2017, Jodie smiles after all that...2026
Citizen Doug's Birds of a Feather, 13th, Social Art Project
Painted beside Herman Poulin’s Service Through Christ beginning April 15, 2019 — the day Notre‑Dame de Paris burned — this acrylic work (completed in 2021) carries the imprint of moments. The Alberta Legislature appears without its dome, a gesture toward unity and shared responsibility. It became a communal painting painted by many, including a Catholic woman approached, prayed for Canada’s leaders to be blessed, and then added flowers. Her words remain part of the piece: “When we love ourselves, it is incumbent upon us to love everyone around us and to do good. I pray for Canada, I pray for peace, I pray for unity, and I pray for leaders with compassion with the drive to bring unity today and forever.” Her prayer, her flowers, and the shared act of painting together transformed the artwork into a testament to service, and the idea that unity can sometimes be accomplished with art.
Free from Artifice
Doug Brinkman's Rare White Bird Gallery
In Memory of Virgil Abloh and Dennis Edney.
Birds of a Feather Inspired in part by
Jackie, Shadow, Gizmo, Sunny
Sandy and Luna.
Left Stage, Exit
Right!🍁
US
Pop pop Dazzled by Eveyday
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Alberta Wildfires, Floods, and
Notre Dame Cathedral burning,
...and my lifelong practice of free press
109 St. Bridge O’er Smokey Skies, Muddy Waters The High Level Bridge — built 1910–1913, once carrying streetcars, trains, cars, and the daily north–south pulse of Edmonton — stands now in a long pause, its future weighed by engineers and echoed in recent news stories. This YouTube pairs June 2014 with July 2026, two summers spliced across twelve years of change. Clear skies meet wildfire haze; steady brown river meets heavier muddy churn. The bridge does not move, yet everything around it shifts. A Pop pop Dazzled by Everyday, Presentation, cut‑up, the piece listens to a century‑old structure waiting its fate — suspended o’er the city’s past, o’er its uncertain future, o’er troubled waters and times.
🌹 White Roses in the Smoke: A Social Art Statement: I cultivate a white rose — not because I’m naïve, not because I’m holy, not because I’m trying to win a moral beauty contest — but because the alternative is to cultivate poison. And we’ve already got enough poison drifting through our skies, our forests, our politics, and our timelines. Canada is not at war with the United States. But Canadians are starting to act like they want to be. And that troubles me more than wildfire smoke. I’ve lived long enough to know that hatred is a cheap drug. It gives people a rush, a sense of righteousness, a feeling of control. But it also burns the lungs, the mind, the democracy.
2017-2019, The Flower Harvest, Scream!
Woody Allen would say we’re neurotically rehearsing disaster. Jello Biafra would say we’re sleepwalking into a cultural tantrum. And my own shadow — the one Jung introduced me to — whispers that the real enemy is always inside the house, not across the border. So I offer a white rose. Not as a symbol of surrender. Not as a denial of real grievances. But as a refusal to let bitterness become national identity. Jesus said to love your enemies. Martí said to give the same white rose to friend and foe. Joe Clark said we meet our fate together. And I agree: If we sink, we sink together. If we swim, we swim together. If we rise, we rise together. If we fall, we fall together. Because the river of life doesn’t care about borders. I’ve spent my life practicing citizen free press — documenting, painting, witnessing — not to divide, but to reveal. My art is intuitive, unplanned, born from dreams, visions, nightmares, and the river’s current. It’s social art because it comes from society’s shadow, not its spotlight. And right now, the shadow is telling me this: We cannot afford to turn neighbours into enemies. We cannot afford to turn smoke into hatred. We cannot afford to let fear write our national story. So here is my white rose, offered across the border, across the noise, across the algorithms: A rose for unity. A rose for clarity. A rose for the human race that still has a chance to choose connection over contempt. We meet our fate together.
Let’s not make that fate smaller than it needs to be.
