We're back!

After 2 months of travel I am back and ready to dip into the paint again. My husband and I have been to Iceland, Netherlands and the UK. We visited over 10 galleries/museums and I'll copy some of the info over from my trip blog in the next few days so you can have a look.
Above is hubby at (or in?) the Dubuffet part of the sculpture garden of the Kroller Muller Museum. The Kroller Muller is in the Hoge Veluwe National Park near Arnhem (Netherlands).

http://www.hogeveluwe.nl/default.asp?language=2

It is an elegant building, low and simple, set amongst manicured lawns, sculpture gardens and woodlands. We first visited in January of 1995. Many parts of Holland had been experiencing severe flooding; when we arrived the grounds around the museum were soggy and the entrance flanked by a row of 5 blue porta potties, neatly connected in a row. How unfortunate we thought, the flooding has caused the museum plumbing to fail. Sure enough, when we were inside the smell of ammonia was powerful. Fortunately it had not permeated the Van Gogh hall, we enjoyed the paintings immensely. Leaving the permanent exhibits behind we headed for the temporary show areas, past a huge mound of burned chairs. More problems! The museum certainly had been having its share of difficulties. Nearby unopened crates, addressed to the museum, were stacked and unopened. Staff shortages? We were now close to the restrooms but no stench was apparent, in fact they were clean and functioning. The smell of ammonia was elsewhere….
This was our first experience with installation art. The ammonia smell wafted from a small house made entirely of salt cod, the burned chairs were another installation. The unopened crates contained art which the artist had submitted but with the stipulation the crates not be unpacked - a statement about the commercialism rampant in art. Now wiser about this “new” type of art, we checked out the porta potties. Yup! Art!!! The connected stalls were empty except the last one. We entered to check out the TV monitor mounted over the only toilet. The program on the screen was a simple one: a buzzing fly. This installation was called Virtual Reality for Poor People. Someone had made a statement about the piece by leaving a rather large deposit in the toilet. That part was real.
Our second visit to the Kroller was llast month. It has expanded and is probably my favourite museum. It is spacious, elegant and one is immediately aware of being in the presence of greatness. There are numerous VanGogh’s, Mondrians, Toorops. The Van Goghs are superb, you rarely have to share the viewing space and you can get up close and personal without the docents or the alarm system throwing a fit. Photos are permitted (no flash). I took lots!

A rather saucy little nude by Van Gogh

A new widget

In a few weeks hubby and I will be heading for Iceland, Holland and England. Of course I plan to see as much art as possible. We've been to Amsterdam a few times before an have visited the fabulous VanGogh Museum as well as the Rijksmuseum and the Kröller-Müller in nearby Otterlo. All of these are incredible places to visit. I've added the "Rijkswidget" to my blog, you can see it on the left. Click it to have a look and visit the museum website too.

Abstract Art with Ben Darrah

WIP or just process? (32" X 45)

Monday evenings are taken up with a trek to our local community college to join in Ben Darrah's abstract art class. We are using acrylics, loose canvas and found materials. Ben's approach to working on unprimed and unstretched canvas is new to me and quite a revelation. Likely oil paints would not be quite so forgiving and flexible but travelling to class with your painting rolled or folded up is a boon. The raw canvas soaks up the washes and has a tendency to shrink a lot so I have now learned to prewash or account for shrinkage if I'm going for a specific size. As the canvas is not stretched, one can crop and stretch it later to best fit the compostion.

The piece above is an example of the loose canvas and the class in which we painted to music. I was listening to Buddha Bar, my favourite all purpose dining, painting, working music. As we are focusing on process rather than product, ie playing and exploring, I am free to take this further or flip it over and reuse the canvas for something else...
Maybe it should go like this? -

Finally!

