Born in England, my father was raised in a military family and quickly realized that academic life was not for him. His foray into the artistic world began at the ripe age of fifteen. Having left school without a traditional academic path, he talked his way into apprenticing for a small design agency in Oxfordshire as a self-taught junior designer. His ability to adapt and find new ways to succeed in his work, often relying on the occasional bluff, served him well. He once famously obtained a position as an “experienced” Mac designer, confidently claiming proficiency in operating one. (This was 1988; no one knew how to!) In reality, he had only ever learned how to turn one on. Naturally, he got the job. This attitude toward life became a defining aspect of his personality, and his determination to “get the job done” would go on to serve him well.

A continental move to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1992 brought his career as a graphic designer to maturity. He arrived with my mother and all their possessions, convincing Mercer Creative that he was indeed a catch. Seventeen years later, and after rising to hold two Creative Director positions, his successful career came to an abrupt end in 2008 when his vehicle was struck by a transport trailer during his morning commute. The accident left him with debilitating Menier’s disease, vertigo and severe bilateral tinnitus, conditions that ultimately forced him into clinical and permanent disability. For years my father struggled deeply with his new reality. The loss of his profession, his role as captain of three soccer teams and his identity as a hands-on father of four sent him into a profound depression as he grappled with a sense of losing himself.

Determined to reinvent himself, he channelled his energy into coaching five soccer teams, and he took up photography (again, self-taught) in an effort to reclaim a part of himself that he had lost and to satisfy that creative itch. His work behind the camera often serves as a mirror of how he sees himself. Many of the people he photographs are not the typical subjects one might expect; instead, they reflect a raw sense of humanity, pain, love, loss and life well lived. My father’s favourite people are those with a story to tell, whether it be a lesson or a warning to those willing to listen.

In 2017 a seismic change brought us driving coast-to-coast to the wind-swept beaches of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where the view from outside our family home became a new source of inspiration for him. Debris from past storms and refuse carried in from the Atlantic Ocean provided an endless supply of intriguing objects along our shores. These forgotten pieces inspired the next evolution of his art. Weatherbeaten driftwood and faded plastics became abstract interpretations of the very beaches they were collected from. Morning walks with our dog resulted in him retrieving such pieces for art projects. He eventually began collecting larger pieces of wood to build a studio right on the ocean, something he constructed (you guessed it… self taught.) The studio itself became an art piece, and ultimately his sanctuary. With a cigar in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other and his dog by his side, it didn’t take long for his creativity to manifest in other ways. Why not take it further? As he developed this new found talent (did I mention he taught himself?), he began to paint. Though endlessly self-deprecating about his work (to the frustration of my three sisters and me), he has painted, and many times repainted, some truly beautiful pieces. Trust me… the first version was awesome too!

Although his painting began with cheap brushes and leftover house paint on scraps of wood salvaged from the local dump and framed with bits of discarded lumber, this next chapter of his art started and continues to blossom. 

Since then he has gone on to found the charity Acts of Kindness, a successful healthy soup kitchen delivering 65,000 nutritional meals in its first year, as well Humankind, an ongoing humanitarian effort supporting some of Nova Scotia’s most vulnerable communities.

So, from the days of frustration navigating the contrast between the structured, cut-and-dry Scandinavian sensibility of graphic design and the fluidity and rawness of being an artist, my father gradually developed both his craft and his life’s message. Today, he stands tall, having rediscovered his identity, with his art transformed into something marked by beauty, authenticity and, most importantly to him, kindness.