Happy Birthday, 2020.
12″ x 16″,
 Oil & acrylic on canvas

A Memento Mori is an object or image which serves to remind the viewer of the inevitability of death. Historically speaking the intent of the Memento Mori was to advise the viewer to forsake temporal pleasures and attend to the spiritual life which theoretically transcended death. 

For myself, the Memento Mori reminds me to appreciate the gifts of life, as life is fleeting and an after-life is far from certain.

The bee in this painting is a stand in for me. My name, Debbie.lee, means bee, according to some interpretations. I painted this memento mori to celebrate my birthday and the completion of another cycle around the sun. The incorporation of the Covid-19 virus in the floral decoration on the plate commemorates the specific year, it’s most significant event, and is a reminder not to take for granted the pleasures of life life and good health, for who knows what lies ahead.

This painting is not currently for sale, however if you are interested in limited edition prints contact me and I will add you to a pre-order information list.Yes, add me to the list!

Last week I talked about my reasons for revisiting a painting, so I won’t go into that much here. What I will talk about, are the changes I made to this one, and why.

Amoung the many funny things I could be entertained by in this antique image of the west, one of the things that kept happening as I looked at it, was my increasing identification with the contested object of the narrative. The bull is trussed up and appears to be at risk of being re-branded by cattle rustlers. Our hero and heroine have happened upon this scene and have rushed in to defend the bull from the cattle rustlers. But they are not defending the bull, they are defending property.

It appears that when the image was made the bull clearly resided in the realm of objects which are owned, and can be stolen. Stella (who in marriage would have been classified as chattel herself) stands on the bull like a piece of furniture. Today, the bull is both an object to be owned and a being which needs to be humanely cared for. Though the bull is the centre of attention, no one bothers to ask whom he prefers to go home with. So I decided to give him a voice.

This painting might look familiar. It was Dime Novel 1903. The funny thing is, I often paint something because it is a longer form of thinking about the thing. There is something there that I need to get to the heart of, so I need to chase that thought down through the act of painting it. Sometimes the thought keeps circling after the painting is ‘finished,’ and I need to revisit it. That is the case with both of the Dime Novel Paintings. I will talk a little about Dime Novel 1907 next week.

So what was it about 1903 that brought me back? I was fascinated then as now by the conflicting image of the notorious criminal and civil war era terrorist as a fictionalized American Robin Hood character. In this particular cover I was drawn to the relationship between this vulnerable looking girl who seems to be both serving as a human shield and being shielded by the James character.

I knew James was married to his first cousin, a pastors daughter, Zerelda Mimms James. He was already active in his violent career when they wed. It seems like one of those relationships where outsiders ask, ‘what did she see in him?’

It is an interesting question to think about the intimate companions of some of our most infamous characters. How much do they see or know of their spouses actions.  Do they know their spouses true nature, be it killer or lover? Are they ignorant, in denial, or complicit in some way?

These questions led me to add the locket portrait of Zerelda, balanced against the markings in the margin representing the violent side of James legacy.

The New Homeland is one of the latest paintings in my Western Series, which you can see here. The New Homeland is based on a Canadian immigration poster advertising settlement to the Canadian West (Manitoba and west). There is a very specific type of immigrant that seems to be advertised for in this promotion. Young, healthy, family and agriculture oriented, and of a very specific ethnic background. However, though this campaign from between the world wars was looking for a specific image of the Canadian immigrant to build a new homeland, there were a great variety of countries that contributed immigrants to the building and development of Canada. So I decided to set the poster against a background of some of the national flags (of the time) of the nations people left behind to start their lives over in Canada.

Salvation is one of the latest paintings in my Western Series, which you can see here. Salvation is based on a Sifton era (1896-1905) Canadian immigration poster. The image depicts an angelic harvest figure which appears as though in a dream, showing the plenty and prosperity that could be had for the immigrant who braved the ocean voyage, the cold, isolation, and the breaking of the land, to uproot families and make a one way journey to Canada. Many of these immigrants would have spent generations never straying farther than 50 miles from home. I had to wonder what the conditions were like where they were coming from in order to make that sort of leap of faith.

Finding A Dance Partner is one of the newest paintings in my Western Series, which you can see here. This painting references an immigration poster advertising the charms of Canada to potential immigrants during the early years of the 20th century. Particularly, in this case, potential single female immigrants. During this time in Britain their was a great deal of discussion about the problem of the extra female population, for whom world conflicts had reduced the number of eligible mates. At the same time there was an imbalance (in the other direction) in the ratio of male to female immigrants to Canada. The idea of immigrating for better marital prospects, which the image seems to suggest is the idea, seems like a huge step. She put her eggs all in one basket and took the White Star Line across the ocean, but look at all the eggs she has to choose from now! This is a fascinating idea to think about coming from the first half of the 21st century, where love is still a huge part of life, but hardly the defining element of a woman’s life. Far from life and death, it is in some circles a  game, even being played in front of television audiences.

Cowboy Coffee is a painting from my Western series. You can see more here.

Painted on a bandana background, it refers to Cowboy culture prior to the invention of barb wire fencing, which led to the fencing off of range land and permanently changed ranching culture in North America.

Previously ranching operations ranged freely across much on north america, with herds intermingling. The job of Cowboy was crucial and harsh. Rounding up and herding, sorting and branding cattle on the open range; cowboys lived with the cattle for the season, eating, sleeping and working on the range in makeshift and improvised settings.

The text of this painting, Free Range Coffee, playfully alludes to both this reality, and to the current desirability of free range ranching practices as part of the ethical treatment of livestock, though it can’t hope to approach the scope of that earlier free range.

While branding is seen as a questionable practice for some, it was also an indispensable practice for free range ranching of that era, without which it would have been difficult to maintain an open borders practice while tracking livestock ownership. The painting includes three brands (in the flames in front of the coffee pot), belonging to three of the big four founders of the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede.