receive and send

Before I begin with the art news, allow me to show you this beautiful wildflower bouquet, comprised partly of garden plants (columbine, poppy leaves, arugula flowers) and partly of plain old weeds (grasses, violets, dandelions, and other nameless things)  Is it not wonderful?

One might say I receive the beauty of the weeds, and try my best to send some beauty back into the world.

The same day I composed that delicious bouquet, I received something else: a few older works back from one of my galleries.  I'm glad to see this painting again:

Precipitate
mixed media and stitching on canvas
45 x 51 inches

The title is interesting as this painting was made on the eve of a tidal change in my work.

There's a lot I like about "Precipitate" as it is, but now seeing it again after two years I can imagine some improvements.  It is from a series of works I made where I left quite a bit of the raw, unpainted canvas showing.  In this particular piece, I think there may be too much of that same raw canvas colour, so I may adjust the top portion a bit.

Between taking in older work and preparing newer work to send out, my studio can get a bit cluttered:

before

after

Ah, that's all nice and tidy now.  Hey, aren't artists supposed to be messy, creative geniuses working in hives of clutter?  *laughs*  Not this artist, apparently - at least, not all the time.

9 large and 55 small paintings
arrived at CKG gallery

I'm really excited that my work is now being represented by CKG here in Calgary!  The people at CKG are wonderful, the space is beautiful, and they have some exciting out-of-the-box ideas about promoting the gallery and artists.

It's been a year and a half since I've worked with a local gallery.  During that time my work has evolved quite a bit.  First the Multiples, and now the new Ellipse series have taken me wholly into the world of pure abstraction.

I've really felt that I'm going out on a limb in making these purely abstract works.  Going out on a creative limb is exciting and invigorating! ... but the potential of a parallel financial limb can be stressful.  This is something to consider when making artwork for one's living. I wouldn't have it any other way, though.  

After periods of darkness there is always light.

Alberta Landscape #89

Last weekend we went out again plein air painting at the Sheep River just a little way out of Calgary.  It was a perfect day for painting outdoors.

When we arrived at the river, we noticed a really beautiful trout/tag painting done under the bridge, a very sophisticated work of art:

Here's the painting I made, downstream from the beautiful fish tag:

Alberta Landscape #89
oil on wood panel
10x10 inches

Reflections and shadows on water are so beautiful: semi-transparent, shape-shifting, always in motion.  Like this whole world, hey.

Miner, Healer, Instrumentalist - part II

Last week the groundbreaking ceremony for cSPACE arts hub at King Edward School took place.  Here's an article about it in the Calgary Herald.

I went to the ceremony and really enjoyed Mayor Nenshi's address, in which he spoke about the arts being not merely a frill, but an essential part of any community's financial climate.  How wonderful that our mayor has a big picture in his mind!

a very happy and excited crew

Reid Henry and Dale Ens described some of the history of bringing this project to fruition, which was very interesting.  A lot of people have worked together to make the idea of an arts hub at the old King Edward school a reality.

And the hats made by the other artists were fantastic!  One had a bird's nest on it; another, a carpenter's square embedded in the top.  Reid Henry was wearing a hat with the most amazing wings made from old venetian blinds, and I saw a hat covered in the tied ends of balloons, which I couldn't resist touching.  Every hat I saw was both fun and beautiful.

I also shamelessly took photos with the people who wore the hats I made:

Cheryl Gottselig, cSPACE board chair
wearing the Instrumentalist's hat

Deeter Schurig, cSPACE project manager
wearing the Miner's hat

Carloyn Boston, Construction Manager for cSPACE
wearing the Healer's hat
very appropriate, since she is also a shaman!

In working on these hats and talking about them, I discovered this was not the first project of its kind.  Here's a helmet that artist Lynn Kelly altered:

She describes it:
"It has a motor and the dove and sphere both rotate.  
Then there's a maple leaf on the top and the white satin garter.  
I liked inverting the hat liner to make it look like a parachute.  
It was for auction with the proceeds to support the families of Canadian soldiers."

Very cool.


Since the cSPACE ceremony, I've been doing a fair bit of gardening, and getting back into my studio work.  The break was great, and now I'm happily making a few more "Ellipse" pieces.  More about that later.

the Miner, the Healer and the Instrumentalist

Between other things over the last couple of weeks, I painted/altered some hard hats for cSPACE Project groundbreaking ceremony coming up on May 13th at the King Edward school.  All three hats are finished now, and will leave my studio in a few days.

I'm very glad I took on this project.  It's out of my usual practice to work on 3D objects, and it was so much fun to explore, experiment and discover what I could do with them.  They all came out quite different from one another, but still aesthetically related.  

I am pleased also with the quality of photos I managed to take.  The process for photographing 3D things is a bit different from my usual 2D paintings: different lighting requirements and a kind of staging, as the background is not completely cropped out of the final image.  

You don't need a fancy set-up to get good photos:

At one end of my studio I set the stage.  A piece of canvas pinned to the wall and draped over my working table creates a seamless backdrop.  Two hardware-store clamp lamps with 150W halogen flood bulbs, positioned on either side at roughly 45 degree angles, creates decent lighting.  A tripod and camera, et Voila!

If you'd like to see more photos and read a bit more about these hard hats, you could visit my website here.

painting the photographer

Yesterday our friends came by for a visit, and I did an impromptu portrait session.  Sanja and Francis are both photographers, and together they do some very exciting things.  Here's their website.  

Sanja was really excited and pleased to sit for over an hour while I painted, an experience which is quite different from sitting for a photograph.

