trust in celebrities.”

 Psalm 118:8-9
The Message

After reading a blog referenced in a recent article that someone showed me in the Vancouver Province, Confessions of a 29 Year Old Virgin, I feel the need to talk about someone who is on my heart.  I want to talk about a woman and not just any woman, but one who is my best friend.  I want to talk about my wife, Amy. 

Amy and I have been happily married for about 4 years now and I love her very much.  I believe that she provides all that I need in a woman and that is why I asked her to marry me.  She’s smart, sexy, committed to God, and she’s seen me at my *very* worst and still loves me for who I am.  It’s a tribute to her gracefulness that she is still married to me.

With all of my quirks, it is a bit of a wonder how we even made it past our wedding night.  Ah yes, our wedding night, that fateful night for all newlyweds who have waited to share intimacy together.  This was a night that that we may tell our grandkids about in detail, some day.  Yes, there is a story behind this and one that bears telling in detail.  So, what in the world happened that we would tell our grandkids in detail about, you ask?

Well, a bit of background.   We courted for a very short period in time, about one year, and were engaged for about 2 months after that.  We abstained from any number of things, including even, for about 2 months, touching; all with the intent of saving it for our wedding day.

The wedding came and we were off on our honeymoon.  I had booked us the most expensive hotel that I could find in Toronto, and had booked a massage for my new bride.  We wanted to go and visit family for our honeymoon, in Ontario.  We were going to spend our first night in the best hotel that I could find in the country–according to what I found online (a tip: save your money and ask someone who lives there).

So, here we were, newlyweds, travelling halfway across the country to a stange city in a strange, albeit extravagant, hotel; and not really knowing a thing about sleeping with each other.  Nightfall came and we were EXHAUSTED!

Amy told me later that she barely got to enjoy her massage.  I think that all that we wanted to do that night was sleep.  In an effort to make our wedding night perfect, we totally wore ourselves out.

And that wasn’t all.  Because we knew nothing of each other’s sleep patterns Amy didn’t know a little secret about me.  I sleepwalk–especially when I am exhausted.  For those who aren’t familiar with sleepwalking it often takes the form of a dream to the sleepwalker, where things don’t look like they do awake.

So, instead of intense passion, she got a husband who didn’t even know who she was, let alone that they were married.  And being the chivalrous sort that I was, I didn’t want to be in bed with a strange lady, and so I jumped out of bed with the blankets wrapped around me and blurted out “who are you?”  Amy, by this time was a little worried, when she replied “I’m your wife, we’re married”  To which I replied, “No you’re not, I’m not married!”  By this time, she was in tears and replied “yes we are” and showed me her ring and alluded to my ring.  at which I casually replied, “oh, I guess we’re married”, started humming a tune and went back to bed.  Amy phoned her sister and her brother in-law who knew all about sleep walking and told Amy “don’t wake him”.

All that I remember were bits and pieces and that Amy was in tears when I woke up.  And I asked her what happened and she told me the whole event and couldn’t help but laugh at the innocence of it all, but I felt kind of bad for putting her in that situation and making her cry on our wedding day, in a strange town, with no warning about my nocturnal tendancies. 

We laughed about it and even the parents are starting to laugh about it now, too.

But screw ups happen, no matter what (and sometimes because of) the arrangements you make.  Being graceful doesn’t come from controlling everything; it is sometimes most evident when you make mistakes.  Grace is a necessary part of being graceful…  I consider our wedding night to be one of our best “mistakes” ever and a testimony to God’s grace in our lives.

Now, you may be asking about what this has to do with the “art of purity”?  EVERYTHING!!!  *Only* God’s grace allows for purity of heart and true inspiration.  “Who can climb Mount God?  Who can scale the holy north-face?  Only the clean-handed, only the pure-hearted; Men who won’t cheat, women who won’t seduce.” ps 24:4-5, (The Message)

With the success of my first draw for 200 likes on my facebook page, I have decided to extend this draw to 270 and give away yet another artwork.  I am planning on giving away one of my Butterflies serigraphs when my page reaches 270.

