To be continued....

After three exhibits in three different communities, the paintings in my series Nature's Abstracts have each found a home. The culmination of this two year project came to fruition this week. Many were sold, some were traded with other artists and some were given to family.


 

 

 



In My Studio
 

 

Of  the 34 paintings, there were only three I could not part with.

ENTOURAGE
45cm x 60cm
Oil paint and paste on canvas

REFLECTION
36cm x 36cm
Oil paint, stone and resin on canvas

IRIS

30cm x 20cm

Oil paint on raw canvas, stone and feather

 

 

And a few were very difficult to part with.

MUTATION

10 cm x 12.5 cm

Oil paint, paste and stone on canvas

 

MOSAIC
60cm x 51 cm
Oil paint and resin on canvas





LEVITATION
Oil paint on Canvas
70 cm x 27 cm

The feedback I received from the three exhibits by way of written and verbal comments was most rewarding. It seems that this series of oil paintings successfully conveyed the very message I was trying to transmit-abstract art is all around us! I'm not sure yet if I am quite done with this theme because as I developed it so many new yet related ideas emerged. I am leaving them ferment as I take care of a few slightly more mundane tasks, i.e. cleaning my studio and prepping house and home for winter.

As for my blog, what can I say - To be continued....

(Note: I have been having the hardest time putting pics in my posts that it has really reduced my entries...Soooo frustrating!)

Fragments, Resistance, Passion and Shadows

Most of my days are made up of fragments, bits of this and that, intertwining but not quite connecting. The fragments are often in motion, falling away, leaving shadows in their wake - shadows that haunt, shadows that disguise, shadows that cripple - preventing forward movement.

Fragments is this oil painting, a pictorial record of how life appears at times. Red for passion:  passion for my family and my home; passion for my two littles kittens, Mim and Pip; passion for nature - fauna and flora; passion for earth and all it's glorious bounty; and passion for creativity, however it chooses to express itself. Still with all that passion, I resist living life to the fullest.

Fragments
20" x 30" oil, slate and paper on canvas

Fragments are oftentimes obstacles, cold and grey like slivers of hard slate dappled with blood, sweat and tears. They fall all around and avoiding them can be hazardous...so you let them fall and you accept the shadows they cast. Fragments, like words, can cut and diminish. Fragments, like incomplete thoughts, keep you suspended. Fragments of life, love and loss...

Still, every now and again you tune in to the passion and once again you rise and greet the day with enthusiasm. That day is at hand!

Threads II - Forest for the Trees

Renovate, paint, blog, photograph, renovate, print, carve, renovate....you got the gist of it. This total "busy-ness" makes it very hard to focus. Yet focus is becoming more and more important to me. I believe I need it if I'm ever going to really be good at expressing myself through my art, at reaching some pinacle of success. Okay, perhaps I'm overdramatizing a tad...Success is subjective and I guess I have achieved it in many regards.

What I really need is to quiet my mind and I feel a good way to achieve this is, you guessed it, Focus! With this in mind, I am continuing my search for the common threads in my work and lo and behold, there is the tree, a source of inspiration and awe! 

Although I have countless art pieces featuring trees I'll share these four, some old, some new, some unfinished and all in a different medium.

La pénombre (The Shadows)

Monotype-Ink on Somerset paper (32" X 55")

Moonlight Through the Apple Tree

Digital Photograph

Shadow Play

Acrylic on unmounted canvas

8" x  48"

Raw clay carving, not yet air dried. Bisquing and glazing to follow. (4" x 10" X 2")

Of course, don't get me wrong I do treat a lot of other subject matter, but when I look around in my home, in my studio, in my yard, trees are very present. And no wonder, where would we be without them!

The Divining World-Part II

The cards I created below may well hold the key to your Destiny. Have a peek...

The Destiny Package

Inside you find 11 Destiny Numbers

Instructions are handprinted on the envelope itself.

(For the sake of clarity in this photograph I played around with colour and contrast.)

On each card is a Destiny Number and 6 attributes.

Sample cards

Outer Envelope

This Destiny Set was a first for me and will serve as a template for future sets. A couple of changes I intend to make are to go a little lighter on the backgrounds and to use a transfer method for the written information. The latter will cut down on the amount of time needed to produce a complete package, yet each will remain unique because of different backgrounds.

(For more on this project, check out the post

dated December 12, 2009)

Threads

As a multidiscipline visual artist, I find there is a certain cohesion lacking in my environment. I am literally all over the place. Still it remains clear to me that I cannot specialize in just one area of expression. Having accepted that, finding my unique voice seems all the more difficult.

In an attempt to bring order (that ever elusive state) into my creative endeavours, I have been trying to compartmentalize my projects, while still looking for common threads between the different forms of expression. The ultimate end to this exercise would allow an observer to recognize the works in my studio as mine alone. At present, the collection of my works gives the impression that I have a multiple split personality.

