Episode 142: August Swinson

Sara: Welcome to Bonn Park.

Sara: I'm Sara Geidlinger.

Marshall: And I'm Marshall Ward.

August: And I'm August Swinton, First Nation artist.

Sara: August Winston, thank you so much for joining us today.

August: Thanks for having me.

Sara: We're really excited to have you here, man.

Sara: Has this been a process, us trying to connect COVID do we do it in person or over Zoom?

Sara: We've had a death in the family.

Sara: Oh, we have.

Sara: Oh, we're sick now.

Sara: We're sick now.

Sara: Shoot.

Sara: I double booked months, I would say almost getting close to a year trying to connect.

Sara: So I really appreciate you being patient and friendly about trying to connect because we're so excited to have you on the show, especially we had your son Luke on the show last year, and while we were talking to Luke a local artist, he had an art piece behind him.

Sara: And halfway through the conversation, he brought you up and I said, is that your dad's work behind you there?

Sara: And he's like, it is.

Sara: How can you tell me?

Sara: And Marshall dives deep.

Sara: When we start looking at two things, we really start diving deep.

August: Luke is way more interesting than I.

Sara: We found him incredibly interesting.

Sara: We had a fantastic conversation with him, but we were so moved by the fact that you guys often get to work together, which is very unusual in the arts.

Sara: I think it's unusual to be able to have that opportunity to collaborate on things.

Sara: Your styles, I would not call them similar at all.

Sara: No, they're very different.

Sara: Although some of the subject matter might overlap sometimes, for sure.

August: Yeah.

Sara: Your base is a background is graphic arts.

Sara: Right.

Sara: And you have a mixture of, like, both manually hand drawn work and digital work.

August: That's correct.

Sara: And all of your pieces have this sort of delicious graphic arts touch to them that's very clean and proper.

Sara: And, man, do I enjoy looking at it.

August: That's fair.

Sara: Yeah.

August: Thanks.

Sara: Yeah.

Sara: You're welcome.

Sara: So Luke, often in articles on the radio on our show, attributes your influence, being part of his inspiration.

August: He should.

Sara: Well, as parents, we should believe that.

August: No, that's a huge compliment.

Marshall: I think you mentioned there's several creative folks in your family.

August: Yes.

August: His sister is a really talented musician.

August: His mom's a floral designer, but super creative person as well.

August: So, yeah, he comes by it honestly.

Sara: So let's talk about your origins with graphic arts.

August: Okay.

Sara: So schooling, what's your story there?

August: When I got married.

August: I went to George Brown College downtown Toronto and took graphic design, two year diploma.

August: And yeah, this was just before Max were introduced.

August: The year I graduated.

August: It was the next year that they introduced Max.

Sara: So you're using refill pens, electric set, straight edges, scurves, all this yummy stuff.

Sara: That's great for design of those days.

Sara: Exactly.

August: I hated it.

August: I really did it's, Tedious.

August: It is.

August: And I'm a neat freak, I really am.

August: But I don't know if I've got oily skin or something, but in almost all my jobs, whenever we have to make why, I can't even remember the term for it now.

August: But the finished artwork that you would tape up and all that, I can't remember the name of it.

August: My boss would say, Go wash your hands.

August: It looks dirty.

August: So when Macs came along, when I got into computers, it was so good.

August: It was such a relief for me because it's all on computer.

Sara: And what would that have been back then?

Sara: Early crawl draw?

Sara: Or are we using more like all.

August: This page maker instead of Cork Express, Aldis Freehand instead of Adobe Illustrator, which I thought both programs were far superior to what was more commonly used.

August: I taught myself all the programs.

August: I bought a Mac and sat at it for three months just playing around and figuring things out.

August: And so, yeah, I'm kind of self taught.

August: Definitely self taught when it comes to the computer.

Sara: This is how I operate, too.

Sara: Marshall's witnessed quite a bit.

Sara: I'll just sort of make a promise, like, yeah, I can do that.

