My mother is a painter. I would sit for her when I was a little boy. She sketched in charcoal or oil pastels. I think it is all thrown away now but I remember one of my profile sitting in a small chair. It felt sort of real, therefore spooky. I liked looking at art and going to the Winnipeg art gallery just for fun. Had the most stunning experience at 14. A show of Joe Fafard, long before the cows. These were miniature sculptures of people from a small town in Saskatchewan. As far as I could tell they were absolutely alive. Mind blown, spooky. Almost 10 years later, first time Blue Rodeo played Vancouver  I read about an opening of Joe Fafard’s work the next day (the cows) and I went. So excited I might meet the master but he already left, but I saw the new work, just as awesome would not have surprised me if they moo’d or left a cow-pie. In recent years I was visiting Winnipeg and saw a retrospective of his work, at the same place I first saw it, as amazing as ever.  Mendelson Joe once told me he went to Joe Farfard’s house in the late 70s. He described it as filled with art everywhere, moment by moment, he was blown away too. His son is a musician, a guitarist. I don’t know his work very well but I can tell from the press he’s accomplished. I met his daughter once she was then a jeweller selling her work at a Christmas show at Lithuania House in Toronto. I liked something she made and took her card and then read her surname asked if she was related to the big cheese. Not a surprise children of an artist become artists too. My mother a painter my father an optometrist, guess I should insert a joke about my vision.