About

My name is BasselsJ

and I create art, design clothes, and write stories. I teach through my work, and I also teach youth in the community, and instructors through my martial arts school. Subscribe to my newsletter to see the work and hear some thoughts.

I am a first-generation Canadian currently living beside a river in the beautiful province of Ontario. My motorcycle is my mental therapy. I also build things, watch movies with my boys, and am learning the trumpet. Gardening has fed my family and my soul.

My work is possible because of your memberships.

You can reach me anytime: me@basselsj.com

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter Threshold

Art · Movie analysis · Perspectives on violence and balance

Unit 8 Membership Program

I’ve always believed that a viewer completes a visual piece. In essence, my art is an ongoing conversation, my audience continues it, and the membership program fuels it. You can learn more about Unit 8 here.

Labels

Since I have not followed the traditional academic, artistic, or whatever is the proper, typical path, I can be described as an artist, teacher, writer, creative, maker, builder, and many more labels. However only BasselsJ would define who/what/when/where/why/how I am, and being BasselsJ is an ongoing, transforming discovery.

BasselsJ Biography + Artistic Journey

Part 1 · Trouble, Biker, Trucker

Raised in a project neighbourhood in Toronto in a single-parent home, I endured a troubled childhood and survived through sheer will, a passion for the visual arts, lessons of grit from my mother, and unwavering encouragement from my youth mentors. My mentors believed in me as an artist, despite my low marks and numerous absences. I wish they could see me now!

As a child, I would draw on my schoolwork and made toys from trash. Looking back, art knew me before I knew it, as is with many children I think—it offered a way for me to adapt to, and even escape from, circumstances beyond my understanding, which eventually became the path to what I do today.

The purpose of art remained elusive throughout when I was young, even though it was something I constantly refined. I looked for art in many familiar places: art school, the church, the streets, in comic books, and amongst the wildlife, and though it served to improve my skills and abilities, the intention behind it remained elusive.

I received art education from the Etobicoke School of the Arts—but I also learned a lot and started developing my own art style while applying graffiti on the walls of west Toronto, doing bodywork on vehicles and motorcycles, and airbrushing custom motorcycles.

I tried looking for friendship and loyalty through biker clubs and other groups, of which my mother said, “once I have sold my integrity, I would never be able to buy it back.”

I turned down the option to attend the Ontario College of Art and Design and decided to travel throughout North America driving tractor-trailers. By my mid-twenties I had amassed nearly 1 million miles of driving between Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and about as many stories to complement. My years of traveling and working provided many unique experiences and life lessons that shape the art and stories I create today.

Part 2 · Student, Sensei; Father, Brother

The point at which I recognized the true motivation of why I create emerged from a turn of events leading out of my teens and into my twenties, where I sought martial arts as a way to manage my feelings of anger and anxiety. The progressive refinement of patterns and skills associated with it led me to an extraordinary and multifaceted discovery of healing, ideas, philosophies, science, music, and culture. My expertise as a martial artist continued to develop and grow, and I found that, in turn, my art began to speak louder.

I finally opened my first martial arts school in 2003. I closed it after a few years and tried to quit teaching, yet found myself opening the school I currently operate. Selling everything I owned, building a school with my own hands from an empty shell, being married to the dojo (place of the way / martial arts school), surviving financial crises and a pandemic—remains, to this day, one of the hardest and yet most fulfilling experiences of my life. The dojo now has served thousands of students of all ages, with programs in public and private schools and community centres. To students, I impart everything I am and know, having trained in martial arts and studied its history and philosophies for over 30 years.

I continued to learn and grow as a martial artist and sensei (one who has gone before, used to address a teacher), training many hours and travelling many miles to continue my education. Through teaching and training, brought about by my life experience, I have made key discoveries:

• That everyone is born knowing how to fight. It is not something we need to teach at a martial arts school. Students already come knowing how to kick, punch, argue, squabble, and definitely, for the younger ones, protest their bedtimes. I have been delving into this innate appetite, how to manage it in ourselves, and how we can learn to be mindful of how it affects others
• The fighting spectrum, that fighting is not only bad, but appears in many forms that can be viewed as positive or negative, eg, fighting for health, fighting for rights, arguing with each other, or simply wrestling with oneself whether to eat those potato chips late at night. By separating fighting into its various colours, the way white light can be split via a prism, we can understand, manage, train, and use it more wisely.

A decade ago, I became a father, which is one of the best and amazing things I could do. I absolutely love being a dad.

In addition to being the father of 2, I almost (!) joined the military, attempted to return to university, struggled to make ends meet, and went through a depression—all of which pushed me even more forward into my art, energy work, and teaching. I produced more art in the last 8 years, than the first decades of my life, and continue to do so.

Inspired by my sister, the singer/songwriter Denielle Bassels, I returned to my music study through the trumpet and music theory. I was familiar with her struggle—her fight—as an artist. When I attended her shows, I saw that she and her bandmates were communicating in a language I could not understand, and they were somewhere I could not get to, even if we were in the same room, listening to the same music.

I was inspired and driven to refine myself through continued dedication and practice, so I could also take myself somewhere higher, not just in music and art, but in life and living itself. I wanted to be a better father, partner, teacher, family member, and contributor to my community. I wanted to be the best “me instrument in the we orchestra” of the world that I could be.

Part 3 · Me as Myself

I thought that I needed the titles sensei, artist, bachelor of art, so that I could be recognized as important, or someone who knows. I realized that these constructs are simply thresholds that we are meant to pass through and tear down, not get stuck on, so we can grow in the process of transcending them. Although titles and labels have important purposes, it was time that I found mine.

Mastery is not possessed by one individual, but to be discovered together for the benefit of all.

I had begun exploring the fighting spectrum in the past, and have now zeroed in on the violent red—a theme so familiar we need to make it known. By examining the subtle nuances and complex layers of violence, and its profound consequences on human lives, we can learn to manage it in ourselves and achieve a balance. Balance requires constant realignment, constant refinement, that can only be achieved through consistently working on being the best version of ourselves.

My work comes forth from my life, study, training, reflection, experience and especially, mistakes. Errors provide the heartbeat, the rests between the notes.

My art continues to be a journey of healing and discovery, and what insights I reveal for myself, I intend to be of benefit to others.