Westward Train, Cyr Junction NB

Westward Train, Cyr Junction, NB, 2018
Bruce Thomas
32x32
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.


Canada's railways are a viable, comfortable way to travel the country, including remoter destinations like the Maritime Provinces. Sometimes called simply "The Maritimes," the eastern trio of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island often conjures up images of Britain from wilder times, with upland bogs, spray-swept sea cliffs and picturesque fishing villages. Although Canada's trains do not go everywhere in the Maritime Provinces, the railways can provide vacationers a convenient way into and out of the region.

Where have you traveled by train?

Confederation Bridge, PEI

Confederation Bridge, PEI, 2018
Bruce Thomas
36 X 26
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.


The Confederation Bridge joins the eastern Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, making travel throughout the Maritimes easy and convenient. The curved, 12.9 kilometre (8 mile) long bridge is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, and a decade after its construction, it endures as one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th century.

Beach and Lighthouse, Antigonish NS

Beach and Lighthouse, Antigonish, NS
Bruce Thomas
30x26
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.


This is Antigonish and there was a storm blowing in from the Atlantic. But, I’ve really never really felt a gale-force wind until I got to Peggy’s Cove. At the coast, there are 60 foot waves. I filmed an interview there with the most interesting fisherman who was retiring that day. When I got back to my car to review the footage, all I could hear in the audio was the wind.

What was the best thing you almost had but just missed?

Faction: Where fact coexists with fiction. That’s Peggy. And if Peggy is a religion, I met the man. He’s fifth generation in his home on Peggy's Cove, has a 100 year old pump organ and was an expert on the legend of Peggy. Seek and ye shall find Peggy.


The story goes: "A schooner was wrecked on "Halibut Rock" off the Lighthouse Point, in a "Southeaster", in sleet and fog on a dark October night. The ship ran hard aground and with high waves washing her decks, some of her crew climbed to the masts, but the waves washed them into the boiling sea. Everyone on board was lost except a young girl, who managed to survive the turbulent seas, swam ashore and was finally rescued by the people on the shore. Her name was Margaret, and people came to visit Peggy of the Cove. How true this story is, no one knows, and there are no documents available to confirm or refute it."

In my opinion, Ivan is every bit as lengendary as Peggy
http://peggyofthecove.com/

Selections of Pulse East

The Great Wide Open,Huron County ON
Bruce Thomas
34x24
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied
Sold


Dawn,Parliment Hill Ott, ON
Bruce Thomas
28x24
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied
550$


Civilization, Ottawa, ON 
Bruce Thomas
28 X 24
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.
$550

This is Canada. A policy of distinct cultures. Global. On the cutting edge. One world looking out to another.

How will our domestic natural resource policies dictate what Canada will be in the coming years?


Les Voyageurs, 
Bruce Thomas
30x24
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.
Sold

Champlain's career in Canada started in 1603 on a voyage up the St. Lawrence. I say “career” because he had a job as a cartographer, an explorer and a governor of ‘New France’. He carried an astrolabe in order to produce maps and lost it in the wilds of Quebec’s interior sometime around 1613. Someone later found it in 1867 and after a stint in New York it now resides in the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Champlain established and developed a vast trade network over water and land by forming alliances. He was nomadic. Canadians are doing the same now: navigating foreign monetary policy, tariffs, and trade, for our water and our land, in English and French, on the information highway.

My trip east from Revelstoke, BC to PEI took me across 6 time zones from Pacific Time to Newfoundland Time. Canada’s big. Even now.

Where is the furthest remote destination in Canada that have you been?



Halifax Blues, 
Bruce Thomas
36 x 26
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.
$650

Halifax is a port town. It has the old world charms and the grittiness and the street edge and the modern amenities. There’s dancing everywhere. Music abounds. In the kitchen. In the big dance clubs. The night life is all about the music.
The Social.
There are five universities.
Good times.

In what Canadian City did you have the most memorable party experience?

Je me souviens de Charlevois, QC 
Bruce Thomas
32 x 22
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.
$600

Charlevoix is a haven of artistic innovation abound. Home to René Richard, a contemporary of the Group of Seven. Today, it’s an artist’s hub. They maintain a distinct culture and export their distinct culture to the world. There’s a lot of cottage industries: Wine. Art. Woodworking. Hiking. Biking. Boating. Skiing. Culinary.

We now export our culture. And, perhaps our old world charm.




What’s your favourite cottage industry here in Canada?

First Snow: The Great Eastern Star NB

First Snow: The Great Eastern Star, 
Bruce Thomas
32x42
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.

Canada is a snow culture. This was the first time I saw snow this year.
I was hiking in a vast forest in New Brunswick. It’s the quintessential Canadian hiking experience – hiking in a great, big pine forest.
This is my tribute to the East.

