Introducing Anita Singh

Please check out the exciting work of my friend, Anita Singh ,who will be one of the instructiors in a printmaking and encaustic workshop I will attend at the end of August. I've always been attracted to Anita's work especially her monotypes. With their high colour, cell like structures and split imagery, they invite you to come closer and take a good look. I love the way she weaves close-up views with landscape. Anita is also one of the artists at The Leyton Gallery of Fine Art where I show my work.

Good news

I am excited to report that I will be exhibiting 12 of my Reading a Garden paintings as part of a group exhibition called Pix and Paint at Cube Gallery in Ottawa, Canada. This is my first exhibition outside of Newfoundland therefore it is an important milestone in my career development. Cube Gallery +has an open call for submissions for themed shows yearly. I read about it in our provincial visual arts e-bulletin and submitted my work for consideration . All the artists are utilizing photography in some way in their work. It was a perfect match for my mixed media with photo transfers. I'm glad the owner thought so too.

I am hoping to attend the opening with will be September 6th. Because I have to ship my work mid August, I have been painting at least ten hours daily for the two weeks. I have four new painting in progress and I'm moving from one to the next so I don't overwork them. I am hoping that by the end of this week I will have some choice for the 12 I want to send. I am planning on creating 16 for this series (not this week). Isn't it great when you're on a roll!

Something's missing

I checked my blog this morning and low and behold all of my followers seem to have disappeared. I know I haven't been posting that frequently and the content is certainly not that profound, but I don't think everyone would have deserted me because of this. Can anyone shed any light on this little problem? I'm assuming it must be a blogger problem. Without daily contact I'm feeling out of the loop.

Is it finished yet?

I'm into the age old debate every artist has to face. How do you know when a work is complete? For me I often think something is finished and three days later I look at it again and think I must have been on a mind vacation. I think it is wise to just lay a work aside for at least a week and then go back to it to see what you think. I have also been taking my work to different rooms in my house and even outside to see if the light changes my mind about its "doneness". Sometimes I think the more time I have to concentrate on painting the more I obsess about every aspect of it. I'd love to hear if anyone else has any ideas on this topic.

Working On

We are settled into our summer home and I began my painting in earnest yesterday. It seems the hours fly by here and I am able to concentrate for large blocks of time with no phone, Internet or unannounced visitors to take me away from my creative time. I am trying to fix a painting that has been around for several months. It is a challenge in many ways. All my garden paintings are so green and the complex layering is a challenge because I rely on it to create the sense of energy that exists in even the quietest garden. This painting is about roses after the bloom has left and a reference to the cycle of life using honeycomb paper to represent bees and pollination. I think I have it conquered and I hope to finish it today. I am not able to post any pictures for awhile since I am not working on my own computer. I'll have a show and tell of completed work on August 11 when I return to St. John's.

The weather is fantastic and the whales are arriving. Yesterday I took a long break on my patio to watch their movement in and out of the small harbour our house sits beside. We have a ring side seat.

Getting ready

I am getting ready in a number of ways this weekend. We are organizing to move to our summer house in Duntara until the end of September. That means trying to get to all the things my garden demands in my main house so it doesn't go completely wild. I have to stock up on the staples (e.g., good olives) that a small supermarket might not have. It also means organizing to move everything I need to paint for that time which takes a lot of planning. I have to know, in a general way at least, what I will be producing. Any colour photocopying has to be completed ahead of time, any new paints and papers have to be bought. All my favourite brushes, mediums and other utensils need gathering. While I may sound like I'm complaining, these are rites of passage every summer that lead to great painting times and usually a lot of work completed. The one downside is no computer access unless I go to a community access site 5 km. away. I will be using a bank of computers at the local school so my posts will be mostly pictureless for awhile.

This is the back of our summer house taken before the shrubs in my two beds were in bloom. in spring the only thing moving is icebergs. My studio window is on the left. There is another window on the other side and this is my view from it.

Surprises

I was not paying attention to the sun and just snapped this bed of flowers near the Viking Museum in Oslo and moved on with the tour group. When I reviewed my photos that evening I was pleasantly surprised by my poor photography. I think it is a very fitting self portrait for an artist who loves flowers -right down to the boggly eyes. My best art is never the result of careful planning!

Can you see how this photograph is connected to the one in the previous post? I like how I am present without actually being in the picture but the shadow shape also speaks of something removed. I am intrigued by the idea of presence and absence in art. Lots of thinking for me here that will hopefully lead to painting. Is there such a thing as too much inspiration?

Reflections

You never know what might happen when you take a photograph. My intent was to capture the fabric design on the curtain of this house in Stockholm, but I got a great photograph instead that I hope will end up in a paining. This fluke led me to take other window shots. Isn't that the definition of inspiration in art?

Intimacy and art

Two of my Postcard Series pieces, Meadow 1 & 2 where sold while I was away. They are so pleasing in their intricacy and smallness. I don't know about you, but I prefer my work on the intimate side. Using a small scale requires the viewer to come close and observe, to find the hidden treasures layered beneath the obvious surface features. To me that act is a little like the unfolding that occurs in any relationship over time. The obvious turns into subtle layers of intricacy.


Sometimes art is about one's intimate connections to a person or place or sometimes it is both. Ruskin's Rose which is in the Summer Show at The Leyton Gallery is just such a piece.

I love Venice and since visiting there I've read many books that reference this magical city. One book I was quite taken with was Ruskin's Rose which is about John Ruskin, the esteemed nineteenth century art historian. In 1858 he fell in love with a young Irish girl, Rose La Touche. When Rose died, Ruskin fled to Venice to seek solace. Unfortunately the dangerous romance of Venice's canals and bridges intensified his emotions in every way. He found himself caught adrift, not having a reason to stay in the city or to leave until one day he discovered the paintings of fifteenth - century artist Vittore Carnaccio and found Rose in the fairy-tale portraits.

The red rose in my painting symbolizes the vital beauty of Venice which flows and changes through history as well as enduring love. Consistent with my other work is the exploration of the idea that everything changes with time.

Back on track

I arrived home at noon today after a wonderful holiday. I saw many sites in eight different counties and documented them through writing and photography. Tomorrow I plan to get my photos downloaded and organized and then I'll begin to share some of my inspirations. I came away from my holiday with new ideas for work and my interest in creating has been rekindled. Before I left I had lost interest in painting and was doing less and less work every week.

I am currently in two group shows which both opened while I was away. The first show is at The Leyton Gallery and the other, titled Time and Place is at Sir Wilfred Grenfell Gallery.

I'm including the work I have in Time and Place because not all the works in the show are on the website.