Sara: And he's like, you can?

Sara: Well, I'll figure it out.

Sara: We'll figure it out.

Sara: Just give me some time and we'll hack our way through this.

August: So my first computer had 20 Megs of Ram, 120 Meg hard drive, and everything was floppy disks.

August: And I loved it.

Sara: Yeah.

Sara: So that would have been like the five and a half inch floppy, like the big yes.

August: Oh, no.

Sara: Have you heard?

Sara: I'm monopolizing Marshall.

Sara: I'll stop soon.

Sara: But young people think that the save button on computer programs is a vending machine because they don't know that symbol.

Sara: The save button looks like a disk does that.

Sara: Yeah.

Sara: It's usually on icons.

Sara: It's usually like a little square with the circle and another little rectangle that represents saved to an external disk.

Sara: And young people think it's a vending machine.

August: Oh, I'll have to look at that.

Sara: All right.

Sara: I might cut that out.

August: If it doesn't, I just drag and drop still.

Marshall: Is it a competitive environment, being in a graphic design program?

August: Yeah, that's why I got out, really.

August: To me, it's a young person's game, and I was getting up in the ears.

August: So, yeah, I kicked around, had a really good job in Brantford, Ontario, of all places, worked in a big company.

August: We had a creative team, creative department and a graphics Department.

August: This place was huge.

August: And that was really unusual to be in the have that.

August: Still, most people go to a service for their graphics, and we did everything in house.

August: But the company hit hard times after about 100 years, and I was let go and did freelancing for a while.

August: But really, I shouldn't have been a graphic designer.

August: I was an okay graphic designer.

August: I'm a better illustrator, and that's kind of how I got my job.

August: My boss wanted someone who could draw because he's very old school, and I knew enough about programs, so I was hired.

August: But I'm not that techy.

August: After that, I realized that I was competing against almost programmers.

August: The tech industry here was looking for graphic designers, but you had to have all this programming experience.

August: So I just faded away.

Marshall: There's a quality in your work that I find I'm left quite spelled down.

Marshall: Looking at it, the best way I can describe it is if I'm looking at a piece that's maybe some landscape qualities and some water.

Marshall: The surface is kind of otherworldly, like.

Marshall: It's almost like little bubbles or something, like very translucent, cool.

Marshall: And how is that achieved?

Marshall: That's an amazing part of your work.

Marshall: And it's not like you use it everywhere and often.

Marshall: But when I do see it, it's so beautiful.

Marshall: And like I said, it's like it's from.

Marshall: I don't know.

Marshall: I used to be in love with these books about the solar system before we had a lot of photographs, and people do these illustrations of what maybe the surface of the moon Titan looks like or Europa or Io or just another worldly moon.

Marshall: And they used to use certain techniques to kind of create something that looks not like Earth.

Marshall: And I find that you've achieved that in this really thanks.

Marshall: Beautiful, magical way.

Marshall: But I have no idea how you're doing it.

Marshall: It's almost painterly.

Marshall: How are you doing it?

August: Well, I don't know.

Sara: I love this answer, August.

Sara: It's so honest.

August: I'm glad you picked up on that, because I think I see it in my work.

August: And yet I always have a hard time recognizing that I have a style or a look.

August: I can go through my art, and I see about four or five different styles that I pick on.

August: Typically, I'll get onto a style, do three drawings, and get tired of it.

August: That's why envy graphic novelists or people who do comics.

August: I just don't have that repetitive nature.

August: But when I started drawing, I started drawing.

August: I remember the first time I drew a picture.

August: I was ten years old, living on the Reserve, and my uncle was over, and I was drawing in paperback books or any kind of book novels.

August: How the chapter starts halfway down the page, a new chapter.

August: So there's this big blank area.

August: And we didn't have a lot of money, so I drew on whatever I could cereal boxes, whatever.

August: I still have a hard time throwing cardboard and paper out because of that.

