New subscribers usually follow me for my whimsical wildlife art. They’re often unaware that half of my business, about 40% these days, is drawing syndicated editorial cartoons for daily and weekly newspapers in several Canadian provinces. In addition to painting my wildlife art, I draw six or seven cartoons each week.
A short time ago, I wrote a post about my disappointment at the outcome of the US election. For my email subscribers, I prefaced it with a clear statement that the narrative they were about to read was political. I suggested that subscribers who’d rather not read that opinion piece could close the email, and I’d have something more up-tempo for them later.
Of course, one subscriber who kept reading (his choice) and didn’t like it, sent me an email that read, “Nobody cares about your TDS, JUST DRAW PICTURES. I am embarrassed to own your art work now, stop it.”
TDS means Trump Derangement Syndrome. I had to look it up.
The loudest advocates for freedom of speech are almost always talking exclusively about their own. Because I long ago learned the lessons about the futility of online arguments, I didn’t respond, and he unsubscribed.
Though the following is not political, it’s not upbeat. It’s not a New Year’s post that this will be the best year ever! Some might consider it dark and sombre as it puts a harsh spotlight on the fact that we each have an expiry date, and none of us knows when that is.
If you’re not up for that kind of read, this is your exit. Drive safely. We can meet up a little further down the road.
Still here? Your call.
I saw a news article this week titled The Celebrities We Lost in 2024. Many on the list I hadn’t heard about their passing or had forgotten I’d seen it. True to my nature, I noted each cause of death. It happens once you reach a certain age; you realize that, yeah, it’s coming. Unfortunately, I began ruminating on my pending demise years earlier than I should have, a consequence of OCD and anxiety issues.
I’m not afraid of death. I imagine, for many, it’s like going to sleep. You’re awake, then you’re not. Out, brief candle, and all that. If there’s something afterward, I’ll find out then. I am, however, terrified of failing health, physical infirmity and cognitive decline. The shit you think only happens to other people can and will happen to you or those you care about.
I am also afraid of regret, a life unlived, and unrealized potential.
I don’t care if I’m remembered. Most of us aren’t. I once read a conversation where the question was asked, “What was your grandfather’s name?”
Upon receiving the answer, the follow-up question was, “What was his grandfather’s name?”
Very few of us could answer the second question correctly, and that’s the point.
If I’m going to be here, and if it doesn’t matter much in the cosmic timeline, I’d like to do something worthwhile, or at least fool myself into thinking so.
So far, I feel I haven’t. Sadly, that perspective means I’ll likely never feel like I’ve done enough because I couldn’t even tell you what that means. Whatever laurels may come, I will never rest on them. Retirement doesn’t appeal to me. I need to keep busy. It’s the only way to turn the volume down on the noise in my head.
On that list of celebrity passings, for the ones that didn’t say, I found myself looking up their causes of death. Mostly, it was the usual suspects I don’t need to list. They’re the indignities of disease and illness that can strike any time but become more likely the longer we’re here.
And I found myself looking at their ages; the ones that stood out were those around my own. We view the world from the space and time we occupy. I was once an arrogant 20-year-old who viewed 40 as something that happened to other people.
My Dad’s brother and their father both died at 53, the age I am now. While both were consequences of vice and bad habits, I didn’t realize how that fact has coloured my perspective for much of my adult life. Whether I registered it or not, I have long viewed my fifties as old age. Even though I am in good physical health (mental, the jury’s still out) and barring any skeletal spectre’s finger settling on my forehead, odds are I have many productive years ahead of me and miles to go before I sleep.
Regardless, I have long heard a ticking clock. And when the bell tolls, I won’t ask “Why me?”
It means I don’t often enjoy moments as they happen because I’m a pessimist by nature. I know that good or bad, young or old, fate does not have a conscience. It doesn’t discriminate.
My wife’s only sister was 20 years old when she died, thrown from a horse. She was an experienced rider, and it was bad luck that it happened in the wrong place. Five feet in any direction, and she might have been fine. It was a simple accident, and suddenly, she didn’t get to experience all the little things most of us take for granted.
And yet, some very nasty prominent people amass obscene fortunes through nefarious means, exploiting millions of people they’ll never meet and live well into their senior years. We might kid ourselves that money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure as hell buys comfort and health care.
Life ain’t fair. Never has been.
So, while I may not always enjoy the little things as I should or stop and smell the roses, I have no delusions about my time here. It can end today or in forty years, likely in a manner I don’t see coming.