First, a quick "feeling-it-out" sketch:

Sharpie marker and acrylic on paper
9x12"

Then I began an oil portrait, realized the composition was no good, wiped it and began again.  I really got into the drawing look of this one and decided to leave it alone, no more colours on top.  I like how the ghost of the first try remains visible.  A bit like a double exposure, very appropriate to my photographer friend, hey.  :)

oil on canvas, unstretched
12x13"

Since I had my colours already out on the palette, I made a third portrait.  Started again with drawing:

And thought, "hmmm, not the same thing as last time" so scrapped that and just hauled some colours over the surface.  Pretty rough at first:

Finished portrait is not a great likeness and... well, I could pick it apart but I won't.  I like the colour palette very much.  Here it is:

Portrait of Sanja
oil on canvas
13x20 inches

Three aspects of Sanja.  She has a really great personality which I think has come through a bit in each one.

new digs, new sale, new project

new digs:

The Front Gallery represents my work in Edmonton, AB.  They've just moved into a new space and it looks gorgeous!  I haven't been up to see it yet, but hope to make the trip within a month or so.

Here's a brief news clipping about the move.


new sale:

Kurbatoff Gallery represents my work in Vancouver, BC.  They have just made the first sale of one of my "Snapshot" paintings!  This is the one which sold:

Intersection
acrylic and mixed-media stitching on canvas
39 x 56"

Hooray!  I had begun to wonder if there was any merit in these photo-based works...  yes, I know artistic merit is not necessarily indicated by sales, but.

new project:

I have been invited to paint/alter some hard hats for a ground-breaking ceremony at cSPACE in Calgary, where construction is soon to begin at the old King Edward School location.  

Today I worked on the first hat:

I've never done anything with hard hats before!  So I had to research a bit about the materials of the hard hat and what I could use on it that would be reasonably permanent.

I decided to sand it, drill holes in it, scratch its surface.  Then I struck out into un-researched territory and rubbed graphite into it and sprayed it with a clear sealing coat.  This is a test run - tomorrow I will do a scratch test.

If this doesn't work out, I will be able to use oil paint to stain the surface, which will be very permanent based on some earlier testing I did.  I hope the graphite works, though, because I really like how its sooty look is reminiscent of a miner's hat.  A rather pretty miner's hat.

two sketches and a shadow

1, 2, 3

Did I already mention this book I've been reading?  I started making the "Ellipse" paintings a few months before I began reading the book, and I'm finding it very interesting, the correlations between the ideas in the book and in this work.  

Silence - and sound - are very important to me.  For example I often work in silence in the studio.  Also I avoid places that have ambient music of the sort that is designed to create a "brand tone".  Do you know what I mean?  Mall music!  It makes me anxious to the point of being physically uncomfortable.  The claustrophobic effect of shopping malls is based largely on their aural atmosphere.  This is true of some restaurants and pubs, too.  And don't even get me started on advertising noise!  *laughs*  

So I am making work which in some way provides a space for silence.  I am trying to make silent paintings.  This does not mean there is nothing there.  It means that there is space, an open space to think and feel, room to move.  Yes?  I hope so.

simple tools

time

Time, hey.  Sometimes it seems we have a lot and sometimes only a little.  We say "life is short".  But we could also say "life is long".  Or we could just say "here I am, what can I do?"

When I don't have much time for art-making in the studio, I can always make quick drawings in a sketchbook.  They don't take long and they can be quite satisfying, and sometimes they lead to further explorations in the studio.

These drawings were made over the last couple of weeks, with markers and coloured pencils in my 5x7" hardcover book:

They're not, you know, great works of art or anything, but I think I ought to do more of this.  Maybe a sketch or two every evening?  

Lately I've taken on a few extra things and am finding it difficult to organize my work.  Maybe I've taken on too much and will need to scale back, or maybe this is one of those learning curves and I will find a balance if I stay focussed.  Maybe making some wee drawings every evening will help with the focus part.

This morning I photographed the fence paintings:

They've been out on the fence for 4 years now, and today they're looking ready for another cycle of spring.  

break

Today I needed a break, so I sat around the house reading a book all day.  It was very quiet; no radio, unplugged phone, no visitors.  A superb day.

About 6pm I went into the studio "just to have a look at things".... and wound up making a self-portrait in oils over an old half-begun abstract painting.  I took a few photos of its progression:

This  is a wabi-sabi portrait.  It took about 2 hours to make, and it measures 17x18 inches.

I used a simple palette.  That rolled-up tube is cadmium red; the rest you can see if you click to enlarge the image below:

I was feeling spiritually exhausted today, so reading was a great way to lose myself in another world for many hours, which for me always has a rejuvenating effect.

Then, making that portrait helped me to see that I can in fact paint.  

I've been really missing working with oils.  I miss being able to make large-scale works with many layers of transparent, sophisticated colour, and working on 10 or even 20 paintings at a time.  Here in this home studio, space is limited so I work on fewer paintings at once, and sometimes it feels like I'm in a pressure cooker with nowhere to turn, nowhere to expend what feels like way too much energy for this small space.  

Yeah, boo hoo right.  *laughs*

In fact my home studio is lovely and I am often very productive in it, and having to work in acrylics has opened up all sorts of interesting avenues of exploration, and most of the time I feel very lucky to be where I am.

But what can I say, sometimes I fall into a pit of melancholic despair and then, well, then nothing charms like a good book; nothing soothes like a little oil painting.

focus

Variations of colour and composition on Arches 160lb watercolour paper:

Circular templates and sunlight and work in progress:

A lot of things are happening, a lot of things are needing attention.  No time for a long meandering blog post this week.  In precious moments of studio time, focus trumps all.