August: But I think I was reading a book or the chapter was called Indian Summer, and I drew a guy in a canoe.

August: An Indian in a canoe.

August: First Nation.

August: Sorry.

August: And my mom and my uncle went on about it, and that really started me so moved through the late 60s, early 70s, I was really into I don't know how to describe it, the whole hippie culture, drug influence things.

August: And I put that into my drawings.

August: I liked fantasy, I liked surrealism, and I got away from that over the years.

August: I got away from it.

August: But I think that somehow in the background is brought out in my artwork.

August: It's just how I see things.

Sara: I love that you said this, because another thing that I would say a lot of your artwork has is motion in the stillness.

Sara: Stay with me here for pieces that are even static, like a tree or a rock, there are little marks and little divots and little almost like I'm going to say, like curves, little things that would imply motion is happening there.

August: Good.

August: As an illustrator, I like to put as much detail as I can without getting really I think my artwork is super simple, but I know it can be too simple.

August: So I like to add marks and.

Sara: Texture, fighting that clean graphic artist background.

August: Pretty much.

Sara: But you're not a one trick pony, as many successful artists are.

Sara: And there's nothing wrong with having one thing that you create over and over.

Sara: You have many different styles.

August: Yes, I think so, yeah.

Marshall: Mark making that are simply your marks.

August: Yes.

Marshall: I find that something is so powerful, but some of your simpler pieces and I mean, it was a compliment, not simplistic simple.

Marshall: And I think about this as a piece I love has two polar bears kind of on the ground and then one that's kind of like maybe a spirit polar bear.

Speaker UNK: Yes.

Marshall: And it's a powerful story being told that I'm pretty sure it's not being interpreted by everyone the same.

Marshall: I have my own story of what that's about.

Speaker UNK: Yeah.

Marshall: But you must enjoy that part of it where maybe you hear things from people that you weren't expecting about your work, that they are.

August: Absolutely.

August: Yeah.

August: Definitely.

Marshall: You want to talk about that piece?

August: Well, I think the piece is changed when I did that drawing.

August: I think it's that drawing.

August: I bought an iPad and got Procreate and thought I'd do everything digitally and just didn't like it.

August: And I got rid of that iPad.

August: And then a few months later, I was watching Luke do some stuff and thinking, I can do that.

August: And so I got another one and got Procreate, and I was getting used to it.

Sara: There's a response time in a reaction you have to get used to.

August: Definitely.

August: And so I was getting used to Procreate when I did that drawing.

August: And I don't know, sometimes I don't intend to do a drawing like that.

August: I just add elements and do something with those elements.

August: Pleases me.

August: And the whole idea of those three bears was one of them dying and becoming a spirit.

August: So it's just as simple as that.

Marshall: That's such a powerful piece.

August: Thank you.

Marshall: When you have a son who's an artist, do you see where they kind of start to hit their stride?

Marshall: I always think to myself, you can see it sometimes in creative people where suddenly it's kind of like they got it.

Marshall: They know what they do.

Marshall: Well, it clicks.

Marshall: Yeah.

Marshall: Can you talk about Luke in that way and where you kind of know?

Marshall: Because I find a lot of artists, what they're doing at first is they're mimicking, like they're copying what they know.

Marshall: You know what I mean?

Marshall: Yeah, absolutely.

Marshall: But then somewhere along there, these little shifts happen.

Speaker UNK: Yeah.

August: They find their own voice.

Marshall: Yeah.

Marshall: Can you talk about Luke that way?

August: Yeah.

August: Luke, when he was, I don't know, about 14 or 15, all of a sudden he was this really good drawer.

August: And my whole thing about art, it's complicated, but I place a lot of value on drawing skills.

August: And Luke just woke up one day, it seemed to me, and was this good artist.

August: He resisted for years.

Sara: He mentioned that, yeah.

August: He did not want to become an artist, probably because he saw how much money I was making at the time as a graphic artist.

Sara: We're artist.

Sara: We get it.