Some years ago I started writing journal which I titled Know Thyself. In it I wrote (and write) my personal beliefs about life in general, from the mundane to the exhilirating, from the surface to the deepest recess of my mind. It is far from complete. My best hope is that I will "know myself" in this lifetime.

I am applying this same process to my art, that is, I am going to examine the pieces I have created and will create to see what the common threads are, from colours to subjects to the choice of medium...Surely my voice is in there somewhere.

One place to start is with the subjects that seem to attract me most and today the focus is music and shadows, the colours are reds and blacks and the shapes are square.

Passion in Musical Shadows

Each is 4"x4" acrylic on canvas

I've had strange experiences with most aspects of life, music being one of those aspects.

I remember a Christmas long ago when a piano was delivered to my childhood home.

I will never know why, and I will never forget, only the children in the house were to play it even though none of us would ever play well.

That piano now takes up a corner of my livingroom like a sliver of my memories.

Out with the old...

Let me begin by saying that it is really difficult to post when you haven't done it for awhile. I just felt like I needed to clear out a few things and create a more orderly work place. And that's what I have been doing...Out with the clutter; Out with the old! And hopefully the "In with the new" will soon follow.

Before I discard or store away the old, I want to keep a record of certain aspects of my work. In keeping with this concept, every now and again I shall post some of my old work prior to removing it from my studio.


In 2007, I had a solo exposition at the Capitol Theatre in Moncton, New Brunswick. It was called Cognition and dealt with the subjects of awareness and duality. Two of the pieces in that show are shown here. They have been hanging at Curio Studio since that time.

New Forest & Old Forest

2 separate acrylic paintings on stretched canvas 24" x 52" (each piece)

In Old Forest our eyes cannot see the forest for the trees, while in New Forest our eyes cannot see the trees for the lumber. As a reflection of my own hypocrisy in condeming the pulp industry both are framed in wood, a stark reminder that when you point a finger at something, three fingers point back at you.

Seven Deadly Sins

Overpass scene painted on seven canvases each measuring 12" x 48".

Written in Latin, one can read the 7 deadly sins as designated by christian religion:

INVIDA - AVARITIA -LUXURIA - IRA - ACEDIA - SUPERBIA - GULA

(ENVY -AVARICE -LUST - WRATH - SLOTH - PRIDE - GLUTTONY)

The use of the overpass seemed the perfect segway to each panel and demonstrated how we go about our daily routines without really noticing what is happening around us.

This piece also had a counter piece which dealt with virtue. In researching the virtues as they corresponded to the vices I found none truly spoke to me. That being said, one thing did seem to be an antidote for all the vices one could think of and that is RESPECT.

Also consisting of 7 panels (12" x 24"), each panel held one letter painted in a graffiti style, a commentary that it is often graffiti that is used to point out the "disrespectful" behaviour of others. I am happy to say that RESPECT is hanging on a wall in an elementary school in the southern part of New Brunswick.

Of course, there were many more pieces, some which I've already posted here and others that I would just rather forget. My thinking has changed a lot since 2007 and I would not approach the topics in the same way. I now believe that focusing on the negative only gives it more strength. I sure hope that is not what I've done!

The most important thing is that a new day has dawned and I am hoping that a daily routine of coming to the studio will help me achieve my goal of giving voice to my creative self.

So far so good!

The Divining World

I've always been very interested in such things as astrology, tarot, fortune telling and all forms of divination. Although I'm not a firm believer in predicting the future, I have always had a certain respect for the tools one might use to predict the events of their lives or to query the spirits about some problem they are facing. As such, I have a pretty good selection of books and paraphanelia relating to the subject of divination. I have used them in the past as I sought answers to some issue or situation I was seeking clarification for and very often answers came to me.

I use these methods still today and the reason is quite simple.

I believe all answers are available to us and, when the time is right, the answers are there to grasp if we open our minds. Whether through dreams or divination, through the reading of signs or even through some game or system we develop ourselves (ie. 'If I get three green lights in a row, then the answer is GO'), we are often looking for help in deciding which road to take or which career to follow and even with the more mundane daily questions we come up with.

There is a wide array of tools one can use in a quest for answers but I have been developing my own. Of course, I do not presume to have the knowledge to create some new form of divining only instruments that I find aesthetically appealing.

That being said...My latest project will be a series of cards in the spirit of my Alpha Omega project, only much, much smaller. Presently I am working on a numerology set (pictured here) which measures just 1.5 inches by 3 inches.

I don't know if I will manage to complete it during this very busy family time of the year, but I do know it is just the first in a series because I consulted the spirits and they said so!

Goodbye, my Perfect Muse!

