Court Painter & Shattered Destroyer of Israel & Hamas Prime Minister Netanyahu

Court Painter acknowledges his subjective choices for the Shattered Series, but hey, who among us hasn’t had schemes & dreams shattered?

shat·tered

/ˈSHadərd/

Shattered people are best represented by bits and pieces. Rainer Maria Rilke

Shattered Influencer Jordan Peterson

Shattered Prime Minister Trudeau

Shattered Convicted Felon Donald Trump

Shattered Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

Shattered Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

Shattered Deputy Prime Minister Christina Freeland

Shattered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu

Shattered Trump Running Mate & Senator JD Vance

Shattered Chair of the International Democrat Union Stephen Harper

Shattered Premier of Ontario Doug Ford

Shattered Morbidly Rich Elon Musk

Shattered Freedom Convoy Guy Pat King

Shattered Court Painter Press Attache AHM

Shattered Felon Conrad Black

Shattered Morbidly Rich Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch

Court Painter with a recent Shattered painting of morbidly rich Elon Musk

Images presented are from Variations on Boreal Smouldering 2024, by Allan Harding MacKay

Fire As an Agent, More Than a Tool

As alluded to early on, the existing literature suggests that

historically, Indigenous peoples understood that humans

were not the only agents of change in the boreal forest [70].

For Cree people for example, fire is seen as a being that has

a spirit. Offerings (like tobacco or sage) are made to the fire

spirit in ceremony (Phillip Campiou, Cree Elder, personal

communication).5 Baker [72] has documented a creation

story from Bigstone Cree Nation Elder Albert Yellowknee

when she asked about fire use in the boreal forest: “… the

creator breathes fire into two poplar trees for them to become

humans. In this sense, fire is a life-giving force. He reminded

me that everything is interconnected, fire included.” For

many, this understanding of sacred fire persists. More than

simply a form of combustion, landscape fires are understood

as being connected to a wider set of human-land relationships

and, in some cases, agents of change with profound

implications for those that interact with it.

Anishinaabe of Pikangikum First Nation Elders, located

in what is now northwestern Ontario, described fire in

relation to a larger cosmological reality, conferring agency

to beings like beenaysee eshkotay or thunderbirds, and

the process of burning itself. Miller and Davidson-Hunt

[47] explored how Elders perceived forest fires as beings

“which [possess] agency and who intentionally create order

in landscapes.”

Elders also discussed fire as an expression

of agency, a process capable of growth, travel, and both

a source of destruction and renewal. Resting at night and

active in the day, fire is understood as a living component of

the landscape. While fire destroys and takes life, it is also a

source of life. Burned areas are rapidly recolonized by plants

and animals and provide new growth and increased food

opportunity for both humans and relations [47], and have

other impacts on forest renewal.

For Shoal Lake Anishnaabe, as described by Berkes and

Davidson-Hunt [9: p. 42]:

In the Anishinaabe perspective, the Creator placed

the people in Iskatewizaagegan (Shoal Lake) and provided

everything that they would need for their survival

in that place. In return, the Anishinaabe hold

the responsibility to maintain these gifts. Practices

that harm these gifts can lead to consequences for an

individual or the individual’s family. At the landscape

scale, there is a basic duty upon the Anishinaabe not

to influence abundance or distribution of habitats. In a

workshop with elders in Pikangikum, the same principle

emerged and was concisely translated into English

as, “as was, as is”.

The creation of blueberry patches

through repeated burning was not seen as a contradiction

of this principle. Burning or other disturbance

simply reveals the different combinations of plants that

are naturally present in the landscape.

Further east in Labrador, for example, fire also has an

important role for the Innu in their cultural life, being the

center of many ceremonies [41•].

For Indigenous peoples in the boreal forest, fire is part

of a complex network of relationships beyond that of just

humans and fire. Fire is connected to a wide range of species

on which Indigenous communities depend on, and the

presence and absence of fire narrates how these relationships

between humans, plants, and animals transpire. This is similar

to how some other nonhuman entities such as glaciers,

rivers, plants, and wildlife are understood as active agents

and beings in the world [73, 74]. As such, several Indigenous

scholars have described relationships between human and

nonhuman beings in terms of treaties, care, and kinship [75,

76]. In some instances, fire is an important component of

strengthening these relationships [77•]. Instead of conceiving

fire exclusively as a tool, Indigenous peoples see fire,

humans, and other elements of the environment as active

components in the boreal, and link their epistemological

worldviews to the relations between human and nonhuman entities on the land.

Indigenous conceptualizations of fire,

relation and land offer radical alternatives to dominant

approaches to fire and the environment.

The boreal needs
fire [9], and people need the boreal

Conclusions

Indigenous knowledge systems have allowed Nations to

survive for thousands of years in a constantly changing

world [55•]. Indigenous peoples in the boreal have

applied fire on their landscapes for a multitude of reasons.

They understand fire as an active, alive agent. As

an agent, fire is capable of movement, destruction, and

creation, acting on the landscape to create order, within

a living, connected environment. Fire operates on the

landscape, co-existing with and challenging people of

the boreal forest.

This paper summarizes a diverse body of scholarly

literature documenting Indigenous perspectives and

interactions with fire on the landscape. This body of

research “collectively refute[s] the idea that… forests

are essentially unchanged by people, either in the past

or present day” [41•: p. 11]. This paper challenges the

dominant narrative of wildland fire history in the boreal

forest that has to date focused on large-scale fires and

has limited engagement with small-scale fires that often

escape the detection of large-scale measurements. Factoring

in small-scale burning, including Indigenous historical

accounts, allows for a more holistic and accurate

depiction of the place of fire in the boreal. As discussed

earlier, this paper also challenges the dominant narrative

that western biophysical research is the primary way of

knowing. Indigenous knowledges are presented as distinct,

holistic, and robust modes of knowing land and

fire that have been millenia in the making. We call on

our non-Indigenous colleagues who research on and write

about the boreal forest, to include Indigenous peoples

and perspectives in their work — not as footnotes or in

the acknowledgement sections, but as equal peers and

collaborators.

