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Hi friends. This is a quick-snack post to let you know of an upcoming exhibition Friday, November 1 from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. I’m showing work alongside the abstract painter, Kari Hollingsworth. 

The location is Studio C, a great new event space with the feel of an artist’s studio, 409 Avenue C North, Saskatoon. 

I’ll be bringing eight new figurative paintings, including those in the images attached, part of a new series called Woman + Space. The flavour of these may be familiar to those of you who have some of my series of women at work from a few seasons back. 

The show is one night only — a real pop-up — so we hope you can make it. We’ve timed the show so you can come after work, or on your way out to the Next Thing. 

I look forward to seeing you!

My dear friend Jan Henrikson passed away on my birthday in March, 2021. I’ve always been bad at remembering the dates and years of things and Jan used to tease me about this sometimes. How fitting that she left on my birthday, one of the few dates I can’t forget. 

While Jan was still living, a group of friends held an auction to raise money to support her in her last days. One of the many cruelties of cancer is how it leaves people unable to earn a living. I donated a painting — shown above — to the event, and I must say the bidding was spirited. Fund-raising aside, I think a lot of people just wanted that painting as a memento of a friendship with Jan. 

This fact was not lost on Lindsay Hart, the Calgary woman who ultimately took home the painting with the high bid. She hung the painting up, but she didn’t want the story to end there. After spending some time with the painting, Lindsay borrowed a notion from the 2005 movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and let the canvas travel onward. 

The painting has so far entered the lives of three people in Jan’s circle, passing from hand to hand after staying awhile. By coincidence, the painting has circled back to my city and currently lives with Judith Walters, a good friend to Jan and me. Judith, a quilter and sculptor with fabric generally, is sewing a travelling bag for the painting. It includes a side pocket containing a book where you can add your name to the list of custodians. 

Paintings have a life of their own once the artist is finished with them. I’m delighted to follow this one on its journey, honoured that it celebrates Jan’s life while it travels. 

September is my favourite month. I feel my garden thinking about slowing down. People are more reflective. The temperature is often the perfect 21 degrees. I’m still painting florals, but there is a creative shift going on too that comes with the season and these times.

In one painting I find my flowers are floating out of the vase. They won’t stay down. A different bunch tumbles into another canvas to make a kind of floral-patterned wallpaper on a gold-leaf background. These same ones sneak into a third canvas, the one with the woman.

A few years back I painted a similar seated figure with rosy cheeks and a heart-shaped face. Somehow she re-appeared in this new canvas. The wallpaper florals have snuck in behind her, to become a painting within a painting. She is seated, waiting, like many of my figures. I think she likes where she is, but she’s waiting too, always waiting for the next thing in this joyful impermanence called life. I too am waiting. Changes always lie around the corner. I may be moving. I may be living in a van. The compass needle always wavers a little, never quite settles down. 

It is the middle of April and the air smells earthy from our first rain. I poked around my garden yesterday and saw my chives are starting up. This itsy bit of green gives me great excitement! The maple and the elm are budding. A young magpie has returned to the nest in the trees next door. Continue reading “Early Shoots”

Hey folks, the warm weather is slowly returning and I am on the hunt with my man for a summer studio to rent away from the city. If you know of a place that might be suitable, please contact me by phone, email, or contact form on this website. The requirements are: 

• Living space for two minimum but preferably roomier
• Some interior space with good natural light to serve as a painting studio — a room, a shop, an enclosed verandah, etc.
• A bit of yard (or a lot)
• Located somewhere with recreational possibilities in the vicinity 
• Rent period from May to September, or less depending on availability. 

Farmhouse, cabin, commercial or residential space in a small town. We are fine with rustic, ramshackle, commercial or oddball — as long as there is power and water and we can make it camping-clean. 

We are especially interested in the town of Elbow. Elsewhere near the shore of Lake Diefenbaker would also work. The RM of Lakeland would be great too. But anywhere within, say, three hours or so of Saskatoon. 

Ideally, we’ll find a great space, do up a body of work, and we’ll invite you to a nice outdoor exhibition at the end of summer!

