Western Canadian History, Health and Wellness
JohnCrittenden.com is a Website about history-life-wellness. It spans the subjects of painting and recording the history of western Canada, fine art photography, night photography, health and disease, and seeing the world as it really is, rather than what is and has been presented to us via mainstream media, the education system and the medical industry. I am most interested in recording the vanishing history of my country and attaining a simpler and healthier lifestyle. History-life-wellness are the key objectives.
We’re losing our Western Canadian History piece by piece
Silent memories of early days I remember dearly. I see these all over the prairies and remember them from my early life on a farm near Melita in 1942 when I was about 3 years old. I sketched this old barn on location in the foothills north of Pincher Creek and painted it some years later in the studio.
During my travels around Western Canada over the last 50 years or so, I’ve noticed how vulnerable and temporary our history is. A couple old barns I painted more than 40 years ago are no longer standing. One used to sit on land that is now under crop. I don’t know what happened to the other one. It just disappeared. Beautiful old fence lines that used to zig-sagged through the foothills of southern Alberta have been mostly lost to the land and are now barely discernible.
I know this is natural but I find it disheartening. Maybe it’s because I’m also getting old and I know that my time is coming too, I don’t know. I do know that I want to record as many of these icons as I can and I want to photography them at night. Seems like the thing to do as they’re in the twilight of their life as well.
History, Health and Wellness
We are losing the healthy goodness that a simple life brings. Simpler times when we had time to enjoy being where we were at the time. So many ‘times’. A simplicity lost. We need to bring it back into our lives. For fifteen years we lived as a family in the British Columbia interior beside a 43 mile long lake with 200 miles of virgin forest behind us. Brad, Kent, Carol, their mom Sharon and I enjoyed many times like this. I remember skinny dipping with friends in front of our home on the shore of Adams Lake. Our dock was in better repair than this one and I remember lying on our backs watching for Sputniks and falling stars. Even though I enjoy the power of digital technologies and use them in my work, getting back to simpler time of history, health and wellness is a large part of my work today.
The medical industry failed me miserably when I was told that I was blind in my right eye and had to accept the fact that I would never see again with that eye. Most people would have accepted that and given up. This is the power the medical industry has over us. We must take that power back.
I am interested in recording the failing grade of the medical industry, the difference between the medical industry and the medical profession, and learning how to look after ourselves through doing our own research. Google is our friend in all areas although there are several other research engines that are every bit as good. I use them all.