New Year Sale!

Once again, with the new year, comes new things. However, in order to make room for new things, new styles, new fun, i need to downsize some of the pieces currently taking up residence in my limited studio space.

All works not currently associated with a gallery are on sale up to 40% off. If there is a piece that you have been eyeing up, send me a message with the title, and I will send you details regarding prices. Please note that prices do not include shipping. Pieces can be shipped on the stretcher bars, or I have successfully shipped different pieces around the world by taking them off the stretcher frame, rolling and sending. That would mean, however, that you would have to get them re-stretched, or framed accordingly. Please also check for import fees depending on your country.

A New Series…of sorts

I blame it on the moose. No, really, I do. People sometimes have a hard time following where my art is going, where is the “natural progression” that shows “growth”. I suppose I can understand that if you are used to looking at an artist who paints series after series in the same style, you could consider them “developing” their “art” as opposed to someone like my who skips and hops back and forth from series, to style, then back again. The problem is, that is just the way my brain works creatively. I suppose I could, if someone pinned me down and forced me to, paint the same things over and over and over again, thereby definitively creating a box me in, write it up in a sentence statement “style”, but why, other than to facilitate those who feel the need to define me, would I want to if that isn’t who I am or how I work?

Anyhow, back to the moose…and I blame this latest diversion on it. I liked the moose even though it’s not complete, so I thought of playing with elements of that style, combined with my style just to see what direction it would take me. These are by no means done yet. With the holidays upon us, crazy kids, baking and all the rest, I will need time to finish them, but it will give you an indication of the latest direction my work is taking.

Soul Walker

The moose is done…well…sort of…

For those of you who either know me, or who have been following the artistic journey I have been on, you know that I am always into trying new things, whether as a professional artist, or as an educator. In the classroom, to facilitate all the students’ needs, I sometimes modify or play around with projects…I mean, isn’t that what art is all about?

One of my students enjoyed building a massive spider for the haunted house. So much so, that when I thought about a possible next project “Hey____, how would you like to build a moose?” slipped out of my mouth. A Moose?!? Reindeer given the time of year maybe. This was promptly followed up by the thought, “What WAS I thinking?!” Within 10 minutes, said student had taken a garbage bag, stuffed it with newspaper, wrapped tape around it, and had produced a very life-sized replica of a moose head. What to do, what to do…You can’t exactly make a life-sized free form paper mache moose, so I needed a substructure. Luckily enough, I am fortunate to have some great colleagues who help me out when I engage on these wanderings of madness. He built a sawhorse out of wood to give me a stable structure. Hence, when you see the pic, you can see we were somewhat limited by the shape of it when doing the legs (they are slightly splayed lol).

Bunches and bunches of recycled newspaper were used with masking tape to create the sculptural form. Then layers and layers of paper mache were added. A coat of gesso and voila, we were ready to paint. There were some discussion as to whether or not to make it a Christmas moose given the season, or a natural moose as one would see in the wild. After some thought, I remembered the famous Toronto moose where each one was turned into a work of art. I thought about possible art to work into the piece and decided on a mixture of Haida, Woodland School and Australian Aboriginal styles. It isn’t done yet as there is a lot of detail work I would like to add, but you get the idea…who knows where we will go next!

A moose is a moose…unless it is a piece of art…

I have this tendency to do “interesting” er,  ahem, things and perhaps things that regular folks don’t tend to do, like use doors and regular old rocks for mosaics, or driftwood for wall art. I truly believe that allowing the creative process to break free in unique ways is part of not only my spirit and soul as an artist, but also part of my duty as an educator. One of my students proved to enjoy making overly large paper mache items. When it came time for our winter themed creations, with visions of all things Canadiana and Christmas bouncing around in my brain, out of my mouth popped, “so___, how would you like to make a moose?” A MOOSE?!? sigh..silly me for within 15 minutes he had taken a rather large garbage bag, stuffed it, and had it shaped for the rather enormous, almost life-sized head of well, a MOOSE! What to do, what to do…and I mean really, what do you do with an almost life-sized head of a moose when working within the confines of a classroom space and a number of other students, other projects etc. When in doubt, get someone who knows how to build things. A colleague of mine fashioned a small pony sized wooden saw horse to use a substrate and the real work began, scaling down the head somewhat, adding paper, sculpting with more paper and tape, adding antlers and ears, then layer after layer of gooey wet paper to seal the thing together. A coat of gesso and it appears ready to go. Even if not the most anatomically correct, it is rather LARGE and rather cute, my little albino classroom companion. The next steps involved figuring out what to do with him. Should I/we paint him in a realistic manner? Should he be turned into an interpretation? If you have ever been lucky enough to see the moose in Toronto, those fabulous artistic creations, then you would know the dilemma. In the end, we decided to go with a First Nations art influence and celebrate our Canadian First Peoples. From Ontario, we are interpreting the Woodland School style and from the west most definitely some Haida. When it is complete, is should be a figure standing for both our environment and people…we shall see what unfolds as we progress. Note to self, never, ever make suggestions when the mind is occupied with things or the heavens know it we will be building giant elephants and rain forests.

Crossroads…

And here I am again, at the crossroads. Well, at least artistically or metaphorically.

A bunch of ideas are playing around in my head and on the sketchbook.

I have a very cool, tripped out funky sketch, something that I really haven’t done before except in sketches, and maybe a bit in my “Jazzman”. I love it as a sketch and want to paint it…but…am just not sure how it should play out on canvas and with paint.

I also have a new forest series sketch. I’ve taken the concept a bit further, highlighted the powerful moon in the back and played around with landscape and trees…but…it reminds me a lot of “Whispers” in a way, and is that a good thing, or not, and do I want to do another one along those lines.