Art works, like children, are meant to go out into the world and lead a life of their own. They give pleasure and meaning in ways beyond the artist’s control. I have heard that some artists accumulate their own work over time. I know of a fellow who left a whole barn full of his own stuff when he died. Yikes. Not this girl. Virtually every piece I’ve completed has flown off out the door eventually. 

However…my collection of Moments is a rare exception. This week I hauled them up from the basement. They live in a battered blue Rubbermaid tub. I haven’t opened the lid in four years, and most of the work inside is nearly 20 years old. 

What are Moments? Moments are little sculpted worlds. They celebrate moments of connection I’ve experienced, mostly with people, but sometimes with places or prayerful feelings. They are collections of little tokens and castoffs. Beads and buttons and ribbons. Small photos that make your heart sing or break. Swatches of fabric. Bits of text. Toys. Little evidences of victory or failure or survival. A piece of coal you pick up after your friend tells you she has cancer, and you wind silk thread around it, knotting it like a whispered invocation.

Some of the people are gone out of my life, and some are truly gone. And can we ever really go back to a place, or back to an old feeling? 

Whew. The past gets heavy, man.

All these hundred-odd Moments appeared in a show called Moments over 15 years ago. My friend Jan Henrikson had photos on exhibit in the same space. My man Cloudy made these high, arc-shaped tables to put the little Moments on. The space was all hardwood and old brick. My kids were there. It was a nice night. The whole show itself was momentary — a one-evening exhibition. 

And since then the boxes have accompanied me through life, birds that won’t leave the nest. Some artworks are too personal or unwieldy to sell. They just wouldn’t work in someone else’s living room. I sort through the Moments again, stacking and remembering. Cloudy hovers, bends to study these little chapters of experience, some of which we’ve shared. 

In hauling up the Moments, I thought I might be ready to let them go. I do manage to weed a couple dozen that no longer resonate. But the rest I put back into their tub and close the lid. Next time, maybe.

These are uneasy times for us all, of course. As it happens, the last few weeks have also been a time of some big decisions for me, personally. 

In unsettled times, I am especially glad to have my studio, to have art that needs making every day, to have an easel and a table awaiting me in the corner like friends. In fact, my happy friendship with such things goes all the way back to childhood. Making art has been like a balm, a friendly presence, an ally — especially in the hard times. It is still like that today. 

Lately I’ve been cutting up some of my old pieces, acrylic on paper. Some folks might find that alarming, but it is quite the opposite. I’ve always reprocessed, recycled and repurposed old work. They might be unfinished pieces or fragments, or things I’ve laboured passionately over until the steam ran out. It’s funny how certain pieces, after they have cooled awhile, start to suggest new directions.

I cut them up, rotate the pieces around, add collage layers or hand stitching. I let new marks fall over old in a free and easy way. I don’t fully understand this process, but it always feels refreshing and takes me back. As children, we re-imagine things every minute, without effort. One thing becomes another.

I find it comforting knowing old things can always be taken apart and new things made of the pieces. The world will always be whole, one way or another. 

The spring of 2020 has been — to borrow a phrase from the Fantastic Mr. Fox — a cluster-cuss. What should an artist do in the studio when all of our lives are being turned upside down? In a world where suddenly there seemed to be no right side up, I pulled out a happy technique. How about some watercolors that you can hang in any direction?

These pieces are 18 x 23 inches and have no right-way-up. I turn the paper as I work on them, adding more layers. The long, thin lines are made by letting drops of colour flow down the paper by the pull of gravity. It all seems like fun and games, but watercolour is not for sissies. There is no going back with this medium. Much soup-making and yogic breathing has to occur in preparation for the paint strokes.

I first experimented with spinnable watercolour during a residency in Santa Monica a few years ago. It was my way of capturing the beauty and unsettled energy of California. A client on a studio visit recently fell in love with one of those images and took it home with her. Which got me thinking of them again.

Finally, a word about the flowers. They are the first element put down in these paintings. When it comes to flowers I often take inspiration from a book called A Victorian Flower Album, by Henry Terry. Terry was a gentle Victorian father who wandered the fields of Oxfordshire collecting flowers with his three small children. The book was his gift to them, a record of their discoveries.

The events of this spring have given many families the gift of time to wander fields together. I hope these images lighten your heart in these topsy-turvy days.