Time out, Coffees On!
Richard Douglas Brinkman, XLife at 71
Below is The Grande Stage Democracy (2021), painted on the reverse side of my long‑running collaborative piece The Legislature Has No Dome, Unity (2019–2026). That back‑and‑front pairing—one surface layered by many hands, young and old—remains a living metaphor for how democracy is built: not by the news media or grand speeches, but by shared marks, shared mistakes, shared colours.
Citizen Free News continues...
Art is Freedom, Free Press
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So thank you to every kid who grabbed my paintbrush, dipped into my paints, and showed me how to find the child within. You reminded us to lighten up, step away from a woeful world, and rediscover the simple act chilling out and having fun.
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2026 Summer Notes — Quick‑Drawn Conclusion Cartoons & Public Listening. While the private properties with limited public access—Edmonton City Hall and the Legislature—remain adjourned for the summer, my listening practice continues. I’ve been honing it through Quick‑Drawn Conclusion Cartoons, drawn from my roaming public gallery of Doodle Notes. This work unfolds wherever the city still allows a body to stand and pay attention: indoors at City Hall, in the basement corridors of the Legislature, and outside in the publicly limited streets and squares of Edmonton. Not all artists are free...
2026‑07‑27 — Summer July Month's End, Painters Notes: Birds of a Feather Art Project — Faith, Democracy, and Nature. From July 17–25, despite wildfire smoke and sudden swings of extreme weather, the outdoor painting season carried on. Safe windows were brief, but they were enough. Works emerged both indoors and outside—some by my own hand, others by guests aged 3 to Generation Z and up who picked up a brush, and added their mark.
Free lessons, shared news stories, and spontaneous collaborations stitched the days together. The young people, as always, proved to be the finest art teachers. They paint for the sheer joy of it—moms, dads, grandparents, aunties, uncles watching on—while I, a painter who has lived all those roles too, relearned what I’d forgotten. Children carry a fearless confidence, a natural intuitiveness in how they place colour and commit to a stroke. Adults lose that over time, trading instinct for doubt, fear, and ego.
