I am an English, Irish, and Manx Canadian born in Chilliwack, BC, Canada. My parents are artistic folks and raised me 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 am a member of again now, 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 things 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 graduate studies I more deliberately shifted away from modernism and recovered a sense of traditionality through my upbringing in the forest, faith traditions, and by learning about British colonization of Canada and 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 connection between art and the plants and places I’d grown close to. I have been painting since then and it has become a way of working through my experiences of being in place.

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