Due to climate and forest fuel changes, Indigenous communities

are at increased risk of evacuations and wildfire

related impacts [29, 62••]. There is increasing interest by

government agencies and non-Indigenous researchers to

“integrate” or “incorporate” Indigenous knowledge about

fire, including cultural burning practices, into colonial management

systems [138]. This enthusiasm to engage Indigenous

knowledge about fire must also include discussions

regarding Indigenous leadership and engagement in forest

and wildfire management decisions, including training, certification,

and liability issues. Indigenous peoples should

not only be informing decision-makers. There needs to be a

shift in power so that they are the ones making the decisions

about their own territories.

Text Excerpted from Centering Indigenous Voices: The Role of Fire in the Boreal Forest of North America 27 July 2022

Unfortunately the PDF version would not upload for this post.

Court Painter proudly presenting the work of his Press Attache AHM

Images are based on a digital reworking of selected originals from the Boreal Smouldering Series,2016 by Allan Harding MacKay

What our grief for Jasper tells us about our love for the natural world

As Jasper wildfires make international headlines, our awe for the storied place transcends political parties, policies and posturing

Article: Emma Gilchrist THE NARWHAL

• https://thenarwhal.ca/jasper-fire-grief/

EXCERPT from article

As Edward Struzik, author of Dark days at noon: The future of fire, writes for The Conversation: “Fire has no ideology or preferences; it will always be quite simply a chemical reaction, a propulsive oxidation of hydrocarbons shaped by terrain, weather, climate and the combustible material around it. We must learn to live with fire, and find ways of containing it for fire will never learn to live with us.”

Struzik says the devastation in Jasper reinforces just how much we need a national wildfire strategy to bring together all levels of governance to map out a blueprint for how to better predict, prevent, mitigate and manage fires, and how to provide small communities with the resources they need to make them more resilient.

The true solutions aren’t sexy and don’t make for great soundbites. They’re multi-faceted, and require coordination and funding. And even with our best efforts, we are still going to live with the reality that many Canadian communities are situated amidst vast forests, in a warming world more prone to drought, heatwaves and fire. So uncertainty around fires is going to be part of our reality moving forward, like it or not. 

Here’s what we do know: for every story like Jasper that captures international headlines, there are thousands more hectares of forest being burned to the ground, dozens more communities — many of them Indigenous — threatened by flames, millions of animals with no evacuation centres to run to and hundreds more families driven from their homes. 

Every place being burnt to the ground holds emotional resonance for the people who live there, just as Jasper has that power to connect deeply with people from around the world. Let’s remember that as we grieve for Jasper.

By Lucas Casaletto, The Canadian Press Jul 25, 2024 01:38:15 PM

Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and its parent company, George Weston Ltd., have agreed to pay $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit regarding their involvement in an alleged bread price-fixing scheme.

The class-action case was brought against a group of companies, including Loblaw and the Weston companies, Metro, Walmart Canada, Giant Tiger, and Sobeys, and its owner, Empire Co. Ltd.

The plaintiffs allege those companies participated in a 14-year industry-wide price-fixing conspiracy between 2001 and 2015, which artificially increased packaged bread prices.

George Weston will pay $247.5 million in cash, while Loblaw will pay $252.5 million, which includes $156.5 million in cash and credit for $96 million previously paid to customers by Loblaw under the Loblaw Card program.

click link for previous post

Skimmin’ $Bread off the Bread

elegiac

[ el-i-jahy–uhk, -ak, ih-lee-jee-ak ]

expressing sorrow or lamentation:

Court Painter got all fired up and whipped off a few paintings about boys!

The Good ole boys and morbidly Rich boy snuggle together in common cause

Morbidly Rich boy with Good ole boys

Good ole boys Donald J Trump & JD Vance snuggle in common cause

President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he is stepping aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential contest and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s nominee.

A pensive President Biden

A feisty VP Kamala Harris

elegiac

[ el-i-jahy–uhk, -ak, ih-lee-jee-ak ]

expressing sorrow or lamentation:

Donald Trump & his VP pick JD Vance hangin’ out

JD Vance in a relaxed mood after his being picked as Trump’s VP running mate.

The Donald seen with his promotional Trump Tea bag hung rakishly over his right ear.

The Court Painter persists in his endeavors to capitalize on the latest exploits of The Donald through the rendering of studio masterworks offered freely on the internet as a public service.

For example : In a spectacle both audacious and brilliant; The Donald in a spirit of calming the waters unveiled his latest promotion by theatrically suspending a Trump Tea bag over the flesh wound on his right ear. While Kool-Aid has traditionally been offered to cultish devotees, Trump Tea promises to elevate idolatrous devotion through its revolutionary symbolism and soothing sycophantic effects and is a perfect refreshment for celebrating the dismantling of US democracy as blueprinted in the Project 2025/ Presidential Transition Project.

“One sip and you’ll flip”

Both the Court Painter and The Donald are united by their mercenary inclinations, ever eager to seize any opportunity to bolster their coffers. Yet, thus far, it is only The Donald who has tasted the sweet nectar of success.

The following images are meant to illustrate the dignity that is expected when serving Trump Tea and Court Painter thanks the anonymous actors for their participation in these enactments of the white female chapter of the anticipated 2025 tea party.
(Court Painter appears as eye candy)