Some comments relating to these photographs:

I come by gardening honestly, my dad Martin Pas was a professional landscaper. My youth was spent around landscaping design, nurseries, greenhouses, flowers, and plants. I worked with my father for many years in his garden maintenance business. My son Joshua, workers and I take care of the grounds of a Monastery of nuns called Precious Blood Sisters here in London. It is no showpiece because the Sister’s lack the resources but it helps “keep the wolf from the door”. I don’t need any more wolves in my life, so I'm grateful for the lack of stress. My wife, Maria, and I love to work in the garden and we share the work.

"I spent the better part of the winter of 2004 to the spring of 2007 being depressed and cynical about my career as an artist. The emphasis is on career, which can sometimes create a nasty 'cycle of arguments' with the actual emotion of making art. The results of this period are these photographs as I spent little time finishing any objects or paintings.

It’s not that I'm unhappy but I'm not really happy either. That feeling that you might have when traveling between floors on an elevator and your floor seems an eternity to come. Only now, it is floors between happiness and unhappiness. I have cornucopia of reasons to be happy about and I am grateful for them. There is a difference between the states of being grateful and depressed though.

I seem to lack the will, energy, and desire to fulfill my responsibilities as a career artist. It isn't as though the muse have turned away from my either, I have several works on the go, just not going anywhere fast and I have plenty of ideas.

I still love the tangible process of making art at its highest level. Maybe therein lies my problem, I actually believe there is art at its highest level. Sadly, in the many years I have successfully pursued my career as an artist, through international exhibitions with some of the world’s most regarded contemporary artists, I haven’t always seen a correlation between art at its highest level and success as an artist.

The whole equation or polemic between art and 'career as an artist' has left me feeling stymied at best and at its worst depressed. The problem of course arises because I need to make a living and I like to share my sentiments with others through exhibition. I'm just tired of playing the game of career and it doesn't interest me anymore. Been there, done that, got the posters, t-shirt and tattoos to prove it!

Call it self-indulgent, but if I look into my navel long and hard enough, I start to see that, the lint trapped there has patterns and form. I become amused what I find there and it inspires me to make a comment or work of art. I will work it out. I always do. I've never been happy in the role of victim for too long.

While being in this state of melancholy, I photographed the flowers and plants in my yard and surroundings. I hope you enjoy these photographs of flowers, plants and my environment. The process kept me grounded. I have much to be grateful for. I thank God daily for life."

Gerard Pas
London Canada 2007 ©

Ah! Sunflower

Ah! Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
where the traveller's journey is done;

where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves;
Where my sunflower wishes to go.

by William Blake