Where’s your quintessential trail?

ExpoLands Bio-Modular Development, Montreal PQ

ExpoLands Bio-Modular Development, Montreal, QC
Bruce Thomas
32 x 34
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.


I met three women in Montreal, originally from China, who co-owned a grocery store together. Their dreams were inspiring.

I parked the car and rented a Bixi rent-a-bike and rode around past the Expo 67 complex. The residences they built were the vision of how people would live and work together in the future. Convergence will define how our cities will move and grow.

What is the best urban planning idea you have heard of?

Gatineau Homestead,Ottawa Valley On

Gatineau Homestead,Ottawa Valley
Bruce Thomas
26x 20
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.

I went North through the mountains and valleys of wood people. That is, people who have survived on the lumber industry for the last 250 years.The ones I spoke to only wish to preserve the magic of the forest.

Where’s your favourite forest?

Harvest, Thousand Islands Region ON

Harvest, Thousand Islands, ON, Bruce Thomas
24x 18
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.

Canada was deemed completely inhospitable. Seven times they tried to colonize and people died of scurvy. I believe it wasn't until that tea – the one they made with white pine needles - that things turned around. Then they found fertile lands which gave way to the settlements and industrial food production.

How might food policy change our foreign policy in the 21st century?

Mik’maq Hunters Return, Bay of Fundy NS

Mik’maq Country Hunters Return, Bay of Fundy, NS
Bruce Thomas
32 x 18
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.
Sold


Light in Canada changes so dramatically. Seems to me the moon can be as bright as the sun. This is a picture of night culture. Again the hunter. Long traveling. Returning back via the Harvest Moon.

What is your opinion on wild game hunting?

Lake of Shining Waters, Cavendish PEI

Lake of Shining Waters, Cavendish, PEI,
Bruce Thomas
24 x 30
Multi-frame amalgamated on canvas with graphite, pastel spray acrylic and oil, pigmented resin and stencil applied.

I went to many churches in the Eastern provinces... Well, this is the stain glass – seen as frames of painted film. You cut the frames. Fit them together like a puzzle.
Then there was the beach. It was as if each frame was bookmarked as it passed through my lens. We have beaches in Canada.

Where’s your favourite Canadian beach?

Faces and places of maritime remembrance

Ottawa's vision of the future

Canadian PULSE Project II: The East

In ‘The Canadian PULSE Project’, Canadian Artist Bruce Thomas considers the Canadian landscape now 100 years after artist Tom Thomson made his quintessential Canadian landmark paintings.

Tom Thomson defined in part our national identity through his sense of adventure and the innate emotional/spiritual relationship with the Canadian landscape and the cultural history he identified with it.

Using research, discussions with today’s Canadians and today’s technology to form the basis of his multi-media project, Bruce Thomas set out last summer from Toronto, with his family, and traveled to British Columbia on the first leg of a three-leg tour. He interviewed more than 150 Canadians about Canada’s new landscape identity. His field recordings and drawings were synthesized and condensed into thirty ‘single frame’ mixed media compositions using his proprietary production process and produced for a three-day show in December 2009 at the Lennox Contemporary gallery.

As a result of his research and feedback from the show, Bruce concluded that 21st Century Canada is about how we manage our natural resources: it's about our goodwill with the elements and support for the corporations and industry groups that govern their harvesting, management and sustainability.

In this next leg of his tour, Bruce posits the question: What can I personally do to sustainable our Natural elements in Canada? So, in this second phase of his Canadian PULSE Project, Bruce traveled by air from Revelstoke, B.C. to Halifax and made his way back to Toronto, interviewing Eastern Canadians as he went in order to pulse their perspectives. The selection of the audio and video footage collected is posted to Bruce’s blog at: http://portableinspiration.blogspot.com/

The interviews were again synthesized and condensed onto canvas for this exhibition.

Why is a dialogue/interview the selected foundation of the creative process?
Enrolling people using there own voice to empower themselves promotes taking ownership. As Canadian, I believe we can have a practical impact on the policies that govern our natural resources. And, for the record, I am “pro” joining resource-based industries to help advocate my position.

Why the stewardship of our Natural resources and technological advancements is paramount to Canada's cultural identity for the next 100 years?
The world is only getting smaller... without the basic necessities of life which is our most valuable asset in Canada, these inspirations would not be possible.

What can we do?
I’ve used gold, copper and other minerals, water, wind and history to start a transcontinental movement, spanning the country from sea to sea, uniting the country in a singular purpose: the awareness of our landscape and its sustainability. I’m using today’s technology and all my creative acumen to hopefully inspire us