Aporia Blog

If this banking company had a Canadian branch, I would definitely be putting my money in here: Triodos They do ethical banking, and while they might not be big (yet), they at least help to counter-balance ethically-challenged corporations like Shell and ING. I can’t remember where I first read about them, but the possibility of putting your cash into a carbon neutral fund with a bank that only funds things that are beneficial for people and the planet apparently caused them to get swamped with new customers in the UK. Come on Canadian branch!

I finally just tried to do a checkout to see if I had this shopify thing set up properly, and apparently I don’t! I’ll post back once I’ve figured out how to fix it.

If you’re in Ottawa at any point during the month of July, you will be able to see the results of the recent collaboration between painter Marcel Guldemond (myself) and sculptor Floyd Elzinga at Chez Lucien in the Byward Market. (137 Murray Street, Ottawa, ON K1N 5M7Telephone : 613-241-3533 ) This is the first chance for anyone outside of Toronto to see these works up close. About the work:Floyd and I have known each other for a longer than we care to remember, but this is the first time we’ve tried working together, and we’re very excited about how well...

With regards to that last post I posted, how do I keep doing paintings of landscapes when things seem so bleak? I’m not really sure, maybe it’s just a desire to keep going with something positive because life’s too short to be stuck on the negative all the time. Maybe it’s also the need to appreciate the beautiful bits in the stream of being as they go by. If that resonates with people who take my paintings home with them, then maybe that adds some lightness to the world too.

My wife just showed me this article a few days ago about the rapid and dangerous build up of plastics in the environment. Every time I read one of these articles about environmental destruction, and I do all the time, I have what I assume is the natural human reaction, which is to get completely depressed about how badly human kind has “bitch-slapped the planet”, and then that feeling gets mingled with a competing sense of admiration for all the scientists and activists who get up everyday and do something about it, knowing full well how hopeless it all seems....