Hello Hub Readers,

This October, I chose to eschew the now very popular "#inktober" assignment, which I've enjoyed doing for I think four years now. Like a lot of successful upstarts, the Inktober camp was starting to collapse under the pressure of some folks clamouring for the spotlight, publishing books, creating hype all around the world, artists arguing over fairness, not being paid, etc.

Personally I had nothing to do with any of that but it clouded my enthusiasm to participate under that banner. So I coined "InkQuinox" ( drawings from the Dark Side of the Room) and put myself in the job of CEO and there's just me in the organization and there will never be any books or money corrupting things.

Having said that, I'll add that I assigned myself a theme, and that was Truth and Reconciliation. These days, in my mind, that's the issue we all need to think about, talk about and act about. Nothing is more emphatically important in this part of the world, i.e. this region where most of the Owen Sound Hub's readership resides. But also all across the so- called Canada and the rest of this continent.

So, being the kind of artist who relies on the near-to-hand things in life, I went looking right under my nose for content. I investigated the village I've lived in, (mostly happily) for twenty years. I found plenty of evidence that my village on the whole does not get, or comprehend in any meaningful way, Truth and Reconciliation. And by implicit association, neither does the municipality of Grey Highlands, or the South Grey Museum or the Kimberley Community Association, or local mayors, councillors, members of parliament...in fact I'd say if you want to find out what's wrong in this country, just go find any historical plaque, connect the dots and you will find massive crimes of revisionism, denial, omission, ignorance and a prevailing brutal indifference to Truth and Reconciliation. It's right there embedded in the laminated phenolic, all graphically presented and so pleased with itself.

And so, my heart heavy with frustration, I attempted to deconstruct something simple and that has led to connecting lines to my experience in this region over issues of race, respect, and human rights. I have shown a few examples where my interactions in this society have gotten me some very bad outcomes. I cannot even draw the very worst things, and I'm not attempting here to indict or incite with my work, but rather to urge people to confront racism, homophobia, misogyny and hatred wherever it pops up whether it's your workplace, your school, or some piece of white settler colonial revisionist photo mural crap screwed to the fence around the mailboxes in the so- called lovely village of Kimberley...

Truth and Reconciliation is a call to all people to look around themselves and ask basic questions in the relevancy of their relationship to indigenous people and how it got that way and what the best move forward would be.

And those steps, what exactly those would be for any given individual; that's not my area of expertise. I have only sketched out some examples of what I see as the problems.

It's hard to draw out painful memories.
When I was doing " Inktober" it felt more natural to draw spontaneously every day, about anything.
With this InkQuinox series, I've been more unsure of how to do it. It has been really helpful to have the support of the Owen Sound Hub. For a full year now, I haven't participated in social media. Generally I think it's been way better for me. I spend most of my time doing art and I'm not distracted by the hive mind and that's been a plus.

Yesterday I did some dog-sitting for a neighbour/ friend. Not finding any drawing paper in the house, I used a large paper shopping bag.
Today I offer sketches of a paper bag princess, who goes by the name Alphia.
Who knows what tomorrow's drawing will bring?

Stay tuned...
Dave