I know it’s an unhealthy perspective, but at the end of each year, I often look back with regret for the things I’ve wasted my time on. And for the failures, of which there are many, I take a deep breath and with a furrowed brow and through clenched teeth, resolve to try, try again in the year ahead.
Though clichés and platitudes, there are lessons I clearly haven’t yet learned, that I’d do well to remember heading into 2025. Perhaps they’ll give you something to consider as well.
You can’t change other people. You can only change yourself. To many you know, your value is only what you can do for them, and they have assigned you a specific place and position in their life. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Some want to see you grow. Others want you to stay right where you are.
Change never happens when you’re comfortable. Discomfort is often a necessary trigger to motivate sedentary people into action, especially when you’ve finally had enough of whatever you can no longer tolerate.
If you do the same things, you get the same results. Blame is easy. So are excuses.
Your job will be posted before your obituary. How you spend your days is how you spend your life.
I don’t know about you, but I have spent far too much time watching television and following unimportant news stories designed by an algorithm to trigger my negative emotions. It is nobody’s fault but mine because I allowed it and kept returning for more.
If you want to spend less time on your devices, then spend less time on your devices. The choice is that simple. You break a bad habit by replacing it with a better one. And yes, it’s hard to do.
There are 8 billion people on the planet. Expecting them to see the world exactly how you do is foolish and arrogant. We are each the product of our genetics, upbringing and experiences; no individual life is a copy of another. And yet, out of fear and a need to feel secure in our choices, we might call somebody else stupid if they choose to drive a different car than we would.
Stand in someone else’s shoes. Consider that you might be wrong.
Don’t take criticism from people who would never take it from you.
Success means different things to different people. You won’t know what winning looks like if you’ve never lost. There is a price to pay for everything. Nothing worthwhile happens without effort and sacrifice. They don’t engrave how many likes and shares you got on your tombstone.
Most people aren’t thinking about you. They’re thinking about themselves. What a relief. Live your own life. Let others do the same.
We’re all on different paths but most definitely heading to the same destination.
Time’s ticking.
Good luck.
____
©Patrick LaMontagne 2024
Last week was a challenge.
I never know which paintings will become popular and which ones won’t resonate with people. Or sometimes people will like an image, just not as a print to hang on their wall. The only way to find out is to create the painting, release it, and see what happens. When I retire an image in print, it means it will no longer be available on my site or at markets.
Sometimes, a print will become popular for a particular venue, like the 
My Sasquatch painting is a popular licensed image for Pacific Music & Art, as they have customers all over the Pacific Northwest, BC, and Alaska. 
Even when I no longer sell a print, my licensing clients may still offer the image on their products, and my wholesale customers may still order prints from me to sell to their customers. I just have to require the same minimum orders from them that my printer requires from me.
My next-door neighbours, 
Because I haven’t released a new painting in a while, I did not want to publish yet another post promising something new down the road. So, here’s a new piece: a weary-looking grizzly bear in the snow. I’m calling it Bedtime.
With a lot to do and feeling like I was way behind, a cabin trip seemed like a low priority. But it’s an inexpensive getaway, a relatively short drive, and I needed a break.
Not the most exciting critter encounters, but I got some good squirrel pics. This amusing little chatterbox might very well inspire a painting.
I took photos of wind-broken tree stumps where I might place an owl or eagle. A natural doorway created by curved and fallen branches has potential. You never know what might spark a new piece.
Though we had visited with them earlier, the owners texted us Sunday evening that the Atlas comet was barely visible over the pasture. It had been brighter and more evident days earlier, but this was the last chance to see it. We walked out in the dark, not wanting to use flashlights that might ruin our night vision and found the faint anomaly among the sea of stars. Darrel took this shot on his newer phone. I couldn’t get a good capture with mine. You can just see the comet tail on the left.
We had nice fall weather for most of our time there, but it got cold and windy Sunday night and Monday. A snowstorm hit Calgary and Canmore, and given the road reports and Shonna’s texts, I was thrilled I didn’t have to drive back until Tuesday.
My order from Pacific Music & Art was waiting for me when I got home, and it contained 
On the one hand, it shows that this side of my business continues to grow. As it’s the work I enjoy most and has the best chance of ensuring my financial future, I’m grateful. But it’s a significant investment of time and money that comes with no small amount of anxiety.
