I’ve often wondered what it would be like. I wasn’t raised by wolves—wolves aren’t innately cruel—but suffice to say, my parents were ill educated and culturally challenged. Normal, far as I knew. Far from a priority, art was not even a concept in our home. A queen of blarney, my mother weaved elaborate tales and collected “ornaments.” Skilled with his hands, my jack-of-all-trades father hawked carvings while stationed in the Yukon with the RAF, identifying himself as a woodworker or carpenter. I think we all harbour an inner artist. Still, I was decidedly the family freak. Determined to honour my writing, to finally take it seriously, find discipline and seek inspiration, I’ve been reading biographies and watching documentaries, most recently C. Scott Willis’ The Woodmans, about a shining young photographer named Francesca Woodman, who committed suicide in 1981 by jumping off a building. Interestingly, that’s right around the time I was living in New York, starting out as a musician. An artist. It was brutal. I got out, made my way back to the west coast. And in an aside, interesting, isn’t it, the similarity in our poses above, the choice of iconography, me with my acorns, Francesca with her birch bark.

Anyway, it seems Francesca was Continue reading →