Coming Our Way

Coming Our Way

7x7"

oil on canvas

for Twenty Minute Challenge

 June 11, 9:00 - 9:20 p.m
sold

After working on the water lily for a few hours I needed to change it up a bit. I didn't want to take a long break, so I decided to do another piece for the Twenty Minute Challenge blog. I found a photo (still on my camera) of foreboding clouds from the weekend before when a storm blew in during Tommy's baseball game. I knew they would be fun to paint in oils- just pushing the paint around and only worrying about the mood, not so much the detail. The bottom of the photo had buildings and fences, people and cars which didn't interest me, so I kept it simple and pretended the picture was from the lake (as are many of my reference photos). I like the aqua blue on the bottom- in fact, that was the very first colour I put down. That day, it was quite amazing how quickly the weather changed and how dark it became, so I mixed some colours to get a black, ominous feel happening. It felt great to move fast and to paint from a more emotional, intuitive viewpoint as opposed to the detailed and planned strategy I have taken with the commission. That being said, I actually really do enjoy both processes equally. I don't think I will ever chose one over the other. I am gaining a bit of confidence in myself and realizing that there is not anything inherently better about painting in a "loose" manner. There can be really brutal "loose" paintings and there can be absolutely glorious "tight" paintings. My goal as an artist is to work from an honest place and to express the world as I see and feel it in the moment that I am painting it.

As the quote to the right says, "I am large, I contain multitudes."

A Quick Glimpse

Oh my, it has been a very long week (two really with Sammy being sick before). As I mentioned last Sunday, Nov.1 John went out of town, Tommy came down with something and I was supposed to meet Linda, the Curator of STM Gallery to hang my show. "When it rains" as they say. Well, mom and dad took Sammy for the day and because I didn't know what Tommy was sick with and I was hesitant to leave him with anyone, but my dear sweet sister volunteered to sit with him so I could get out for a bit to work on the show. She had report cards to do and she said she would do them at my house while Tommy rested. She teaches Grade One and she said he couldn't possibly have anything different than the germs she is exposed to everyday! Probably true. And she said she wasn't planning on licking him! Ha... I love her sense of humour! Since then however, I have been hunkered down with my little sickie and, for the most part, quite house bound with my parents chauffeuring Sammy to and from school for me. After four days of unrelenting fever and other symptoms I took Tommy to the doctor yesterday morning. We had to sit in a cordoned off section of the waiting room with face masks on the entire time. If we took them off we would have been asked to leave. We were there for 2 hours and when we got into the examination room we had to keep our masks on. Thank goodness the doctor didn't take too long to come in.... I really was tired on smelling my own breath and never wanted a mint so badly in my life! Oh yeah, and I felt bad for Tommy, too! The doctor's body language was quite interesting... he stayed against the wall from the time he came in and had his face mask pulled right up to his lower eyelashes. He broke free from his grip on the wall long enough to check Tommy's lungs, which thankfully, were clear and that is what I needed to know to ease my mind- at least a little. I can't blame the doctor for being cautious... in fact I admire those in his profession a great deal... they really put themselves in the line of fire, so to speak, to take care of all of us. Although he didn't send anything off to the lab to confirm his diagnosis, we are pretty sure it is the dreaded H1N1. That is simply the only flu they are seeing right now. Nobody else in our family has come down with any symptoms and although I have tried to be vigilant with hand washing and cleaning, really it is hard to live in a house with 3 other people and not share germs at all. And seriously.... the recommendation to stay away from those with flu symptoms is just not realistic or doable for a mother with an ill child. Ridiculous. But maybe Sammy did have the flu for those fevery three days before he got strep and Scarlet Fever and maybe I had it back in September when I was sick for that stretch of time.

John got home from Toronto just after midnight on Tuesday, so when he got home from the office on Wednesday I went out to meet Linda and pick up the wine for the reception on Sunday. Then I went to see the show myself for the first time. So here are some pictures. It is a public gallery on the second floor of St.Thomas More College on the U of S campus. It is in a hallway and therefore was difficult to get decent pictures, but hopefully you get the idea. I am really happy with the flow of the work through the space and I think Linda did a fantastic job making sense of the variety of sizes and subjects. It is all related to the boreal forest, but there are skies, forest scenes, abstract reflections, and rivers. I think she really tied it all together well.

I am so looking forward to November 8 and hope to see lots of friends, family and artists... and maybe meet some new art lovers! Come say "hi" if you find yourself in Saskatoon on Sunday afternoon!

It's Getting Closer!

I can't believe it is October 14 already... the school year is well under way and that means my show is fast approaching. I just received a package containing my invitations so I have to get the delivery/mailing/emailing process started. I have not been able to properly download the pdf file the curator sent to me, so I ended up scanning an invitation in order to include it in today's post. I apologize for the poor quality. The background green is more solid in reality and the words are not so cut off. The St. Thomas More website now has my show posted with the invitation and a couple of other images of paintings that will be in the show. Click here to check it out... please view it in full screen mode and thanks for looking! (Edited on Jan. 2, 2010- the link no longer shows my invitation, just info. on the gallery).

Just Keep Swimming

As I mentioned in my blog the other day, I finally told a few of my girlfriends about this new journey I have begun. Well, the next morning emailed the link (how crazy is that? I have a link!) to my immediate family. My two sisters were so excited for me. So were my parents, but they didn't quite understand what a blog was about. One of my sisters embraced this idea so enthusiastically that she immediately forwarded the link to a few people she thought might enjoy it. Later, when we spoke on the phone, she felt a bit sheepish and hoped I didn't mind that she had done that. At first I felt this pang of fear and drop in my self confidence (which actually didn't have far to fall because it is relatively low already) because one of the people she emailed is an old childhood friend of the family ( Hi Trev), but then I took a deep breathe and realized that in the end, this is what I want for this journey. I don't want to put myself out there just a little bit... I want to put myself out there full on; no holding back. And when things get a bit scary or intimidating I am going to follow some wise advice that a funny little fish once said... "Just keep swimming".

This same sister, who is one of the smartest, kindest, wittiest, prettiest, people I know, and by far the most generous, said that finding out about my blog inspired her to start a journey of her own. She has been thinking about making some changes for awhile and I guess this gave her motivation to get started. I am soooo proud of her because change is scary and it is hard, but sometimes it is what you have to do in order to get where you want to be.

 

 Nestled

7x7

acrylic on canvas

This painting (acrylic on canvas, 7x7) was done at the workshop I attended this summer and will also be part of the show. It is a little fungus that I had been looking as I ate my meals in the veranda off the dining hall. It was tucked right in the crook between two birch trees that were sort of growing out of each other. The entire time I was working on it I couldn't get over the feel of the paint. The air was incredibly humid and the paint acted much more like oil than acrylic. I had so much fun; I felt like I was playing. Because of the climate I had no choice but to paint differently than I usually do. My mind kept repeating a quote that the instructor had brought up in an earlier discussion. It somehow gave me permission to play and experiment; to not think I always have to paint in the way I have become accustomed.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."

                                                                                                  -Walt Whitman


And now that I have begun this blogging adventure, I think it will become my way to discover all of my multitudes.