Peter Cane

In 2012 something quite unexpected, and not entirely welcome, fell in my lap. I had long been intrigued by how art makes us feel what we do, and I even participated in the birth of a new field of study – that of Bioaesthetics. It looks at, among many other things, the sensory triggers we are born with, triggers which when activated create emotions and urges. They fire drives such as fear, and the need to take a step back - or the compulsion to reach out and touch… or even to stop in our tracks, freeze, hold our breaths and stare in astonishment - tension triggers, that is.​

Trying to figure out how these tension triggers worked, I had heard how Michelangelo had used flexed curves, taut coils and tight twists to rivet people's attention on his sculptures, and was looking for some good visual examples. Or trying to, but being a bit inept in my choice of Google words, all I got was images of his ‘Creation of Adam’ painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Try as I might, instead of sculptures, God insisted in reaching out to spark Adam into life. And then the penny dropped – that pregnant gap between the two soaring fingers was just what I was looking for... Indeed, it was not only the focal point of the entire ceiling, it was maybe the most famous and most effective tension trigger in the history of Art.

And then everything went pear-shaped. I saw something else in the sky that most certainly should not have been there. Having done a fair amount of research into camouflage, I began to suspect that Michelangelo had done it to get his own back on the patron - the man who had forced him to paint his ceiling, His Holiness Pope Julius II. So I did the standard digital enhancement one does when trying to crack that sort of disguise, and sure enough within that celebrated space between the two fingers there slowly emerged a string of letters. To my amazement they spelt the word ‘chiave’, Italian for ‘key’. And it was indeed the key, the key to the utterly unimaginable, and shockingly REAL meaning of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. And that, and the far larger and even more devastating secret that then emerged, is what gave rise to my writing the story of Aly.

But you wanted to know about me… well, just turned 70, a figure that I believe only when – despite all my efforts – I catch sight of myself in the mirror. Buried beneath the wrinkles though (and beyond the wish to leave this world a better place), is a twenty year old, determined to live life to the full, travel (and think) broadly, and be part of everything new and exciting. So - until a few years ago I lived on the Tropic of Capricorn, where, when walking the Beagle or the Husky late at night I used to bump into porcupines and opossums; I would daydream listening to cicadas; sigh and foment sedition when my children were told in school that Cabral 'discovered' Brazil; got told off by my wonderful partner for not wearing my hearing aid at the dinner table; and ate far too much chocolate. Now I live in Canada, and still walk the dogs, but stay away from the path by the stream at night where the skunks hang out. And the beavers, too - if those teeth could fell a tree, I'm keeping my distance from them as well.

The photo looks a bit odd? Well, only the eyes and glasses are me, I'm afraid: the rest is someone very special, but not Peter Cane. Forget him, though. It’s the story you are here for, not me.

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