2026‑03‑05 — Art Is Freedom. Painter’s Notes (Listen): The .09% Citizen Free News Factor. Some days the brush is a camera. Some days the camera stays in the bag. Today, I chose to listen. A different security manager was on shift, so instead of filming the press scrum, I drifted toward the reporters — not as competition, not as a citizen‑journalist fighting for inches of space, but as a painter wearing an Edmonton Oilers jersey with FREE PRESS stitched across the shoulders and .09% stamped like a warning label. Before the mayor arrived, the room loosened. Reporters chatted, adjusted gear, compared notes. One of them pointed at the number on my back. “.09%? What’s that supposed to mean?” I told them the truth wrapped in a joke. 

.09% FREE PRESS

That’s how much free press I’m allowed to practice as a citizen.” They laughed — the good kind of laugh, the kind that says we get it. For a moment, we weren’t roles. We were people in a room waiting for the show to start. That’s the .09% Citizen Free News Factor: the sliver of space where a citizen can still speak, still observe, still participate in the democratic theatre without credentials, without permission, without being told to move along. Art lives in that sliver. Art is that sliver. Today, I didn’t film. I didn’t push. I didn’t perform. I just listened — and in listening, I found a new kind of freedom. Left Stage, Exit Right...
XYZ...
Art is Freedom
Virgil Abloh, Figures of Speech
Chicago, MCA Basement Washroom, July 2019
Left Stage, Exit Right...
2026-03-04 Painter's Notes: I stopped by Edmonton City Hall yesterday to hear Mayor Andrew Knack respond to the Alberta budget — just a citizen with a sketchbook, a camera, and a lifelong habit of showing up where democracy still has a pulse. After I recorded the video, the Site Manager of the Northern Alberta Commissionaires sent someone over to inform me that I’m “not allowed” to film press scrums.

Now, here’s where the flavours kick in: There’s always that moment when authority leans in and whispers, “Hey kid, stop pointing that thing at the truth.” It’s the same old dance — power gets nervous when a citizen remembers they’re allowed to watch. And of course, I’m standing there thinking, “Really? Me? I’m the threat? I can barely keep my phone steady, let alone topple an institution.” My inner Shadow Man is already spiralling into a monologue about existential bureaucracy.

But I kept it calm. I reminded them — politely — that in Canada, free expression is protected under the Charter. Citizens documenting public officials in public spaces isn’t a crime; it’s a contribution. It’s part of how democracy breathes. For nineteen years, I’ve practised free press as an art form — drawing, painting, listening, and showing up in the open air, in faith spaces, in galleries, and yes, in government buildings. Art is how I participate. Art is how I thank the people who keep democratic tools alive. So I’ll keep showing up. I’ll keep listening. I’ll keep documenting. Because Art is my Freedom, and freedom doesn’t shrink just because someone in a uniform gets uncomfortable.