So I drummed. I circled. I made heart‑shaped angels in the snow. And, to their credit, the Alberta Government eventually moved the ATM. Fast‑forward to today. Deficits rising, inflation squeezing families, homelessness increasing downtown as people migrate from across Alberta looking for stability in downtown Edmonton. And the MMIWG artifact? It has been moved again—this time out of plain sight, tucked into a corner beside trash cans. No other artifact inside the QEII building has trash cans stationed beside it. Not the Police memorial Pillar of Strength. Not the Service Through Christ statue commemorating Nuns and thier servicing residential schools. Not even the double‑headed Queen Victoria coin facing the bowling greens, a tribute to Treaties with Indigenous. I’ve shared this with Visitor Services staff. I’ve shared it with politicians at City Hall. Word of Mouth, Citizen‑to‑Citizen, and the Hard-Copy free‑press method. Because sometimes the smallest details—an ATM, a trash can—tell the biggest truths about what we value, and how we are perceived to the rest of the world.
We wear what we believe: To me, graphic T‑shirts are the most important and most expressive format for a designer or a person. Your taste in graphic tees says a lot about your point of view. Virgil Abloh. Back Page Continued...
Birds of a Feather Art Project
Left Stage, Exit Right, Free from ARTifICE
In 2018, my Abstracts of Light and Shadows social art project focused my paintbrush, news camera, and canvases into the sunshine to expose the shadows cast by trees, and into the nature, of birds of prey and humankind. This untitled painting began as I carried my easel, a backpack full of paint, and a blank canvas down Jasper Avenue on my way to the Alberta Legislature grounds. At 104th Street and Jasper Avenue, I stepped into an argument already in motion—a Black man leaving the 7‑Eleven, a Red man demanding loose change, and tension rising fast. When the Black man refused, the Red man shouted, and the Black man responded with a raised middle finger. The situation escalated instantly. Across the intersection, it was just me and one other White man watching the scene unfold in the early summer light.
XYZ
LISTEN
All Flowers Matter
Edmonton City Hall, March 2026
In March 2026, following a Treaty 6 luncheon at Edmonton City Hall, I introduced myself to City Manager Eddy Robar after once again being denied the ability to practice free press in a public civic space. Commissionaires of Northern Alberta restricted me from taking photographs and video during press scrums outside the press room—activities I have carried out for years as a Canadian citizen, previously affirmed in conversations with law enforcement and documented through my website and YouTube channel.
This incident echoes earlier periods when City and provincial officials attempted to limit my presence and work in public spaces. Previous City Managers threatened police action for sharing my news stories outdoors through word‑of‑mouth reporting and paintings. My 2016 Fire and Rain project—combining news camera, paint, and canvas to document the impacts of Alberta’s wildfires and floods—faced repeated verbal bans from Alberta Legislature and government officials, and was discouraged by City representatives. Those bans were later lifted, and in 2017 a City representative offered what I experienced as a weak verbal apology.
Additionally, Commissionaires halted my Grocery Cart Drop Off initiative on Friday the 13th, active since 2022 during the pandemic, which encouraged the safe return of abandoned grocery carts. I past I cited concerns that stolen carts are sometimes used as battering rams against business and residential windows and doors in downtown Edmonton, where homelessness and addiction‑related activity—often involving people arriving from across the province—contribute to what many on Treaty 6 territory recognize not unconfirmed, ongoing state of emergency.
This note documents my ongoing tension with civic institutions over who belongs in public space and how, and affirms my commitment to practicing free press through art, observation, and community engagement.
7-Eleven
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Lost Hearts and Stolen Hearts: January 15, 2021. A fresh snowfall, the kind that makes Edmonton look briefly innocent again, like it’s trying to apologize for the chaos and disorder. I had just bought an Indigenous drum from the Art Gallery of Alberta—an object of beauty, ceremony, and history—and, in a moment my wife insists does not qualify as acting, I decided to use it as part of a small performance walk. So there I was, circling in front of the Queen Elizabeth II Building and the Eastgate driveway at the Legislature, drumming like heartbeats, and making snow‑angel hearts. My goal was simple, diplomatic even: draw attention—respectfully, visibly—to the fact that an MMIWG artifact inside the QEII building had been placed beside an ATM machine. An ATM. Next to a memorial for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The irony was unbearable. Many of these women and girls were targeted and killed by people exploiting them for human trafficking and prostitution, and here was the Capitalism's Cash Machine beside the Red Dress tribute like it was just another lobby artifact.
I moved forward, ready to help calm things down, but before I reached them the Red man chased the Black man down the street, yelling, “Get off my land!” I caught up with the Black man inside the Red Arrow bus station, where he’d taken shelter while waiting for his bus. That’s where I learned what sparked the confrontation. I reassured him they are not always angry, and wished him well, after I learned he was on his way to Fort McMurray to work in the oil patch. Later, I painted this story beside Premier Rachel Notley’s office window, in the Legislature gardens where passersby often stop to talk. Several added their own strokes of acrylic paint to the canvas, including a young Indigenous man who shared his experience of homelessness and the grief of losing so many friends and family members to addictions and suicide. I listened while he painted. This painting eventually became the image for my Listen label—printed on T‑shirts worn inside the Alberta Legislature during its 30th and 31st sessions.
