Things I Have Learned


  1. Generosity is a reminder that we are one.
  2. Religions are for celebrating unknowns.
  3. Patents and copyrights inhibit progress.
  4. The poor need not always be with us.
  5. Commons are a better social form.

About the artist, writer and practitioner, James Foort

Born in 1921, he was raised mainly on Quadra Island, British Columbia, Canada. He fished for salmon and guided tourists in Discovery Passage between Quadra and Vancouver Islands. At 21, he went into the RCAF as a wireless operator for World War Two. After the war, with DVA support, he gained a BASc, and MASc. from the University of Toronto. His life’s work on artificial limb design, led to an Honorary DSc. from Queens University. Parental Utopian sentiments influenced his course. Now, nearing life’s end, he speaks through art of what is pressingly on his mind.

We gaze on wonders of the past; the Pyramids challenging death, the Great Wall of China frustrating enemies, the Taj Mahal expressing love. Other wonders, centuries old, carry other messages. The modern wonder is invisible, a system, a tool to use, dynamic, more wonderful than any wonder of the past. Its artifacts decay through obsolescence, their trail a fading residue. Its purpose is to communicate. Its artifacts are social organizations within which lie our hopes. As with all wonders, it is the product of imagination, the hallmark of our species.


Works and writing by James Foort
Website production by Aleksey Novicov, Margaret McPhee, and Dennis Wong
Website development by Small Seed Designs