August: But one day I think, I don't know what his thinking was, but he gave into it and he was good at a different style.

August: Like when you look at Luke's early work, he was more of a Skecher.

August: He was really good with pencil sketches, portraits, that sort of thing.

August: And he was like that for a couple of years.

August: And then all of a sudden he found his style, and even that developed to what it is today.

August: But, yeah, I remember it was probably about, I don't know, maybe four years ago that he really started to hit his stride.

Sara: Something that Marshall mentioned earlier about finding.

Marshall: That piece is powerful, the polar bear piece, very powerful.

Sara: And for me, I'm looking at it now on my screen right now.

Sara: There's two installations at the Huron Natural Area, two murals, yours and Luke's, beside each other.

Sara: And my parents are long gone.

Sara: They were very creative, very cool makers in their time when they were well, but to have a piece beside.

August: I know it's crazy like that.

August: And the cool thing about that is that Elsa recorded a video in front of those pieces.

August: So that was doubly cool.

Sara: Yeah.

Sara: So we were talking about there's lots of collaborations that you've done together and lots of work.

Sara: And I'm sure you talk about work all the time as well, pushing ideas sort of back and forth.

Sara: But at the same time, it's still separate.

Sara: Right.

Sara: It's not like it's your team, swims in, hire us today sort of thing.

Sara: It's separate and it's honoring each other when you're working together and you find a way to make the mix without it being disenjointed, without it being obvious.

Sara: Do you think that's coming naturally or are you sitting there pouring over these decisions?

August: No, it comes naturally.

August: And I think it's becoming less because Elena and him are a couple.

August: So she's becoming more of an influence in his life and artwork, which is very cool and as it should be.

Sara: When you become a grown up and you pass.

August: But yeah, Luke and I have had some really cool opportunities, and this isn't a great example of it, but kind of he got to do a big exterior mural.

August: I know you can see it from City Hall downtown on the side of a big high rise.

August: And he did a heron, and then I got to do one on Frederick Street, and it just so happens that heron was chosen as the piece.

August: So that's just such a coincidence.

August: If you've seen Luke's story recently, he posted a couple of pictures from 2004.

Sara: Like ten years old.

August: Yeah.

August: The first time he helped me with mural, and that was very cool.

August: And we've had a few really cool opportunities to work together.

Sara: So even though the murals are all hip and the whole thing now, you were working on them way back when, when they were still new.

Sara: This was like a huge full wall at the casino.

August: Yes.

August: I think I think the dimensions were well, that was the second mural I did for that casino.

August: The first one was 12ft high, I think, by 200ft long.

August: And then this one was about, I don't know, 100ft long by roughly the same height.

August: So, yeah, Luke just came along and picked up brush and filled in.

August: It was meaningful and fun and obviously left an impact.

August: And if I can add, that mural was hugely inspired, and I didn't even realize it at the time by my grandfather.

August: My mum and us five kids lived with our grandfather on the reserve.

August: He was chief at one time, but a simple country man.

August: But he was artistic.

August: And I think he was my biggest influence in my life.

August: And I didn't realize that until probably about close to 810 years ago.

August: When I sketch, I intentionally draw with rough lines, repeated rough lines, so it looks very sketchy.

August: And I realize that that's how my grandfather drew.

August: So that was cool to realize that.

August: And going back to what you said about my otherworldly look in some of my drawings, the other biggest influence in my life was Jack Kirby.

August: Just love his style of graphics, the way he draws everything.

August: Huge influence in my life.

Marshall: So that's where Luke would have seen every comment on that.

August: Yeah, for sure.

August: And we're both huge Seth fans from.

Marshall: Wait.

Sara: Before we move on, you mentioned your Instagram stories.

Sara: When in the world did your mother meet Morgan Freeman?

Sara: There is a picture of your mother and Morgan Freeman together in your instruments.

August: It's funny, in her kitchen, she's got a picture of her deceased husband, but more prominently, there's a picture of Morgan Freeman in her.