There are the dark hedges of Ireland that I have only seen in pictures to date, although i have plans to go, and they totally fascinate me with their tendrils entwining, the patterns and colours, the mystery and mood they create in contrast to the path they allow through. I have a sketch and I want to do them…but…where will my interpretation take me and how to capture the magic of such a place.

And then sitting outside with the sun filtering through the birches, the fall leaves falling and blowing, I had another idea about doing a background like those in the forest series, but then taking the palette knives and doing powerful birches in impasto..but…hmm….

There is a story waiting to come out and I can feel it pressing upon me. I know that there is something that I “need” to do and can feel it…it makes me antsy and dissatisfied and edgy as an artist. I can almost put my finger on it…just. Sometimes, when life gets so frenetically busy, the psyche for lack of a better term starts smacking me upside the head, telling me to sit…be still…listen…hush…breathe. And again. It will come.

What if? Why not?

Sometimes when I look at a piece I have been working on, even when it is “finished”, there is something “missing”. It is “ok”. It kind of looks “done”, but hmm. And then I think, “What if?. What if I added something there, bolded this area out there, put this little bit in there. Why not? What stops us as artists from playing with a work further, experimenting and adding? When you work on a piece for a period of time, especially in oils when you sometimes have to wait days or weeks for a layer to set in the drying process, that hesitation comes from the “what if I totally screw it up and ruin the whole damn thing” fear. What if I take it from “ok” into the “crap what I have done holy mess” zone? I just spent weeks, sketching, layering, adding, lovingly adding brush stroke or palette texture only to foul the piece up to “I HATE it”.

Fear is the enemy of an artist. When we fear, we fail to push, to reach, to stretch, to grow. It is natural to like working within a comfort zone, to keep things safe. I am not a representational artist by any means. Everything I do, even when there is an intent for it to be recognizable as something specific comes filtered through my vision and interpretation. But even then, I have these preset subconscious boundaries that I have placed on myself somewhere in the depths of my psyche. The best example is my latest “finished” painting, “Whispers”, one of my forest interpretations, where the feeling and spirit of the forest is presented through colour and flowing line to convey the emotion one feels when presented with that magical majesty of old growth trees.

It could have been considered complete as I presented it last time, but looking at it something was bugging me and I was dissatisfied with the final image. I was hesitant to go at it again, because then you risk taking thing too far, adding too much, and fail to self edit. To leave it or not to leave it? To sit looking at it always wondering what it was that was irking me about it, or risk “ruining” it and going overboard? And that my friends is where the intuitive spirit as I like to call it takes over. You see, I don’t think we can really “ruin” a work. We can change it, we can push it in a way that we may not like as a final product, but if we do not ever, take those risks, then we will never grow. It once again comes down to there are no failures, there are no mistakes, it is all part of  process.

 

“Whispers”
Oil on Canvas

Opening Doors…so to speak

Sometimes, ideas just pop into my head, seemingly from out of the blue. I have the privilege of working with high school students and they continue to be a source of inspiration for me. One of my projects has been running school art battles. Individual artists will compete, creating works within a specified time frame, using specific materials and themes…for our year closing, or in this case, year opening battles, we’ve put together team battles. This year’s inaugural battle saw 11 teams of over 70 staff and student combos battling it out and it was magnificent!

So, this idea, you say…well, it was to use doors as the canvas. The theme was “gateways”. Each team was provided with an actual door and they had to produce a finished piece in 30 minutes. Luckily, we are blessed with some amazing local businesses who are more than willing to help out. In this case, Artefacts in St Jacob’s (an architectural salvage business) donated a number of doors to this project, thereby allowing us to accommodate all the people who wanted to participate.

In the case of my “team”, we decided to blend the inside with the out, and used actual stones, both painted colours and natural to create our gateways. A play on gateways/pathways, actual paths…well, you get it. Although we did not finish our door within the time frame (a bit challenging with two team members out of four running the gauntlet of technical difficulties keeping things progressing smoothly for the battle), we did make considerable progress and plan on completing the door in the upcoming weeks. I will post pics of the finished door. I guess my point is-think outside the box. Let nature and unusual things be your canvas and palette. Don’t be afraid to try new things and most of all…have FUN!

 

Setting up our “colours”

 

The canvas

 

Phase 1 Design

 

Phase 2

 

Phase 2 another view

A jaunt down this lane and that…

And then some! None of the following works are done by any stretch of the imagination, but it would appear between my own mind’s direction and the desires of others, this is what I will be working on for the next while. Will be interesting to see where the mind goes next, no?

Whispers
Not Completed
oil on canvas
36 by 36

 

Poppies Stage 2-not completed
Oil on Canvas
48 by 48

 

Coastline-not completed
Oil on Canvas

Off to the Fall Show it Goes

“Compartmentalizing” is heading to the fall group show at the fabulous TAG Art Gallery in St Catherine’s. If you are ever in the Niagara area, I highly recommend that you pop in on your way through. Located in a quaint redesigned older building that still retains its architectural charm from yesteryear, Tom Goldspink has put together an intriguing and diverse collection of fabulous artists, not to mention the collection of historical prints. If you do get to go, the effusively warm and knowledgable Frank will guide you through the gallery, his passion and acumen for art clearly evident as you tour room after room of beautiful pieces in such a lovely range of styles and sizes, that you are sure to fall in love with one of them. Put some art and wine tours on your fall calendar…a perfectly scrumptious way to ease yourself from summer into the crisp notes of fall.

“Compartmentalizing”

And here is the finished painting…perhaps a message about the pitfalls of trying to compartmentalize. Unfortunately not the best photo as the size of the work presented challenges trying to get the right lighting. If I get a better shot, will post later.