Left Stage, Exit Right
Free from Artifice, Art Project
2018, Last of the Alberta Caribou
Paint a deer, and you will see, my Muslim Teacher said to me. So I painted three.
Birds of a Feather marks my thirteenth social art project since 2013—the year I was laid off and redirected my life’s work from a newspaper printing press to a paintbrush, paint, and canvas on an easel. In that rupture, I turned my canvases and my news camera toward three enduring pillars that have carried me ever since: Faith, Democracy, and Nature. I followed those pillars through the streets and, eventually, into the Alberta Legislature and Edmonton City Hall, letting public space become both my art studio and my newsroom. Along the way, I filled sketchbooks with doodle notes and distilled moments into Quick‑Drawn Conclusions—a practice sharpened by nine years of being refused a press pass, forcing me to witness, record, and interpret from the margins. Through my news lens, I traced how these forces shape the arc of my own life and the lives of many from other walks of life, challenging me to see—and to try to understand—where we all stand on this single‑organism planet Earth, suspended in the present with a future unknown. In the end, I turned my news story into a work of art, listening, observation, while letting the creative minds of many share my canvas..
This journey is rooted in my lifelong practice of free press, which began at age 17 when I served as editor of my high school newspaper, Out To Lunch. Storytelling has always been my way of engaging with the world—an act of civic expression that fuses journalism and art to provoke dialogue, amplify the overlooked, and illuminate the unseen.
...another Trouble Maker
Richard Douglas Brinkman
Birds of a Feather Art Project
13th Social Art Project Since 2013
Citizen Free News,
2007-2026
Art Show & Tell, of a Point of Order, add a little ice cream, my just reward. A young woman, lingering with a tattooed crowd in downtown Edmonton near the library, complimented my artwork. After finishing my rapidly melting ice cream in the 24°C heat, I walked over to her gang to show the backside, titled Disorder. Suddenly, a young man lunged at me. "Get the f*** away from here!" he snapped. Before I could react, the group's matriarch—Mama Tattoo—spoke up. "I like your painting," she said, her voice steady. The young man’s demeanor shifted. He looked at the artwork again, his expression softening. "That's an amazing piece of art," he admitted.
It is, one of the great Alberta political ironies playing out next to Alberta Separation: 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 say 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).
2025, Disorder, painted on the reverse side of Point of Order. Life’s too short for small labels. LISTEN label fashion wear is my personal XLife Sports Hats, Hoodies and Winter Toques of Alberta. Worn outside the galleries: Sports Jersey Covers-Up for my corporate news media distracting T-Shirts.