August: Yeah.

August: He did some kind of I think it was a National Geographic documentary out on Scugog Island where we're from and most of the band members got to meet him.

Sara: That's great.

Marshall: Yeah.

Marshall: That's awesome.

Sara: That's an awesome photo.

Marshall: I imagine something you see in Luke's work that he probably saw in yours first was his brilliant use of color harmonies.

Marshall: And I'll give you an example of a piece of yours that I think has got to be my favorite piece.

Marshall: So it's a song bird on a branch.

Marshall: Right.

August: Right.

Marshall: And on the left, it's just an opaque color field of I don't always remember colors well.

Marshall: So it could be off here, maybe a blue right on the right.

Marshall: It would be yellow.

August: Thank you, Ukraine, because that's what it was done for.

Marshall: Yeah.

Marshall: Ukraine.

Marshall: That's what it is.

August: Yeah.

Marshall: Well, this is interesting because I immediately thought of flags, but not so much the colors as much as that branch is treated.

Marshall: I love flags of the world and I love US state flags, the Chicago flags, and that.

Marshall: And the way you treated that branch is kind of like the way some of my favorite flags would be, like maybe the Trinidad and Tobago that has a very angular right.

Marshall: You would appreciate flags because the grassroots and even if those haven't been the colors you used in that piece, I believe that piece of art has all the amazing aesthetics and power of some of the best flags of the world.

August: Thank you.

Marshall: So that's so interesting because I never did think Ukraine when I saw that.

Marshall: I simply thought this is an amazing image of how you capture the essence of a songbird.

Marshall: And it especially appealed to me because I love flags.

August: Cool.

Marshall: And two color fields put together that way with a simple division wise.

Marshall: That's amazing.

Marshall: That that's what you had in mind.

August: Yeah.

August: Thank you.

August: Yeah.

August: And it's nice to hear that because that was done so fast.

August: That drawing was like within a couple of hours, I sat down at my iPad and I had to do something.

August: Yeah.

August: And I do love flags, too.

August: I love old provincial flags.

August: They've got that old look to them.

August: And speaking on that, the early 60s were a big influence on me.

August: The culture, the graphics, all that stuff.

August: So the Centennial Triangle flag, that period really is meaningful to me.

August: I love all that stuff.

August: I used to draw Pierre Trudeau and Robert Stanfield and all those guys and the space race back then, I was always drawing rocket ships and space machines.

August: So that was that was a huge influence on me, too.

August: Yeah.

Marshall: And that would all tie back into Jack Kirby and everything we've seen.

Marshall: Flags.

Marshall: They even find them kind of overly complicated sometimes.

Marshall: Sometimes they try to pack a lot of information.

August: They did.

Marshall: Yeah.

August: And they certainly wouldn't work today if someone came up with a flag.

August: But I just love that vintage look.

Sara: I'm just looking at the Centennial flag now.

Sara: Yes, I do know what this one is.

Sara: I couldn't remember what it was.

Sara: It's so simple.

Sara: It's the perfect graphic, really.

Marshall: When you come upon one of your murals that you haven't seen in a while, let's say a lot of time passes, months, maybe even a year or so, and you come upon one and see it again with fresh eyes, what do you usually see when you see your murals?

August: Brilliance.

August: Yeah.

August: I like it.

August: When I look at my old stuff, I have this thing about me.

August: I don't think I get better.

August: I was as good back in the early ‘80s?

August: S or late 70s even as I am now.

August: I just do things differently.

Sara: Let's talk about that differently, though.

Sara: Sorry to speak for you.

Sara: What's the differently is your subject matter, obviously, that you've been diving into.

August: Yeah, somewhat, but more so the whole introduction of the computer and how I do things.

August: Yeah, I really do long for just sitting on a Lake shore and drawing the opposite shore.

August: That's what I love.

August: And kind of that's how I really started.

August: We used to rent a cottage up north and I remember being on Balsam Lake and just looking at the shoreline.