December 1 2009 -Today, my muse, Tabu, joined the spirit world. He was 15 years old, 12 of which he spent with our family. The first three years of his life were not the best based on the condition he was in when we picked him up in a house where he had been abandoned. We did not want a cat at that time. We had recently said goodbye to Minou, our 16 year old tabby. But my resolve dissipated during the four hour drive to our house with Tabu sitting on my lap as I drove . I had always wanted a cat that would sit on my lap...and that is where you could find Tabu every evening for the past 12 years.

We learned a lot from this little cat...The most important thing is that quiet time is good. When my husband and I would get too loud, which I dare say we often do, he would let us know in no uncertain way that this was not acceptable. And while we 'd be running around doing this and doing that, Tabu would be seeking out the sunniest spot in the house and there he would bask in the warm rays. He gave us so much but he also required a lot of love and attention, both of which we happily gave him. Now I can't imagine no longer seeing his pretty little face.

He will be missed!

Goodbye, my good little boy!

Goodbye, my perfect Muse!

(Below is a repost of February 4th 2009)

Tabu-My Muse

Tabu - aka My Muse

As a multidisciplinary visual artist, I tend to be all over the map when it comes to creative projects. I realize this makes it difficult to perfect any one process and yet I can't seem to help myself. More over, I strongly feel that artistic creativity does not limit itself to art. Everyday I consciously choose to live my own creation. I do this in keeping with the philosophy that each one of us is an artist and each one of us is a work of art in progress.

That being said, whether I'm painting a canvas in my studio or a wall in my house, whether I'm mixing paint or making a recipe, whether I'm photographing my muse, Tabu, or petting him, I am creating. I can never separate the person from the artist. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but I must confess, sometimes my mind is screaming for focus. It just feels like so many ideas, so many projects and so little time!

I look at my cat sometimes and see he has but one focus, his own comfort. Sometimes, I look at him as he sleeps and I envy him. Other times I think "Wake up, Tabu...You're sleeping your life away! You're missing all the good stuff." As for Tabu, he's not thinking at all. He just IS!

One of my Tabu projects-an old fashioned block puzzle.

Tabu pictured on a wine label for a wine we make.

Translated it reads Sleeping Cat.

Even a muse must earn his keep!

Sleep well, Beautiful Tabu!

Alpha Omega - Part II

"From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie."

Katsushika Hokusai, painter and print maker from the 1760-1849.

Outer side of the canvas envelope (roughly 40 in x 16 in)

Inside Pocket

Inside pocket with Alpha Omega cards inserted

Spread of Alpha Omega

Life is what happens between the Alpha and the Omega.

Robin's Return

A beautiful robin perched on a mountain ash just outside my kitchen window was busily gorging himself on the ripe berries. The mountain ash are barren now as winter is fast approaching. Flocks of robins, the likes of which we've never seen, are fueling up for their journey to warmer climates. I snapped this picture through the window and thought nothing more of it as I headed to my studio.

Once there, I looked at a print that was waiting for me. It was a large print with a barren landscape and barren trees. It reminded me of the mountain ash which held the perfect robin. Sweet Inspiration!

But wait, it doesn't end there! As I painted in my little robin, a memory was triggered. Robin's Return, the only song my mother ever asked my father to play on our piano.

When I look at the sheet music, I just can't imagine how he managed to play this for he did not possess the long, elegant fingers of a pianist. His hands were small, his fingers short and stubby...I would watch in amazement as he played effortlessly and my mother smiled. This was in the early 1960s. I inherited the piano and all the sheet music, but sadly none of their musical abilities.

It only stands to reason that the three page music piece inspired me to create Robin's Return - a Tryptich.

Although we are presently enjoying a little warm weather, I know it won't be long 'til the robins take flight and leave me waiting for their springtime return.

Alpha Omega

I thought it would take me a lot longer than it did to get through the second phase of my project especially as I had no preconceived notion to begin with, only a monotype which I had stored away for the last five years. I always felt it was incomplete, however my professor at the time was very much the purist...you never enhance a print! In fact, because of his words I was extremely hesitant to touch , let alone recycle, my old print. Now that I've done it, consider me hooked.

As a total control freak, just letting things happen is not so easy but I think I'm getting the hang of it. My project, which eventually evolved into Alpha Omega, began with thoughts of the how small a connected world is. I thought of the continents, the people, the common threads and the different languages. And that is where the project took on a life of it's own. Using signs and symbols, each of the eight pages looks to promote a sense of well being.

The writings and symbols include Greek, Hebrew, Sikh, Hindu, Chinese, Alchemy, and Runes. The mediums I used include pen and ink, conte crayons and acrylic paint.

The next phase is an envelope for which I have already tea-stained a piece of canvas. Not quite sure of how it will end up...Stay tuned!