Kingston Mills, Kingston Ontario

Yes 2 months between posts is far too long. My excuses are numerous, not the least of which is I'm outside now that the weather is wonderful. I think I may be a foul weather blogger but I'll try to post more often and not wait for a rainy day.
I don't paint plein air much and when I do my work usually reflects the atmosphere of a place rather than a representation of the scene. A few weeks ago S and I spent the day painting at Kingston Mills, a favourite spot for both of us. Last week we headed across the river and across the border to Cape Vincent New York. My friend D is manging the hostel at Tibbets Point and we sat under the sun sketching the lighthouse, the waves and the lilacs.

Tibbets Point, New York

Yesterday my backyard was our studio and the yellow irises prompted me to to start on a fanciful abstraction of petals, leaves and shade. Looks more Hawaiian than Canadian but the weather was sultry: hot and humid.

work in progress, June 08

Enough Eyeballs?

Homage # 2, 24 X 36, WIP: work in progress

Now that I've posted this here I can see a couple of colour adjustments I need to do, but how about the flying eyeballs? Are there enough? This is the second homage piece to Hundertwasser and is more fanciful than the first. I love the streaming windows, an image one sees frequently in his work. Hundertwasser thought windows had "rights" ie the right to be prominent and the right to house trees which of course had rights too. Trees had the right to have a special floor all their own and windows just for their growth. Below is one of his sketches for how this might work:

SOLD!

"Slow Dance in the Moonlight" 18 X 36 acrylic on canvas

Sally Chupick and I continue to have our work on display at Frameworks gallery until April 25. On the weekend I had a happy surprise, an email from someone who had just purchased the painting above, the 5th one to sell since the show opened! I've never done this well before so I am pretty excited and of course motivated to do more. It has been a revelation to see what has sold and what hasn't. A couple of my favourites are still available (Red Hills, True North) and a couple that I wasn't even sure about showing, have sold. I had neglected to take a picture of one, being pretty sure it would be coming back home. So you just never know...

Hundertwasser's House - done?

Hundertwasser's House, 24" X 36 mixed media

I've adjusted the colours somewhat, highlighting the edges and smaller forms. I think it is done tho' the lower half seems quite dark.... What do you think?

Hundertwasser's House

Here it is with the first layer of colour. I'm pleased with the composition but not sure how far to take the colours, more highlights are needed to define the smaller figures and forms. As it is highly textured I may just keep it limited to earthy tones with of course a gold dome. It wouldn't be Hundertwasser without this bit of gilt. You can compare it to the sketch below to see where I have made some adjustments. This technique of cutting and pasting allows me to move the shapes around to get just the composition I want before I glue it permanently. Then the colour work begins.





The piece below is another I've done using the same techniques, this one was inspired by a Byzantine Madonna and a large female salmon with eggs. A slight force fit of ideas but both images were in my mind at the time.

Iconic Form, mixed media on board 21" X 26

"Straight Lines are Ungodly"

"Humans have more than just eyes to enjoy beautiful things and ears to hear beautiful sounds and noses to smell beautiful smells. Humans can also feel with their hands and feet. The flat floor with straight lines has been recognized as a real danger to humans. The uneven path becomes a symphony, a melody for the feet. This path makes one vibrate with joy." Friedensreich Hundertwasser

A few years ago I visited amazing Vienna with a prime target being the Klimt collections. These were truly impressive but a later Viennese artist was equally impressive. Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser (his chosen name) was an incredibly creative and controversial artist. He developed public spaces that were works of art and transformed ugly institutional buildings into intriguing gleaming and colourful confections, like the one above. This is one of Vienna's incinerators and a heating plant. It was a gray ugly eyesore until the "doctor of architecture" performed a face lift. We visited the buildings which were a delight. Even the pavement in the parking lot revealed Hundertwasser's touch. The painted dividing lines were wavy, not straight. He felt straight lines were unnatural, only man produces such uncomfortable constructs. Osaka has copied Hundertwasser's ideas for their incineration buildings which are often mistaken for a theme park.
My current project is an homage to Hundertwasser, a bas relief piece using foam core and lots of textural effects. Here's a preliminary sketch of my imaginary "Hundertwasser House"

Bjork Speaks About Poets

Bloggers love to get comments. One of my regular and most dependable responders is W. He doesn't always use the same moniker but you know it is W if the comment is lengthy, incredibly erudite and astute! W writes poetry and reviews art too. This post is for you W, thanks for your steady input on those quiet days when it seems know one is out there. Here's a very young Bjork with her thoughts about poets. (click on her name to get the video)

As an aside Bjork's longtime partner is Matthew Barney, a performance artist and filmaker. Check him out on Youtube if you really want to see something bizarre. Here he is in Cremaster 4. Can you imagine having these two over for dinner?

