#Introduction thread:
I was born in Edmonton, Canada (#YEG) and have lived my whole life here (which is quite rare).
(This photo is of the downtown skyline in August of 2011)
I am retired from a professional life in technology. I have an Electrical Engineering degree and my career specialized in telecommunications (IT) and more specifically I focused on public safety communications/radio systems. My jobs involved engineering, teaching and management.
Despite having had a longish career in technology, I never imagined it was the one thing that I was meant to do. I can easily imagine my life having taken a variety of quite different paths if different opportunities had been encountered at key times.
I might have ended up (still might) as a painter or sculptor, a musician, a teacher, a coach or a scientist/researcher.
Which is to say that I have a lot of varied interests. 🙂
If my past social media activity is an indicator I will probably be sharing a lot of my photography here.
I started in photography as a teen using film and loved when I could work in a darkroom. These days I work digitally using a Nikon D810 DSLR, a Coolpix W300 point and shoot and my handy Samsung Galaxy S9.
My usual photo subjects are landscapes, nature & architecture (occasionally abstracted or black and white).
I take photos for their own sake as well as to use as references for paintings.
I also will be sharing some of my paintings (hopefully, as I have been in a slump for a few years).
I fell in love with painting decades ago, inspired by van Gogh and the French Impressionists and by Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Later it was the Abstract Expressionists. Their influences are still felt.
I use acrylics, oils, pastels and a few other media.
My subjects are typically landscapes (abstracted to some degree) or pure non-representational.
Here are a few of my older works:
My musical tastes are wide but are most strongly rooted in rock/pop music from the 1970s. A few perennial favorites are Chicago (early), Yes (Close to the Edge era), Talking Heads and Kate Bush.
I also appreciate classical, and world/folk music but I don't know or listen to them as much as I would like.
Then there is JAZZ, my favorite in recent years, especially the hard/post-bop styles from the 1950/60's. I appreciate many different jazz sub-genres from swing and be-bop, to free and fusion.
I am also an amateur music maker. I have been playing trumpet for the last decade in concert and jazz big bands with the Cosmopolitan Music Society and with jazz combos and big bands with MacEwan U. Conservatory.
The first instrument that I seriously studied was accordion. I took lessons on it for a number of years as a pre-teen. In junior high school I first started playing trumpet.
Other instruments that I have, (and occasionally try to learn) are recorders, guitar and bass.
Another defining interest of mine is cycling (although I have to admit my most active days are far behind me). I love many aspects of bicycling but especially cycle touring which I had done a lot of back in the 1980's. I fondly remember a couple of 3-4 week tours in France, one in Scotland, another in the Gulf/San Juan Islands and shorter supported tours in the Canadian Rockies (Banff-Jasper and the Golden Triangle).
I am a runner - for a good part of my life that was my core identity (sadly not so much in recent years). I would run to stay healthy, to relax / re-energize / meditate and to explore new places.
As a teenager I was a competitive track sprinter (and a less competitive cross-country runner), but running dirt trails was/is my happy place).
As an adult I got into road racing and went on to complete 4 marathons. I was especially proud of my best time: 3:13:46 (not bad for a sprinter!)