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Continued
Art is Freedom
The 2024, Rosehip and the White Rose art project — seeds of Vitamin C, seeds of Love. On July 9th, 2024, in the 13th hour, I invited two guest painters to join me in adding fresh paint to my 2014 mountain abstract. We worked beside the reflection pool, sharing stories as the water held our voices and the sky held our colours. When the painting was finished, it found its path. I offered it as a gift to an Islamic spiritual leader — an Imam from Lebanon visiting with friends as guests of the Honourable Justice Minister Mickey Amery.
He accepted the painting with grace, embraced me, and said, “I love you.” I answered the same. In that moment, art, faith, and humanity braided together without hesitation. Like many of my works, Mary Simon and the Orange Flower — honouring Canada’s first Indigenous Governor General — was created beside Herman Poulin’s Service Through Christ statue. My paintings often stand in conversation with the symbols around them, letting place and spirit shape the story.
Fire, Rain, Circle, Square (2016)
Acrylic on canvas — From the Fire & Rain Social Art Project (25 outdoor paintings created during the year of the Fort McMurray wildfire) Art is Freedom
Fire & Rain Project
In 2016, Alberta was split between burning and flooding — wildfire smoke one week, torrential rain the next. I painted Fire, Rain, Circle, Square along the North Saskatchewan River during that volatile season, working outdoors as part of my Fire & Rain Social Art Project. That year I completed 160 street shows across Edmonton’s “public” squares, only to learn later that most of those spaces — City Hall, the Legislature grounds, and many plazas — were not truly public at all. That tension between public life and government‑controlled space became part of the work, and still shapes my practice today. (Below) The Four Flags of🍁US.
July, 2016: While painting along the rising North Saskatchewan River, an Indigenous vagabond named Chief No Tribe joined me. He watched as I worked the textured square — a skull submerged in oil sands. He spoke about circles: the woman’s womb, the stars, the sun, the moon, the atom, the planet. He reminded me that land and water follow circular laws, not the straight lines and squares we impose on maps. His teaching stayed with me for a decade and later inspired my More Circles Than Squares Social Art Project. The painting carries those teachings: Circle — natural cycles, Indigenous knowledge, the shape of life. Square — human boundaries, ownership lines, the illusion of control. Fire — the force that reshapes land. Rain — the force that heals, floods, and erases. The textured square at the centre holds the storm: tangled roots, scorched earth, the memory of smoke. The skull inside isn’t about death — it’s about witness, perhaps even a warning of irreversible extinction. It’s a reminder that everything living leaves a trace of its moment in time. Around that square, the field shifts from heat‑orange to cool‑turquoise, echoing the wild swings in Alberta’s weather that year — the atmosphere we all breathe whether we choose to or not. This painting marks the moment where my Citizen Free Press practice and my painting practice fused: documenting the world as it was then, and as it feels now. Citizen Doug, Free News: Continued
Birds of a Feather Art Project
Strong Female‑Shaped Italian Coffee Pots
The Feminine Strengths in Faith, Democracy, and Nature
Two Trams meet before the 109th Street Bridge — Backside narrative: Palestine and the female red Italian coffee pot emerged in the thirteenth hour on the Alberta Legislature grounds, just east of Herman Poulin’s Service Through Christ statue and north of Premier Danielle Smith’s office. Ruth, age three, painted first. With both her grandmothers standing witness, she placed a girl overtop of the river that once led to the sea. I followed her gesture, extending it into the feminine silhouette of an Italian coffee pot. Over time, I’ve lost count of how many hands have contributed to this surreal, quantum‑drifting community painting, Two Trams Meet on the 109th Street Bridge. Built through intuition, interruption, and the participation of passersby, the work stands as a living record of shared authorship and public creativity. Continued
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"When I first looked at it, it reminded me of Notre Dame Cathedral burning. It also reminds me of some of Van Gogh’s paintings. If we are burning now, like Notre Dame, we will rise better and stronger." - Marg McCuaig-Boyd, Twitter, 2020.
Bridging the Gap — 2025 Citizen Free News Archives: She stood alone — a Jewish counter‑protester moving carefully on her crutches, an Israeli flag draped around her shoulders in a sea of Palestinian banners and placards condemning Israel. The crowd did not welcome her presence. She didn’t escalate. She didn’t shout back. She simply remained visible. Photo: On the backside of Two Trams Meet Before the 109th Street Bridge, I painted 2025, Palestine, with my thoughts "From the River to the Sea, Will All Indigenous Someday Be Free?" a layered, contradictory, and deeply human message. It carried her identity, her politics, and the unresolved struggles over land, belonging, and liberation that echo across both global and local histories. When the weekly protest raged on, I saw her making her slow, determined way down the sidewalk, away from the noise. I caught up to her and invited her into Remedies Café. I bought her a latte — a small gesture of respect for her courage — while dozens of protesters continued chanting outside, including the harsh refrain “all Zionists are racists” at the crossroads of Saskatchewan Drive, just south of the High Level Bridge. Inside this popular Edmonton cafe, the noise softened. She spoke with the steadiness of someone who has lived through more than slogans. Her courage wasn’t confrontational; it was simply the courage to show up for her beloved Israel.
This video, a découpé cut‑up, captures a nine‑kilometer River Valley journey through Edmonton, spotlighting the annual Old Strathcona art walk and the legendary High Level Bridge — its uncertain fate and graffiti lore included. Two Trams Meet, Before the 109th Street Bridge, bridging the gap between north and south, political left and right. Through sun and storm, trams and lightning, it weaves together the past, the present, and a touch of wonder for the future, unknown.