Sara: I'm very familiar with Balsam Lake.

August: Yeah, Balsam Lake isn't one of the most beautiful Lakes, but it's got the whole worth of vibe.

August: And I just took a fine tip marker and a drawing pad and just did these very simple lines for the shoreline and trees, and I did a whole series of them and I still really like those.

August: They still creep into my work sometimes.

Sara: So when you picture that, what are your tools?

Sara: Is it pencils?

Sara: Is it paint, is it markers, is it pens?

August: Just either pencil or pen.

Sara: Very simple.

Sara: Do you ever scan one of your sketches and then you're going to manipulate them later?

Sara: Yeah.

August: It's funny.

August: A lot of what you see on my Instagram and I don't have a web page.

August: I used to, but it just wasn't all that useful to me.

August: But if you look at a lot of my drawings, a lot of it doesn't exist anywhere because I'll scan a sketch and then do some simple coloring and put it on Instagram.

August: So people often will say, Is that piece available?

August: Can I buy that?

August: Well, it's really just a piece of scrap paper that I threw color on.

Marshall: When did wirely region begin to feel like home?

Marshall: And it doesn't fully feel like home, does it?

Marshall: Real sense of belonging here.

August: It does now.

August: So we moved here from when my wife and I got married.

August: We lived in downtown Toronto, had a blast for a few years, moved back out to the country where we were both from up by Lindsay.

August: Then we moved up to Gravenhurst and Bracebridge.

August: And then when I graduated from George Brown with a diploma in graphic design, I kicked around to silly little print shops and stuff.

August: Wasn't really going anywhere.

August: So my father, who I wasn't really close with, but he was artistic as well, and he was a signwriter.

August: And so I fell back on that training and became a signwriter for years and got a job in Lindsey.

August: Eventually got a job that took me up to Gravenhurst and Brace Bridge.

August: Then I got a decent sign job in Collingwood.

August: Excuse me.

August: And we thought we were there for good because we loved it.

August: We had a nice little wartime home.

Sara: Georgia Bay is beautiful, although always cold.

August: Yeah.

August: And the fumes and the lead paint and the lacquer thinners got to me.

August: So I did a business plan, hit the government up for a grant, bought my first Mac, and that's when I taught myself everything and eventually got a job down in Bridgeport.

August: Is that the name of it, just outside of town?

August: Bridgeport?

August: Yeah.

August: That didn't last long and eventually got the job down Branford.

August: So for about ten years, I was always driving out of the city in the dark and coming home in the dark.

August: And so it took me about twelve years to feel at home here, and it's taken quite a while.

August: So it's probably only been about 15 years where I've been comfortable here.

Marshall: What I really like about this idea of coming to college is, I just say, like, he kicked around in print shops.

Marshall: The towns you mentioned there are Lindsay, Bracebridge, Gravenhurst.

Marshall: Is this what you had imagined?

Marshall: Had you pictured putting a rocket on your back and take off into the world of graphic arts and be big time, or did you have an idea that you might move around quite a bit throughout Ontario?

August: One thing about me is I never think ahead, so I just go with what's in front of me.

August: So I never thought anything.

August: I never thought I'd be a graphic designer.

August: I'm still waiting to make it big.

August: So that wasn't part of the process.

Sara: Well, you're on Bond Park, basically, yes, definitely.

August: But no, you know what he's like.

Sara: Six times the amount of followers that he has.

August: Even though I had a career in graph design, it got better as I got older.

August: And when I left that business, I had a good job.

August: I was making good money.

August: But I didn't like the work.

August: I really didn't.

August: It was stifling creatively.

August: I didn't really kind of find my artistic voice seriously until a few years ago.

August: And so even though I consider myself semiretired, it seems to keep getting better and better.

August: So I'm almost drawn back into it almost full time.

Sara: How have you witnessed the creative community in this area over your years here?

Sara: I loved the piece that you did for The Beasting, which was you did a piece for the 44 Gaukel Creative Workspace Building.

