I am an English, Irish, and Manx Canadian born in Chilliwack, BC, Canada. My parents are both artistic folks and taught me about nature and how to conduct myself outdoors. I grew up in the forests of the Chilliwack River and Fraser River watersheds, which are unceded Stó:lō territories. My communities include rural and urban folks in the Fraser Valley and Vancouver, the Anabaptist Mennonite community I was brought up among and again participate in, and my family in the Okanagan, on Vancouver Island, and in the Alberta and Saskatchewan prairies.

When not reading, I spent much of my childhood with the land and plant life, growing things, working with rocks, and examining everything with a microscope. I enjoyed drawing casually in an abstract way. In my youth, I studied logic, math, philosophy, and programming and worked as a programmer and graphic designer. As a young adult, while living in Saskatoon, I came upon philosophical Taoism and then Christianity. I became interested in liberation theology, interfaith dialogue, and inter-cultural metaphysics in general. I lived in Chilliwack, Saskatoon, and Victoria and was involved in photography, woodwork, lutherie, and ceramics.

I began changing careers, and during my doctoral studies in counselling psychology I recovered a sense of traditionality through my upbringing in the forest, faith traditions, and by learning about the colonial history of Canada and of the British in Ireland. I had always drawn and painted a little but never representationally or with reference photos or en plein air until around 2009. Using references and painting in a realist fashion gave me an exciting sense of connection between the activity of art and the beings and places I’d grown attached to. I have been painting steadily since then and it has become a way of working through my experiences and connections with land and situated being.

I am married to a wonderful and creative woman and live and work gratefully in the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan People, as well as in Stó:lō, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories.

In part adapted from:

Clegg, D. J., & Marker, M. (2021). The metaphysics of counselling history on colonized land. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 55(2), 232–257. https://doi.org/10.47634/cjcp.v55i2.71141

Clegg, D. J. (2020). A decolonial critique of metaphysics in counselling psychology education [University of British Columbia]. https://doi.org/10.14288/1.0392917