To enter this draw is quite simple: 1) Like my facebook page and 2) post on the wall of my facebook page that you want to be part of the draw.

When my page reaches 270 likes, I will draw from the entries (using random.org) and announce the winner.

The last draw had 60 likes in under 5 days, and I anticipate that this draw will go quite fast,too.  As of writing this, it is at 244 likes and climbing daily.

So, get your entry in there and happy contesting!!!

Okay, here’s the deal. I am planning on giving away an impressionist painting to one of my facebook fans when my page reaches 200 likes.

Here’s how to enter: 1) like my page, 2) post on my wall that you want to be part of the contest.

My facebook page is here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nigel-Fox-Artworks/168821496495506

When the page reaches 200 likes, there will be a draw from among the people who entered.

The piece is called Red Sunset. Here are more details on this piece:
http://www.nigelfoxartworks.com/?page_id=69&artid=80

I was talking with a family member this morning about dreams and the thought came to me about surrealism. Surrealism was a movement in art where the artists placed contrasting subjects into a realistic setting. An example of this is Salvadore Dali’s famous work “The Persistence of Memory”, also known by many as “melting clocks” (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/The_Persistence_of_Memory.jpg). Surrealist painters often used inspiration from the subconscious, mainly dreams.

Anyways, I was surprised to find out that another family member had a dream with strikingly similar details later on in the week–before she even knew about the former’s dream. I had a similar dream where a friend had the exact same dream from a different point of view. I dreamed that I was trying to get my friend to press the escape key on a computer, but he couldn’t find it; my friend dreamed that he was in front of a computer and I was excitedly telling him to do something, but it was over his head. Neither of us collaborated on this dream; we were in separate cities, three hours apart; and we both had the dream over the same period of a week.

This anecdotal observation confirms my belief that there is much more to dreams than simply the subconscious blowing off steam and that there is perhaps something more tangible at play; at least something observable at some level.

So, back to the surrealists. I was down in Vancouver this summer on a business trip and I had the opportunity to take in a show at the Vancouver Art Gallery and I was sort of surprised to see a collection of west coast native art in the exhibit. Upon reading the subtitles to the pieces, I learned that the west coast art was taken from the collections of the surrealist artists. My native art teacher, master carver, Dempsey Bob said that many of the famous euro-american artists took their ideas from west coast art. Seeing this exhibit was evidence of this to me; though I get the feeling that the most wise first nations elders and people already know this.

Anyways, if I can make a conclusion, it would be that what is called art is much more than a pretty picture and that there is actually something more important at work, perhaps something that is as deep as the foundations of creation, or deeper. And that it is not even about the creation, but rather a reflection of who we are.

That’s my deep thought for the day. If you have the time, send me an email at nigel@nigelfoxartworks.com, I’d like to hear similar stories or even if you had a significant dream or experience or anything that you want to comment about.

I have been teaching a basic drawing workshop over the past four weeks at the Houston (BC) public library using the concepts taught in Betty Edwards’ book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. In this book, Betty explains that sometimes seeing and talking are two totally different things. As an example of this, try naming out loud the actual colors from the list below without saying the names of the colors.

If you are like most people, you probably had difficulty naming the actual color. The reason for this is because the part of your brain that gives names to colors is different than the part of your brain that perceives colors, and the part of your brain that gives names is usually more dominant.

Anyways, going on the theory that drawing is mostly a right-brained activity, students can more effectively learn how to discern and improve their drawing ability. It has been a fun course, with a good set of students and I have learned a lot.

I have digitized my latest northwest coast tessellation, “Butterflies #3”.  Currently, I think that I will probably make this into a print.  This particular design is a play off my second butterfly tessellation, which I made my first silkscreen print from.

Basically, I made a slight modification to the lattice, or “frame”, of the original butterfly tessellation and adapted the motif (butterfly) accordingly.