WEIRD ART, STORY TELLING AND STREET PAINTINGS! The trees have assimilated mechanical foliage battle armor in order to survive the se constituently technological times! In 2009 my public performances started to change as I started doing a lot less live paintings in order to spend more time and energy on the story telling aspect of my artworks. By this time every picture had its own parable providing me an opportunity to incite discussions with anyone who happened to glance at the art. In the five years I worked as a full time street performer (2004-08) I’d developed an unusual manner for presenting my art and was always excited to gather crowds around me and make them listen to my weird tales.


The 2009 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition was a perfect venue for me to put my story telling to the test. The crowds were constant and incredibly diverse as usual.  I met collectors, art lovers and tourists as well as all kinds of people who just happen to pass through the show.  It is this chance element that make working in public that much more interesting than any other venue I have discovered so far. Similar to the spontaneous introductions I enjoy the spontaneity of live story telling.

The fun part is guessing, tweaking and changing the stories as I go in order to best suit the particular audience at any given time. One of my favorite things was to catch people who seem to dislike the drawings and try to convince them with a little parable that the work is alright. Sometimes I would end up telling the same story in several different ways depending on the age, class, and level of interest or attention the viewer might presents. I call this technique “marching Zen” and was busy stomping all over my booth spouting fables in my seventh appearance at the T.O.A.E. in ‘09.

Once again I used my 10 x 20 foot red portable galley for this show. I decorated the back walls of the display with detailed pen and ink artworks and a series of street style graffiti paintings including a live 6 x 6 foot performance. On the main wall of my booth I exhibited the complete original pages of a graphic novel. This was really exciting because I got to watch people read the whole comic and see their reactions.

The presentation also permitted me the opportunity to guide younger viewers through all the weird art. Needless to say the debut of the graphic novel was a giant success and by the end of the show I had told so many stories I nearly lost my voice.