My personal work—published through scholarly journals or as exhibition catalogue essays, shared through conference presentations—explores thematics such as identity and belonging; memory, storytelling, and the cultural artefact; and spirit of place. I also inquire into visual art as a mode of knowing, interdisciplinary practices (including those that unite visual content and texts in a kind of collage) and the nature of interdisciplinarity itself.

My contract projects include advocacy, research, education, and policy initiatives in arts, culture, broadcasting, and education, as well as creative work in television production (I am a member of the Writers Guild of Canada). I've developed content for print, voice, television, and—now with this site and its Auggie Chronicles—web. These latter projects give me an opportunity to explore my fascination with digital communications media.

While I can write a document of just about any kind, my specialty is developing lively texts for strategic communications-from the concept and research stage right through final drafts and design.

It's important to me that my writing supports the values in which I believe: publicly funded, universally accessible arts, education, and social programs; meaningful and moving popular culture (particularly Canadian culture); powerful, expressive arts. I believe my writing helps foster an environment that welcomes and sustains creative expression (my own visual art as well as the work of others) as well as arts-friendly teaching.

• Scholarly articles such as "Finding home: A walk, a meditation, a memoir, a collage" (2008), forthcoming in the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education 13(1); "Unraveling art and language, silence and speech in the making of Unwearable clothing" (2007), in J.G. Knowles, A.L. Cole, L. Nielsen, and T.C. Luciani (Eds.), Visual research: Making the strange visible (Halifax, NS: Backalong Books & The Centre for Arts-Informed Research); and "Pieced together: Collage as an artist's method of interdisciplinary research," (2005) published in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods 4 (1), Article 3.

  

• My most extensive scholarly work to date is my dissertation, Finding Home: Knowledge, Collage, and the Local Environments, (2006), comprising a full-length text that interweaves memoir with theoretical discussion and research, as well as a mixed media visual art installation.

  

• Popular articles such as "Educational Television in Canada: 'Television that matters'" (1999), included in an expanded French-language version of Educational Television: What Do People Want? (Télévision Éducative : que veut le public?) Coordonné par Michèle Cohen et Manfred Mayer, 2000); "Through the Looking Glass: Adventures in art and neuroscience" in Matriart: A Visual Arts Magazine, Volume 6, Numbers 2 & 3 (Special double issue on "Women's Body, Women's Health"), 1996; and "Working With Images: Healing in Artistic Practice and Depth Therapy", Matriart (Fall 1993)

  

• Catalogues and personal essays related to my visual art practice, including Modes of knowing and artistic practice: of beauty, bog bodies and brain science, MFA independent study thesis (1995); and Family stories and family snaps: word and image in The Heirloom Series (1995)

  

• Essays such as grapes, ghouls, ghosts and green moonlight, relating to Terra Incognita, an exhibition of the photographs of Rose Kallal and Normand Rajotte, co-curated with Marsha Wineman, Gallery TPW, Toronto (1999)

  

• Conference presentations such as these recent contributions:
  • "Art as research/Research as art" (at the Ontario College of Art and Design's symposium, Big Talk: Community and Conversations in Art and Design Education, April 29, 2005);
  • "Performance and silence, oil and water, warp and weft: Weaving divergent theoretical impulses into visual arts based research" (at the Qualitative Interest Group (QUIG) 2005 Conference on Art as Research & Research as Art, January 7-9, 2005);
  • "Visual art as prosthetic memory: The family photograph as theorizing object" (performative paper as part of a panel presentation at the Qualitative Research Interest Group 2005 Conference on Art as Research & Research as Art, January 7-9, 2005);
  • "Stitch by stitch: Of fathers and fabrics and finding home [within]" (performative paper as part of a panel presentation at the Diaspora, Memory and Silence Conference, October 24-25, 2003);
  • "Making it up as we go along: Reflections from artists learning to teach" (at the Imagination in Education Research Group Conference, July 16-19, 2003);
  • "Arising from the bog: An artist/scholar digs into submerged ways of knowing" (at Seeing Things: Vision, Knowledge and Power International Conference, University of Western Ontario, May 2-5, 2003); and
  • "Collage: a way to think about and practice interdisciplinarity" (at Crossing Over: Negotiating Specialization in an Interdisciplinary Culture Conference, University of Regina, October 25-27, 2002)

  

• Personal projects such as The Auggie Chronicles, this site's on-line journal of my occasional articles about my dog -- an opportunity for me to explore on-line writing.

  

• Research reports (within the university) on projects related to new teachers' experiences (as research coordinator for Tracking graduates' success in the teacher job market and experiences in teaching, Parts 1 & 2, Faculty of Education, York University, 2003, 2004) and on teachers' implementation of the arts in their classrooms (as graduate research assistant for Beginning teachers' prospectives and constructions of social equity and social difference: Implications for teaching practices (in universities and in schools), N. Norquay, Faculty of Education, York University, 2003).

  

• Research reports on principles and practices in art education (Ontario's Ministry of Culture, 2005); bullying of classroom teachers (James Matsui Research and the Ontario Elementary Catholic Teachers Association, 2005); French broadcasting worldwide (TVOntario, 2001); educational broadcasters' use of new technologies (ACCESS Television, 1999); the North American market for multi-media educational software (Leto Consulting, 1998); uses of television in Ontario classrooms (Shaw Cable, 1996); approaches to history in Canadian schools for the National Film Board (VIVA Associates, 1995); the impact of television advertising on children (TVOntario, 1992); case studies of successful international TV co-productions (TVOntario, 1989)

  

• Communications and advocacy campaigns, as well as brochures and promotional materials, for example, emphasizing the social and cultural importance of public funding to Ontario's citizens, artists, and arts organizations (Ontario Arts Council, 2000-01); promoting continued public funding to TVOntario at the time of its government review (1998); for DirecTV, direct-to-home satellite television (1994); the Elmer Iseler Singers' season of performances (1996); the launch of TFO, TVOntario's French-language educational television service (1987); and TVO's 15th anniversary celebrations (1985)

  

• Scripts for educational children's dramas (TVOntario's Galaxy Classroom, 1999-2000); on-air Membership fundraising campaigns (TVOntario, 1992-2002); and TVO's infomercial for children's merchandise (1998)

  

• License applications for television services -- policy and public relations documents describing the scope of service for proposed new digital television channels, DocsTV, Book Television, The Law and Order Channel (2000), and Canadian Learning Television (1993); and for the license renewal for TVOntario (1991), Ontario's public service, educational broadcaster

  

• Corporate documents such as Actrascope,the 32-page magazine for members of ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) (1992); TVOntario's corporate plans, annual reports (1993-94, 1995-96,1996-97,1997-98), and government funding submission (1990)

  

• Speeches emphasizing the importance of training in the business of the arts, for the Cultural Human Resources Commission (CHRC, 1995); celebrating TVOntario's 25th anniversary, for chairman Peter Herrndorf (1995); and presenting alternatives to media violence, for Joan Pennefather then chair of the National Film Board, with VIVA Associates (1993)

  

• Fundraising documents for cultural and enviromental organizations, various translations (French to English)

You'll note from the above that while based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, I've worked with clients the distance of an easy bike ride away, a continent away (near the Rockies in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), an ocean away (in Paris, France). Plus, some of my research projects are global in scope. In other words, if we work together, any distance between our locations is no issue.

If you would like further information on these projects or works in development, or to propose one on which we might work together, please contact me.

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