In Memory of Virgil Abloh, and Dennis Edney
XLife: Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love❤️This Story is Rooted in Love, Pressure, and the Fragility of First Hearts: There’s a 19‑year‑old woman in this city — as a girl raised in a home where faith is the compass, where expectations are spoken softly but carried heavily. And yet, none of that matters to her right now. Not the rules, not the rituals, not the future her parents imagine. Because her heart has locked onto one young man, and everything else has faded into background noise. She is in that all‑consuming state only first love can produce — the kind that feels like destiny, like oxygen, like the only story worth telling. She confides in everyone she trusts. Friends. Elders. Anyone who will listen. She talks in circles, in spirals, in late‑night monologues that stretch into dawn. She wants advice, but she also wants permission — permission to want him, to chase him, to believe that love alone can rewrite the world. But the young man she adores is not ready to give up his life for her. He cares, but not with the same fire. And that mismatch — that imbalance — becomes a slow, grinding ache. Her parents feel the strain. Her friends feel the strain. Even those who barely know her feel the emotional weather she carries into every room. And this is where the story becomes dangerous, because broken hearts can tilt in two directions: Toward irreversible trouble, when the pain becomes too heavy, when the world feels too small, when the future feels like a locked door. Or toward growth, where the heart cracks open just enough to let the light in, where the person steps forward changed but not destroyed. Most of us have stood at that fork, including myself, the painter.
XLife, 2025, Gifts of art from my project Birds of a Feather, exploring the feminine side of Faith, Democracy, and Nature — the paintings were gifted as follows: (left) Faith — given to a Generation Z female working in the Hope City Church café before security banned me from the church, March 15, after a year attending. Democracy — given to an elderly woman at the Alberta Legislature café, on behalf of all the kitchen staff. Nature — given to a middle‑aged female Commissionaire who guards one of the city’s most dangerous pedestrian pedways, the Central LRT. Coffee pots — painted on the backsides of each painting to represent the female form — were created by me (Faith and Democracy) and, for Nature, finger‑painted by two Generation Z female journalists, MacEwan graduates from last spring. A small gesture of giving of my gratitude in a city held together by the nature of women on the front lines of faith, democracy, and nature.
Since early retirement from my job as a graphic‑arts craftsman, I’ve painted more than 200 works, completed 10 social art projects, and staged hundreds of outdoor and indoor art shows in the public and private squares of Alberta— from the hiking trails surrounding the banks of Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park to the unwelcoming confines of Edmonton City Hall, where I also practice free press, and shared my stories as a citizen with a brush in hand. Left Stage, Exit Right: Free from ARTifICE, 2026 marks the beginning of a shift — a return to the basics of creativity where it began when we were young. XL
Art is Freedom
Left Stage, Exit Right
Free from Artifice
XLifeYZ