let it be

Last week in the studio I did a bit of re-organizing and some prep work for making more small landscape paintings.  In addition to using canvas, I want to try gesso-ed paper.  I've done this with portraits - see here - and find I really like the surface of gesso-ed paper, so why not try it with landscapes.

In between studio re-organizing and landscape prep I worked on some urban things.  

Above, a painting that has been underway for some time.  Below, the final finishing touches.  

Here are two that were begun last October:

Unfortunately I was careful with neither choice nor application of colour when I began working on the larger one.  After many layers, it has come to here:

The original open and delicate feeling of the stitched canvas has been oppressed by too-heavy colour.  

Ah well, I can only move forward, trust in my painting skills and know that this work is becoming something other than originally conceived - like so many others!  In fact, it is this refusal of the work to behave itself and progress as planned that keeps me intrigued, ha.

I recently read Stephen King's book "On Writing", which I thoroughly enjoyed, and in which he talks about starting with a character and a situation, and letting them develop.  The fact that his characters can surprise him is essential to his writing.  Well then, the same is true for my paintings.

fence paintings #10

like something from another time

dog patch

Our friends have a small cabin near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, which everyone refers to as "dog patch".  It's about and hour and a half drive from our place.  Well water and woodstoves - no electricity or plumbing, no phones, cable or internet.  Last week we went up to this cabin for a day away from the city, and I brought my painting kit and camera.

About an hour out, we drove through a black thunderstorm which passed over the land quick and intense.

It was one of those cloudy-sunny days which makes for wonderful skies.  My camera does not catch it very well, but my painting catches a bit of it.  I like to paint the distant views, and here I just fudged in the foreground because I didn't want to get caught up in all those trees with their trunks and branches and leaves.  Better, I thought, to suggest a simple verge.

The 3 brushes I used for the first painting, here posed on the other side of the cabin.

Second painting was the view just to the left of my posed brushes.  There is a slough at the bottom of the hill and the sunlight, winking in and out of clouds, was glinting and shimmering on the surface of the water.  

Everything was in quick motion this day.  I love painting when the world is full of dodging light and shifting skies.  One has to work fast in trying to catch the spirit, and this is generally a good thing with plein-air work, at least for me.

Getting back into Calgary, where more thunderstorms were brewing.  After the recent flooding, this was not a welcome sight.  Luckily it didn't rain much and the river continues to ebb.

how high's the water, mama?

Nine feet high and rising...

trees under the force of the water
their little island is completely submerged

the Big Muddy wide and wild
churning its way towards downtown Calgary

2 days after the water crested and the rain finally stopped, I was able to make some paintings of the river higher than I'd ever seen it - though not nearly as high as it was at the flood's peak.  

I suppose these photos do not convey very much information if you don't know the river in its usual state of calm blue-green, when the trees are standing upright rather than bowing to the force of the water, the islands they grow on completely covered by the rushing torrent still running very high.

Well, there are many explicit photos and statistics of the Alberta Flood available online.  

We had our own experience of the flood, luckily only a minor inconvenience for us though we live very near to the river.  The cleaning and sorting and repair for those who were not so lucky will take awhile, and we do what we can.

Here I post only a few hours of painting as the sun emerged.

photo taken by Arno Hoogveld
riding by on his bike, stopped to talk

Here's a website journal post I made a couple of days before the flood.  Interesting choice of words wasn't it, considering what happened just two days later.

a useful link for some Albertans

http://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/flood-relief

more later.

light changes

potential

Works which may go into a new gallery....  

The owner contacted me the day after I made the post about one of my galleries closing.  Interesting timing, huh.  After some consideration as to whether this new gallery would be a good fit for me, I have decided to give it a try.  The work, if accepted, will go into a show in July and remain with the gallery for 6 months, during which time we will see what happens.

artists are dangerous

in the council chamber

Yesterday I spent several hours at City Hall in the Council Chamber.  My plan was to be there during CADA's presentation in the morning, and then work a1-9pm shift at my part-time job.

