|
Photo by Lynne Belfry
About Jon:
Jon was born in California of
Canadian parents. He grew up on the edge of the wilderness
and spent his younger years playing alone on the sage-covered
hillsides and along the willow-choked creeks. Jon sailed
off-shore alone when he was 15, worked deep sea ships when he
was 19, provided refugee relief in Viet Nam when he was 21,
married and worked with disturbed children when he was 23, lived
in a self-built log cabin in central BC, working as a mechanic when
he was 27, fathered two children, farmed in Alberta until the
age of 31 and then got trapped by "The Island" while on vacation
in B.C.
They don't have cowboys on the island and they don't have farms, but once the island gets a hold on you,
that kind of stuff doesn't matter any more. When you arrive here,
you're home.
Throughout all of his struggles in understanding life, love, the earth, spirit,
Jon keeps coming back to the expression, "It's all one thing." His
writing, his choice of images, his revelations all lead him to the understanding
taught to him by his mother to see God in a blade of grass.
Jon has worked in collaboration with Lynne
Belfry in the Earth Visions section of this Artists for Peace collection.
Together, they decided on images of Sointula, and then he reacted through his
writing to the images which were photographed by Lynne.
|