Sara: Did the Beasting Legs.

Sara: I know every time you hear it, The Beasting, every time someone says that to me, I'm like, why are we talking about The Beasting, which this project is influenced by?

Sara: I think it's called the Monster or something like that from the Man Ray.

Sara: And everybody did this thing, and this was like My Pet Skeleton 44 Gaukel Creative Workspace collective, and it's still ongoing.

August: The project, unfortunately, that all happened during COVID, so it was me in a room by myself, and they film you, right.

Sara: Tell us about that process.

August: Yeah.

August: I think Eric comes in, makes sure I'm ready, hits the button and walks out.

August: So it's kind of a solo thing, even though it looks like it's a collaborative thing.

August: But yeah, it was me in a room.

Sara: I've heard a couple of artists say, I don't know why I'm doing The Beasting.

Sara: I don't think it fits.

Sara: It all fits.

Sara: It's supposed to be.

Sara: For anyone who doesn't know what this is, go check it out.

Sara: 44 Gocock is gone, which is super cool.

August: It is very cool.

Sara: Built by Adam from Boko Trooper.

Sara: Thank you.

Sara: A name I always struggle with.

Sara: You in the Wines guidelines, and it's creating basically a monster or a creature with everyone takes a different part of the body.

Sara: And you did this like knees to legs, and there was like a claw for 1ft and a regular foot for the other one.

Sara: And did you have a plan going into this, or did you just kind of go in and be like, let's start.

August: I thought about what I was doing before and did a quick sketch of it, just simple.

August: But I wanted to make sure that I was doing it fresh.

August: So I just had that in my mind and went in and did it like you said, it's not my style.

August: That's not what I would normally draw.

August: But I thought, I can do this.

August: I've got the skills as an illustrator that I can at least make it look okay.

August: After that was done, I wish I had gone a little heavier in detail with it.

August: I think if you look at my contribution, it looks a little kind of sparse.

Sara: Well, there are some people that say very simple and some people that fill the whole page.

Sara: So it just depends on the artist that's taking a crack at it.

Sara: And they're all very different.

August: Yeah, they are incredibly different.

Marshall: That's the beauty of it.

August: And I like the tower, how you can turn it, piece things together differently.

Marshall: You can take great pride and great satisfaction.

Marshall: And all the work he created, your big body of work over the years, we're talking decades and moving three different eras, even here in Canada.

Marshall: But I can't imagine what it's like for you to stand, let's say, on King Street by Toy Soup in St. Jacobs

Marshall: And look at that mural that your son Luke made you're in that mural, your father than that mural, who is Luke's grandfather.

Marshall: If you could just imagine standing there by yourself on a quiet day, you know how quiet St. Jacobs can be in the morning in the village.

Marshall: Because I've stood there, I've spent time looking at that mirror by myself.

Marshall: So I know what that feels like.

Marshall: But when the world kind of feelings go through, a father standing there looking at a piece like that, well.

August: It'S very important.

August: It's very meaningful.

August: And if I can talk for a minute about that mural, I'm glad you brought that up, because we were both asked to do murals, so I was to design one for Halls Lane and I gave them two options and he was to design the one in St.

August: Jacob's and he gave them two options.

August: One was his and one was mine.

August: Same with the Paul's Lane one.

August: I gave them one of mine and one of Luke's and his mural.

August: They picked my design and my mural.

August: They picked his design.

August: So both of those were really both of us doing, designing and making the mural.

August: So that was super fun.

August: And I love Luke's style.

August: It's so different from mine.

August: He's more painterly.

August: He's sweeping lines and gradients, whereas mine's more hard.

August: So in St.

August: Jacob's, the animal pieces were my drawings.

August: Those were mine.

August: His was more of the background.

August: So we did plywood cut outs and applied them to the wall.

August: So, yeah, that was a very cool job.

August: And it's always super fun and meaningful to do work with Luke.

August: I love him and I love his work.