The CADA meeting was supposed to take place at 9am.  What happened was this:

About 300 people showed up in support of CADA, more people than the council chamber can hold.  Therefore the Speaker declared that there would be a re-ordering of the schedule: a few other small items first would be taken care of first, thus clearing some of the seats so that more of the CADA supporters could have seats later.

Those "other small items" took close to 3 hours, and I stayed through almost all of it, observing part of the process of civic decision-making.  In the end I'm glad they switched things around, because I have never sat in a Council Chamber during bylaw debates, crime prevention strategy effectiveness reports, budget amendments - and I found the whole process quite fascinating.

While listening to the discussions, I made some drawings of the Aldermen, the City Manager and the Speaker.

In between these items I phoned my place of work to ask if I could come in later than scheduled.  Luckily, it was a slow day and that was no problem.

There was a 1/2 hour lunch break, and then the CADA came up.  People were doing lots of tweeting during the meeting, but I don't have a cell phone or a twitter account, so I just made those drawings and listened.

First, Terry Rock made, as it happened, his final speech and presentation to the Council.  He talked about why the arts are vitally important, why they need to be factored into City plans for development.  

Other audience members also presented their ideas about why the arts are important to them personally and to the fabric of our culture.  It was so good to get a renewed sense of why what I am doing is important.  I sometimes question the validity of making paintings when there are so many other, seemingly more useful, things I could be doing, and yesterday I got a little confidence boost.

I feel I am not very articulate in explaining some things, but I can say that at the end of the meeting there was a sense of accomplishment.  This City understands the importance of, and is happy to support, the arts into the future.  If you want more details of how and why and where and what, please visit CADA's website, lots of articulate information there.

I was so glad I was able to attend this meeting!  I have not really followed or been involved with CADA in the past, and in some way I'm not even sure why I decided to go to this meeting, beyond a vague feeling that I ought to.  

A great day it was!

nude

Another call for entries, this one from Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Centre.  They are looking for figurative art.  This is a new gallery/space to me, and it looks interesting.

I used to co-ordinate life drawing sessions at various studios in and around Vancouver, BC.  For 6 years I spent an average of 10 hours per week studying and portraying the human figure during those sessions. I worked on paper, usually sized around 24x32", and at the end of those 6 years I had a stack of drawings and paintings - my paperworks - that reached from the floor to well past my knees.

Some of the paperworks sold, others were traded for things like studio rental, a stereo, help with a move, and some were buried in the wall when my old studio was renovated - at the time I had a truly misguided idea that one day they would be found by demolition workers and recognized for the great works of art that they... well, maybe were, ha.  When I left Vancouver the paperworks stack had been reduced to half of what it had been, and I still have most of those drawings.  They currently live in the lower 3 drawers of my husband's printmaking paper cabinet.

I keep thinking one day I ought to take them out again, maybe try showing them somewhere or at least photograph them properly....

mail art

Memory: International Mail Art Exhibition and Swap

This looks pretty cool.  I like the serendipity of trading art anonymously, so I intend to put some work into this exhibition/swap.

slow process

The vast and various world of photography beyond digital cameras is becoming more and more intriguing to me.  For example lomography.  Never heard of that, but here is a lomography class which will be taught by Tekoa of Rainika Photographik.  
What I love most, though, is the old cameras with their slow processes.

Here Tekoa used a Russian camera of the type which can use glass or paper plates.  It took several minutes to set up, meter the light, adjust the focus, et cetera.  The exposure was relatively fast at about one second, but I had time to sit and observe the set-up process, get comfortable and relax before the shutter clicked.

There is such beauty in old-school photographic techniques, back and foregrounds blurred in a shallow focus field, contrast heightened so that a white shirt becomes a bright flat shape.  These photos have a kind of dreamlike quality which really appeals to me.

I love the gravity and dignity of slow processes.

transformations

A little while ago I made a post titled "get back".  Here's how 3 of those paintings turned out:

Out Of Sound  51w x 45h inches

Horizons  61w x 35h inches

Connection  62w x 25h inches

Those 3 were in my Tintinnabulation show last month.