With a website and 
If your art becomes popular enough that people like it, share it and buy it, somebody will steal it. Some creatives stamp ugly watermarks across every image they post to try to combat this, but what’s the point if you need to go that far?
Several years ago, my friend Kathryn alerted me to a woman on Vancouver Island using my Otter painting as the logo for her business. It was on her business cards, a sidewalk sandwich board, window decals and advertising. When I called the owner on it, she said she Googled ‘royalty-free images’ and my otter came up. I asked if Mickey Mouse had come up in that search, would she think Disney would allow her to use him as her logo? My signature is still on the image on that sign! She angrily told me I was being unreasonable and said if I had been nicer, we could have come to an arrangement.
Another company in the same area had my Moose and Grizzly Bear paintings on their chocolate-covered candy labels sold in a local store. The company’s owner in Eastern Canada said they’d hired a graphic designer to make the labels. He just stole my work online and passed it off as his own.
From what I’ve found, she stole my Coyote, Grizzly, Black Bear, Moose, Squirrel, Peanuts and Smiling Tiger paintings, but likely more than that. While the first five are no longer bestsellers, and a couple are even retired, my Smiling Tiger and Peanuts paintings are two of my most popular, bestselling and frequently licensed images.
After a whole career dealing with this kind of thing, I am firm-footed in ‘fool me twice’ territory. Her reply almost stopped me from writing this post, but she’s standing proudly in that photo with six large canvases of an art style I’ve spent years developing. And 24 hours after her apology, my work is still visible on her social media with mentions of her amazing paintings. Very sincere.
Most years, I’d rather let my birthday go unnoticed, and thankfully, I married someone who feels the same way about hers. If someone mentioned having a birthday ‘party’ for me, my first thought would be, “What the hell did I ever do to you?”
But on the northern border of that same property, nestled beside secluded wetlands, there is another cabin. It’s one room, one bed, solar power for lights, an outhouse, no water and no noise. It’s at the end of a road, behind a gate on private property.
While shovelling snow, I scared a snowshoe hare out from under the deck, and I took that as a good sign. I wanted to see wildlife, even though this critter did not want to see me.
The property owners have become friends over the years, and I like to visit them. While on my daily wanders, I walked up to their place a couple of times, a 5-6 km round trip from where I was staying, as I had no interest in taking the shortest route.
Free to roam more than 300 acres of pasture, wetlands, and forest, I walked close to 20km over 72 hours in snow and sunshine. It was peaceful and very pretty.
In the new fallen snow, fresh moose, coyote, deer and rabbit tracks were all over the place, many of them just hours old. I heard the coyotes at night and in the morning, and that was nice. It’s one of my favourite sounds. I listened to an owl calling two nights in a row. But all I saw were little birds flying here and there, a few ravens, a couple of geese, and that scared little bunny when I first arrived.
I know professional photographers who spend great amounts of time, energy and money to get to remote places, park themselves in a blind, right next to a game trail for hours and days on end, and often come home with little or nothing to show for it.
I spent my birthday by myself, without anyone telling me how I should be celebrating it. I got up early, as I prefer, without walking on eggshells for fear of waking anybody up, which is often the case on cabin visits with friends. I played guitar and sang, fumbled with chord changes, learning songs I didn’t know, without intruding on anyone else’s peace and quiet.
If you’re like me, bombarded daily with negative news and polarized opinions, this noisy world can become overwhelming. It bothers me, and I often wonder, “Why are people so mean to each other?”
It’s a moment of connection between my funny-looking animals and people I’ve never met. I love watching it happen, and it is a reminder that something I created made somebody else’s day a little better, if only for a moment. In a world that often seems nasty, with people intent on highlighting our worst qualities, I create art that makes people smile. I often forget that, but when I do remember, I’m grateful for this ability.
If you know me well, all this might sound hypocritical. I struggle with seeing the good in the world, which often puts me in a dark mood. But just like a smoker knows the habit is unhealthy, it’s worth the effort to try to cut back and eventually quit.
So, to spread some positive feelings around, I created these Wilder Wishes images you see here, from some of 
If one of these happy faces makes the day a little brighter, for you or somebody else, then that makes mine better, too. Sometimes, you’ve got to give a smile to get one back.
In the late nineties, I worked different jobs at a hotel in Banff for five or six years, from waterslide attendant and manager to front desk agent, night auditor and accounting clerk.
I’ve always liked ravens, and I talked a bit about that in my 
