Birds of a Feather Art Project
2026, Coffee's On!
Birds of a Feather marks my 13th social art project since 2013. This year, I turned my canvases and news camera toward three enduring pillars: Democracy, Faith and Nature. I explored how these forces shape our collective story and challenge our personal truths. Today I work freely as a social artist, news activist—no sales, only passion. My creations blend visual storytelling, political cartoons, and painting, all driven by a deep belief in the power of free expression as one more voice added to strengthen democracy.
Edmonton City Council, Who is Rick Wilson?
XLife at 71
Click on Image to Enlarge Artworks
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2020, Free to Express and Listen Art Project, began its planning stages July 7, 2019, in the basement tucked inside Chicago’s MCA — the Museum of Contemporary Art, where even the walls sometimes wonder what “contemporary” means. Fast forward to 2025: Homme Made - Dundee Law, a concept sparked inside Millwoods Hope City Church, where Jesus — in this artistic retelling is cast as a man who lived his life with extra large love, and kindness than the average man.
Painted on the Alberta Legislature grounds by seven painters during Black History Month, February 2025 — the first six of us from all races (myself, Mister White: Doug Brinkman included) working under winter Alberta blue skies beside the 1867–1967 Centennial Fountain. The painting was completed later that spring inside Edmonton City Hall with the words added "missing", and inside Violet King Henry Plaza, named for Canada’s first Black female lawyer, educated at the University of Alberta. A plaza that has probably witnessed more quiet order than inside the Legislature’s disordered assembly ever did.
The YouTube Homme Made - Dundee Law, XL The Final Push, unapologetically anti‑war — calls out Muslims and Christians who fight in wars, ultimately killing women and children. Not to shame faiths, but to remind believers that their prophets didn’t preach artillery. The painting is dedicated to a white Edmonton lawyer, the late Dennis Edney, a Christian who defended a Canadian Muslim man pro bono — a man detained, tortured, and eventually released from the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison. Edney lived his life XL, extra larger, just like Jesus, and just like Chicago’s own Virgil Abloh, whose Figures of Speech taught the world that art doesn’t whisper — it interrupts.
In response to my fourth art ban at the Alberta Legislature, I created a personal line of T‑shirts, baseball caps, hoodies, and toques — because when the Speaker bans your art, your speech, and even your clothing labels (2020–2021), the only sensible move is to turn the ban into a brand. First came The Speaker’s Banned Speech and Wear, label and then — after every ban from 2016–2021 was addressed and removed by the Alberta Government, my LISTEN Label, worn inside City Hall, the Legislature, outdoor public Art Shows and Tells, and all points in between.
This year, both Hope City Church and the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market added themselves to the list of places that banned me over my artworks. Some institutions preach openness; others prefer the comfort of closed doors. Either way, my brand fits!
I don’t believe in the devil, heaven, or hell as literal places. Evil seems to come from the choices we make — which means I can’t blame a horned villain or a fiery pit. Scripture feels like human beings trying to understand life, and I still find real wisdom in it: Jesus teaching courage and compassion, the Qur’an speaking of moral responsibility, the Torah telling stories of people stumbling toward meaning. I live with gratitude for life, and if there is a God behind that gratitude, then I’m thankful — though I admit I don’t know who or what that might be. I have faith in myself, in the voice within, and each day I try to do good, be humble, be brave, and avoid judgment, even though I know I’ll slip.
I wear my art bans by past Governments like a badge of honour. I never asked for it, never wanted it, and I’m still not sure why they even bothered — but it sits there like an accidental medal. Maybe it proves I stirred something. Maybe it proves nothing. Either way, I keep painting. Democracy, to me, is the same kind of mystery as faith — a fragile thing held together by ordinary people choosing to show up. Nature teaches the same lesson: flocks, herds, forests, storms — all moving in patterns we pretend to understand but never fully do. That’s why I created the Birds of a Feather Art Project. People gather, paint, share stories, and stand shoulder to shoulder like a flock. No hierarchy, no doctrine, no gatekeepers. Just human beings trying to make something good together. My beliefs don’t fit neatly into any religious box. They come from respect, honesty, and appreciation — and from the simple truth that I don’t pretend to know more than I actually do. AI Edited.
Click on my Quick-Drawn Conclusions to expand: Good leadership in politics isn’t about mastering the game with media colleagues or staying one step ahead of being exposed. When politics turns into a performance built on avoiding accountability, it’s only a matter of time before the act collapses. 31st. Legislature.
It is, admittedly, one of the great Alberta political ironies of the moment: Naheed Nenshi, having inherited the NDP’s historic Old Strathcona stronghold — a riding so orange it practically glows in the dark — is now preparing to abandon it for a Calgary seat in the next provincial election. A symbolic migration, really: the party’s new leader returning to his old municipal stomping grounds, leaving Edmonton’s safest NDP district to fend for itself while he re‑roots himself in the city that made him famous. And yet, for all the talk of renewal, modernity, and progressive momentum, Nenshi presides over a predominantly female Loyal Opposition caucus — a striking visual in the Legislature, though the party machinery around them still feels unmistakably like a man’s world. The optics say one thing; the habits of this union driven political party says another.
Typically, on most days in the Alberta 31st Legislature, the press gallery seats sit empty during question period. The Premier shows up on time and stays for the full shift, listening to questions from members. Meanwhile, the Loyal Opposition Leader arrives late, punches out early, and leaves the chamber to its echoing acoustics. But the moment the cameras appear, the gravitational field changes. Often, after question period for the leaders, I take the elevator from the fourth floor down to the basement, next to the cafeteria — as I’ve done countless times before — and find the room suddenly packed with reporters, lights, cameras, and Mr. Nenshi drawing full attention from the legacy media. The Legislature chamber may be half‑empty, but the basement scrum is standing‑room only. It’s a choreography Alberta politics knows well: the performance happening not where laws are debated, but where microphones and loyal photo ops create a clustered F... Grande Staged Democracy.
Humbled, and Honour your Family's Heritage, Heritage Day in Alberta. I’m Irish‑English, third generation settler, living in the greatest city in Canada — Edmonton, Alberta — on the traditional lands of the brave peoples of the Treaty First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. God Bless our friends and neighbours America, God Save the King and may thier one day soon be peace over wars on Planet Earth, good will to all peoples. Remembrance Day November 11. Democracy Day September 15, and Alberta Day is August 30.