The 4th one is still in progress:

Sky Light  45w x 51h inches

And then there are times when I am just fighting the thing, like with this one:

it began like this...

...and evolved...

...to here.

This one is titled We Move Through It.  Whew, I sure am moving through something here - who knows where it will end up.  Perhaps in the scrap heap.  

the best laid plans

Today was sunny and fairly warm, but I was only able to spend a couple of hours painting, so I worked on some small things rather than hauling out the large outdoor paintings.  

The following pieces were 12x12 black-and-whites that I made a few years ago, not really great work actually.  Not wanting to try to fix or improve them anymore, I decided to make them into something entirely new!

First I covered them over with old architectural plan drawings.  Then I got out my pencils and began drawing on them.  Then out came the inks for some colour washes.  They are not finished, but so far I like where they're going:

I worked until the sky began to darken with evening, and to threaten rain.

Later in the studio, playing around with placement order:

Working title: The Best Laid Plans.  

Because these are building and renovation plans that were never used.  They were discarded in favour of other, presumably better ideas.  Ah, like so much in this life.

the farmer

When the weather is warm or warm-ish, I am working outdoors on this series.

They are named "the outdoor paintings" until further notice.  There are now 11 of them in various stages of completion.  Here are photos of 8 of them:

68 x 38 inches

61 x 47 inches

46 x 42 inches

54 x 49 inches

67 x 35 inches

57 x 61 inches

27 x 75 inches

55 x 29 inches

Having come to an understanding that these will be made entirely outdoors, I await the next sunny day to continue my work.  It's kind of interesting, this immediate dependence on the weather.  As if I am an art farmer, planting paintings.

roots

One of my galleries is closing.  
The owner has been in the art business for many years and now needs to make a life change.  I'm very happy for him, he is excited to embark on a new path, one that will enhance his life with his partner and fulfil some other long-cherished dreams.  

So what happens in my own career now?  Do I run out immediately and look for a new gallery to replace the one that is leaving?  Do I intensify the self-promotion: sell my own work through my website, take on more commissions?

... or do I do what I usually do when things are in an upheaval around me: Wait.  
Stay grateful, keep my eyes and ears open, continue reaching for excellence in my work - and if an opportunity comes my way, I will be ready not only with the work, but with a calm and relaxed demeanour.  

It's something about roots, about strength and fragility.
   
Painting is how I make my living but also how I make my life.

happy love

I have recently discovered the poetry of Wislawa Szymborska, through this blog.

On first reading the following poem, it seemed to me that the author was feeling bitter ... but then I wondered - perhaps she had instead come to an understanding of why one should keep one's happiness under one's hat.  Nothing is as simple as it appears.


Happy Love

Happy love.  Is that normal,
is that serious, is that useful -
what does the world get out of two people
who don't see the world?

Lifted towards each other for no valid reason,
no different from a million others, but convinced
that it had to be thus - as reward for what?  Nothing;
light falling from nowhere -
why on them and not on others?
Does this offend justice?  Yes.
Does it upset solicitously piled principles,
does it upset morals?  It does upset and topple them.

Look at these happy ones;
would they at least put on some disguise,
pretend a despondency to sustain their friends!
Hear how they laugh - offensively.
The language they use - seemingly intelligible.
As for those ceremonies, the fuss,
their fancy reciprocal duties -
they look like a conspiracy behind humanity's back!

It's hard to predict the outcome
if their example could be followed.
What would sustain religions and poets,
what would be remembered, what abandoned,
who would wish to stay within its bounds.
Happy love.  Is it necessary?
It's tactful and sensible to ignore this scandal in Life's higher spheres.

Fine babies are born without its assistance.
Never, never could it populate the earth,
given its rare occurrence.

Let people who haven't known happy love
insist it's nowhere to be found.

With such faith it'll be easier for them to live and die.


from "People on a Bridge" by Wislawa Szymborska
translation Adam Czernaiwski