Pausing...

Pausing, acrylic on board 16 X 18

The painting above is one I sold recently at the Frameworks show. The simplicity of the scene really appealed to me as I worked on it. It is was not hard to resist adding "more". Sometimes less is more. When it was done I thought of Robert Frost's poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening". One might glance and stop to catch the simple beauty of sun on grass, pause and enjoy a moment lovely and light. Obviously it is not a snowy evening so here is how the poem might work (apologies to RF):

Stopping By Fields On A Hazy Evening

Whose fields these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his grass gleam and glow. etc

Here's another wonderful poem that starts in a field. By Mark Strand, this poem is about not stopping, at least that is the superficial message. Strand's "verse deals primarily with the relationship between the individual self and the rest of the world in language that is spare and through images that are often surreal and dream-like." I think the style of the poem fits the style of my painting, but the message is quite different.

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Art and Wine, a perfect match

Last fall my husband picked a pail full of wild grapes from the neighbour's fence. He has produced 4 bottles of his "Mowat Ave Red Fox Wine" as he calls it. Not to be outdone by the vineyards who commission artists to create labels, I was asked to print out 4 of my pastoral scenes for his exclusive and very limited varietal. Some vineyards pay the artists outright; others supply them with wine. I think I'll go for the latter.
Here in Ontario the Hillebrand Winery in Grimsby has an annual contest for artists:

"Our long standing support of the arts comes to life in Artist Series. Each bottle features the original work of an Ontario artist, a beautiful piece that captures the spirit of our province and shows the incredible talent found here. Inside the bottle is the work of our talented winemaker, Darryl Brooker. "
You can see some of the past winners here.

Next time you visit the LCBO remember to support the wineries that support the arts!

A Great Day!

Tundra #1 - 14" X 30"
click to enlarge, lots of nice texture!

Both Sally and I were thrilled with the turnout for the opening of our show on Sunday. The Frameworks staff (incuding Sally) had done a super job to make the space inviting and many folks spent the afternoon chatting and munching, munching and chatting. And enjoying the art of course; we both sold pieces which was very gratifying.
My impressionistic landscape above (which has not sold yet) was one of my favourites in the show. It did get lots of attention but no takers. If it is still unsold next month I may keep it. I did 2 others like it, all reminiscences of my travels in Labrador. Labrador is a magical beautiful place, one of the last true wilderness sites in the world, right here in Canada.

"Double Feature" Opening on Sunday!

Evening, acrylic on canvas 24 X 36

Dave, at Frameworks, has called our show "Double Feature" as 2 artists are showing new work. As well as my quirky landscapes, Sally Chupick has a large number of her sumptuous landscapes, cityscapes and florals in the show. I have 15 unusual pieces on display, all new, completed within the last few months. Despite the variety of interpretation in my work I am consistently examining landscape, some pieces quite representational and others more abstract, patterned or atmospheric. I like to discover new approaches so I'm not sure I will ever leave my period of "artistic gymnastics" as VanGogh called his stylistic explorations. The one above was finished yesterday with the blow dryer hastening the varnish so it could be delivered to the gallery. Our show opens on Sunday from 1-4pm. Sally and I have our tiaras polished and shoes shined so we hope to see you there. The art will be on display until April 30. Frameworks is at the corner of Princess and Montreal, in downtown Kingston.

Stop Blaming Mother!

