Blue Rocks after the Storm, 18x24". Available for sale from the artist's studion $1200, unframed. This week I decided to complete one painting per day. Here and below are the results TGIF! The larger paintings were of course partially painted at the beginning of each day. The smaller ones took a complete day from start to finish. Time was: I used to dash off two a day.

Fish Barrow, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia,  acrylic on canvas, framed, $250. Finished at the nend of May, 2008

Spring Brook, completed late May, 2008, 8x10" acrylic on canvas, framed. Early spring is a colourful counterpart of the fall except that those yellow, orange and red variants last for a much briefer time being quickly supplanted by a mask of chlorophyll green. Available from the studio. Only $250 postpaid. Always returnable.

Rod Mackay's new painting, The Duck Pond,  Walanna Farms, acrylic on canvas, 10x20". I have no category for this one in my virtual gallery. I do not often paint fauna, but here is one, and it is for sale : $700 postpaid. Available from the artist's studio or  by mail order.

Rod Mackay is pleased to announce participation in  a group show entitled "The Art Of The Garden"  which will, hopefully, celebrate the advent of Spring.

Please join all of us at MOXIE, the gallery for an Opening Reception on Sunday, April 27, 2-5 p.m.

Freeware images for you to us on your website!

Attorney and economist Michael Shuman is the Vice President for Enterprise Development for the Training and Development Corporation, based in Bucksport, Maine.
He is  the author of five books including The Small Mart Revolution and Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age. He has written numerous articles on the relationship between community and international affairs. His work has appeared in The Nation, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, and The Washington Post.

"In his version of the future, Dhuman predicts a resurgance of local shops and industries, and perhaps not by choice. As oil prices continue to skyrocket, transportation patterns will change. Consumers will be less willing to drive long distances to the big box stores; global manufacturers will lose much of their competitive edge because of the escalating cost of shipping their goods. According to Shuman, fuel prices will level the playing field for small business. And in the long run there is nothing to fear." -Tom Cruickshank, editor Harrowsmith Country Life. I can agree with most of this but think there is everything to fear in these cold lands of the north as new ways of doing things develop!

Cruikshank points to a simpler more self-sufficient world before the automobile era. Actually  the 1940' saw a much reduced role for the automobile, and in these times, only a few decades ago, we have a model for what may lie ahead. In those six years of war practically everything was made locally or not far down the railway line. I was personally acquinted with a diverse number of artisan/merchants. There was a cotton mill in town, an axe factory, a candy factory, a massive lumber mill, an axe factory, and neighbourhood stores and blacksmith shops by the score. For items not avaliable in town there was mail order. My grandfather would have been aghast at the idea of driving more than a mile to buy clothing, groceries or hardware at a big box store. What a gigantic waste of time to save a few dollars!

featured on my home page.In any event,  this concept has led me to an expansion of my Neo-Victorian Kids essay The time following World War II might be appropriately labelled, "The rise and fall of practically everything - traditional religion,  standard political belief, local ownership of businesses,  the good life. Briefly ascendent was a trust in technology and science which has since proven to be misplaced.

December 25: On the home page accress buttons to a massivbe new effort  detailing what Rod remembers of life on the home front before and during World War II.

December 24, 2007. Rod illustrates the steps taken in completing this portrait.

December 11, 2007. Rod Recalls Christmas memories from St. Stephen in simpler times.