Waterscape using Paint.Net.

Samsung ST-67 and Paint.NET, a free download. I used sharpen, oil paint, relief and auto-level
features, as well as fiddling with the the brightness and contrast in order to get this particular shot.

Intangibles.

Selling intangibles means selling things like luxury in an automobile, or security in an insurance policy, or the peace of mind knowing your family is protected by a smoke or burglar alarm.

Luxury can be defined in word or reality, but it's the feelings that it creates that really sells the product. After a time, you fell in love with your little car. You sleep better at night knowing you are protected. It's those feelings that customers seek.


The car, the insurance policy, the alarm device is real. The luxury, the security, the peace of mind are the intangibles. You can’t touch it, see it, hear it, taste it or smell it. You can’t eat it, so why is it so important?

Intangibles represent feelings. And everybody has them.

Once you understand this, you are ready to sell intangibles for fun and profit.

You get out of something what you put into it. Ah, but what if you get more out of it than you put into it?

You have a profit.

In terms of writing a book, if I spend the time, say three months, to write it, edit and format it, put it up on a sales platform then guess what: I have a novel, i.e. presumably no more than the sum of its parts in terms of man-hours, uploading time, word count, the time spent on a marketing image and getting an ISBN.

I put a novel in, I get a novel out. It’s that simple. I put in the work, and out comes a novel.

Zero dollars have been earned by that book on publication.

The first book I sell earns a profit, on paper, because I haven’t spent any cash on it. Let’s not bother with estimating what I put into it in terms of so many dollars an hour. In all humility, my time is what I make of it.

But there are also intangible profits, feelings as it were. I get to look at another book—one written by me. It’s what I always wanted to do. So why waste time over-analyzing? Why not just do it?

There is this feeling of accomplishment, for I have created another work of literary art. I like art.

I like experimenting and learning new things. The results are interesting and to write a good story is challenging. I like challenging myself.

Art is all about nuance, and I like nuances. I like it when wisps of smoke go off in all directions in fading blue curlicues and the reader’s mind is taken off into their own unique creation as they speculate and realize that there are permutations outside the book and yet the author has chosen to leave them out. That’s why there are spin-offs and trilogies and series in books and stories. The readers themselves demand them.

I get feelings of satisfaction, self-worth, the feeling that I did something that I felt I must do with my life. I get all sorts of good things from publishing a book that might not sell in spectacular numbers. I enjoy the work. When I was a kid, I spent many happy hours dabbling with acrylic paints. It was fun.

The work above is actually a one-by-twelve pine board with lines gouged in it with a buck-knife. I took a sort of Japanese ‘floating world’ approach, with a bit of a misty feeling and an elevated point of view. The pigments are acrylic.

I guess you had to be there.

I like the colours, I like the composition. The last time I tried to paint, honestly, I wasn’t very good at it. You kind of have to love it and do it every day if you possibly can. But this painting conveys a certain feeling.

The Gift.

Why do people hate?

Because they fear.

Why do people fight?

Because they are afraid to love.

***

In the Lakota world-view gift-giving was an important custom. A warrior, a hunter, scout, tool-maker, all had their place in the tribe. Yet obviously a powerful chief could be chintzy, while the lowliest brave, a boy, or even a woman, might lay down their own life to save a loved one, a friend or a stranger.

When struck a mortal wound the Lakota man would sing his death song, a song of defiance.

And a singular act, a man might be so esteemed and honoured that he might be chosen, permitted to stake himself down.

To stake himself down to the earth with his weapons beside him, exposed to the enemy.

Naturally, this infuriated his foes. His fellow warriors allowed him this privilege even as they fought to avenge their injuries, defend their territory, and protect their families and villages.

When the Lakota captured a coward, he was tortured over a slow fire, a lingering and gruesome death. Because he earned it.

If you must, do me the honour of a quick and merciful death. I am not a Lakota warrior. I’m just a guy, a plain and ordinary guy. But I feel that I have earned it.

I ask only one thing from my enemies. (No, I don’t expect forgiveness.)

Before drawing the obsidian blade across my throat, ending my death song in a jagged rattle; ask yourself why this is what you want, ‘wintke,’ a good-for-nothing individual with the soul of a man and the soul of a woman trapped within.

And why this should be so.

Enjoy the gift. And for Christ’s sakes, promise you won’t bore me to death.

***

We despise what we don’t understand.

Be wary of the stranger.

Laugh at the unexpected.

Discard that which is useless.

‘It is indeed a good day to die.’

Magic in a Canoe.

Bird on a canoe.

Something bumps against the bottom of the canoe.

The world has some magic places – Lambton County’s Bear Creek in spring;
meadows ablaze with dandelions.

A snapping turtle surfaces, so close I could pet him. He regards me unblinkingly, out of one beady little eye. The boat eases forward, dead quiet, except a few drops, falling from the blade…

Shadowy recesses. Under clumps of young oaks, the earth lies carpeted with myriads of tiny white, purple and pink flowers. Trilliums abound in patches. Distinctive foliage marks the extent of their territory.

I can smell the soil and it is good.

“Where’s that darned trail, again?”

Only a short time ago, it was winter.

There is magic to be found on a winter’s morn. Drop of water flashes, falls from the tip of an icicle. Sun rays, ardently probing, urgent in the short and precious day.

A place where in summer, nothing ever seems to happen, yet now, the pale parchment that is the ground holds a record of many transactions.

The trails go in all directions. Night or day, it doesn’t matter. Time lasts forever.

Weather means nothing.

Unleash the soul. Let it dance with the breezes.

And now, when night comes, a low orange moon perches among the branches of a big old jack pine. The wind keeps trying to tell me something.

Moist and warm, a spring evening’s twilight.

Pixie glimmer of green, flitters along the half a moment. Cricket noises all around…there goes the green light again. Grass at the base of yonder fence post rustles with some shy newcomer. An owl hoots, far, far away.

Water flows, intent on getting someplace, somehow, some time.

Water talks to herself. She has but one thing on her mind…”Downhill, downhill, downhill…”

Stars watch over me. I watch the trees; which are alive now that they think no one is looking. I stub my big toe on a boulder whom I should have seen.

“Sorry, buddy,” I murmur. Like a golfer I replace the divot, rearrange the moss.

Like a child in a nursery, I play. Life is a game. There are no rules.

The art of observation.

Over the ages painters have struggled to capture the elusive effects of light.


In this image the author would appear to have done so very well. On reflection, the reader may well conclude that almost anyone could get that image with a cheap digital camera and the use of paint packages which are freely available online.

That’s exactly what I did. The odds of me standing there for a couple of hours with a canvas, an easel, and a bunch of half-frozen oil pigments and dirty brushes and cans of turpentine are minimal.

I’m using tools that were simply unavailable to Vincent van Gogh or Paul Gauguin or any other famous painter.

The thing took a little effort, and I had to know how to use the tools. I kind of have to know what’s good because I actually took a number of photos and tried a few different things with some of them. The photos were taken impulsively. It’s the ice pack along the south shore of Lake Huron at Bright’s Grove. When I took them, I had no idea of what I was going to do with them or what the result might be, although the special effects did enter my mind. Yet there is a kind of spontaneity here as well.

I like that unexpected quality, the element of surprise that enters into it.

The landscapes around here in winter can be pretty sublime. It’s also a big, open, flat kind of place where you sort of have to look off into the distance a lot. The light is very angled and the palette muted, and the weather and atmospheric effects generate a random picture that changes constantly.

It’s the art of observation.