The long ride home had me thinking about the workshop, the pros and cons. It certainly was a new experience for me to view art as a therapy, a process rather than a product. Blocks to creativity were discussed : the usual nuggets of conformist schooling, repressive parenting and the evils of coloring books. I have problem with this as most of the artists we admire today came from very strict societies and frequently had major demons nibbling at their psyches. Their education focused soley on knowledge rather than imagination. Did they go to BE workshops to open up? Maybe they meditated for at least an hour a day or were sexually abstinent - these were also discussed. But I have read "Sex Lives of the Artists" know the latter is is rather dubious. (See also The Big Bang Theroy of Art, fascinating reading about creative types, maybe being promiscuous and schizophrenic is the answer.) Or was it the copius amounts of absinthe that led early artists to be more expressive? Maybe their sad, demanding or neurotic mothers were the muses that led to creativity? (Van Gogh's mother Anneke above.)
I loved my coloring books and had a huge collection of crayons. I coloured within the lines, sometimes I added my own lines. I learned that with careful amounts of pressure and various forms of hatching you can shade and blend even with wax crayons. Push enough crayon onto the page and you can put a paint wash over top. Take the page out, turn it over and make a rubbing. Oil it and make it transparent. I could go on and on. Colouring books are just another tool to use creatively. Thank you Mom!
Some more intersting reading about creativity in kids, click here.

Get in Touch with Your Inner Pain

Sunday's session at Jonas' and Kat's BE workshop started with a warning that we would have to work harder, dig deeper. We needed to really let our deepest fears, angers, hates, sorrows etc emerge in our paintings. The kind of joy we admire in Jonas' work is only possible by first unloading all the baggage that is holding us back. Now I had been having a good time and didn't really want to drag up old issues let alone waste good paint on them. I should have struck firm but also thought I should conform to these expectations. So I painted about my experiences with health crisis, typical dysfunctional family problems and gloomy winter depression. What emerged was angerlite. Jonas wanted to see more angst, more blood and guts. It made me angry, I didn't want to be angry. Was he goading me to attack the paper? If so, it worked. Here is something I blasted off in a few minutes when it was clear my work was too mild. But even this one turned out to be just plain silly.

Painting Marathon

Today we started painting at 9 a.m. and worked to 5 with a short break for lunch. I did 4 paintings, not completely finished but close. We were instructed to work silently and just enjoy the process without trying to create a polished product. Jonas and Kat circulated asking about our thoughts and offering some of their own which frequently came in the form of more questions. The one above (tempera 20 X 24) started as a stylized self portrait. I rotated it and the temple emerged.





Another full day of painting tomorrow in Jonas'
huge studio space. A pic of his painting table, a
work of art in itself, is here. He uses the edge of the table to wipe his brushes. Years of accumulated acrylic paint has totally covered the table edge with a rainbow coloured coral reef.

Jonas Gerard & Asheville NC

Heading south, over the Smoky Mountains to Asheville

Hi y'all, greetings from Asheville, home of sun, no snow and the studio of Jonas Gerard. My workshop starts tomorrow, have a look here and you will see why I am stoked!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I1lfe1ngtc

"Now What" is nearing completion

still untitled, acrylic on canvas 24 X 36

Today I worked on this piece, I posted an image of the underpainting earlier this week and waited for the inspiration muse to arrive. Putting work aside when I am at an impasse seems to be a good strategy but it means a lot of unfinished work sitting around the studio. I'm also waiting to decide if a piece is finished. Sometimes it looks great when I stop for the day and the next morning it may look like poop! Right now I'm thinking this one might be close to DONE. The layers are formal, somewhat meditative and playful too. Hints at a natural order that keeps us on an even keel. It has my landscape line thing going on so maybe you can see some consistency with other recent work.

Framing and Naming

This is one of two pieces I took in for framing yesterday. Choosing a frame from the hundreds available was a lot easier than choosing a title from the infinite number of possibilites. Obviously it is a landscape but a loose and somewhat abstracted version so I think the title should be loose too. I like the viewer to bring his own intrepretation to my work so I don't like to direct the response. A vague title or nondescript title is what I need...