I've regained my focus after a fall of mostly thinking and writing about art without actually completing any new work for my Reading a Garden series. Why this sudden change? I'm having a solo show of this series at the Leyton Gallery of Fine Art at the end of May, 2010. Deadlines are a great thing!

I need 20 paintings for the show in May. I have 14 almost completed. My problem is that the wildflower meadow, an important part of my experiences at Birr Castle Demesne, is now unrepresented in the series. Both wildflower meadow paintings from the garden series have sold.

The wildflower meadow was my personal link with the Demesne. It was the kind of garden I understood. After I came back from Ireland, I photographed the meadow around my summer house as a point of comparison (see previous post). I've decided to replace the

two meadow paintings with a new one created with reference material from my own wildflower meadow. This new piece will be a bridge from here to Ireland, from my earlier life to my stay at the Demesne. I understand meadows; they are not foreign, structured or inaccessible. Wildflowers are much the same everywhere.



Certainly meadows are not exactly new content for painters. It is the predictability of the imagery that I am attracted to. The first reproduction I ever purchased was Durer's Tall Grasses. The close up view was one I understood and was attracted to. I like the focused examination of things most people ignore. There is no doubt that this little work had a big impact on my later development as an artist.

How have other artists interpreted the meadow?

Meadow, oil on canvas, 74 x 80 in. Michael Brophy, 2007
G. Gibson Gallery


Summer Meadow, oil on canvas, 100 x 130 cm. Beth Wintgens
Carina Haslan Fine Art

Meadow, 2006, oil and gesso
Jo Miller

Meadow, 2008, 24 x 2o in. oil on canvas
Karina Drogowska

Meadow Walk, 11 x 14,
Donna Day Westerman

One subject, many interpretations.
What are your preferences?

Into it

Sit in it, lie in it, roll in it, look at it, sniff it, touch it, draw it, paint it.
Meadows are a part of who I am.

Shoot it from any angle you like.

Even slightly skewed, meadows hold their own.
Why?

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.

Postcard Series - New work

I've been busy finishing several of my 4 x 6 inch postcard works. For these two I returned to Birr Castle Demesne for inspiration. I'm looking down again to see what's beneath my feet. There are whole little worlds for you to view when you look closely. I'm not working on my
Reading a Garden Series this week partly because my mind is all over the place. We leave for our vacation on Saturday and will be gone for a month. That's a long time without blogging!

Another meadow painting

This is another meadow painting created using the same process described in the last post. This was my first work in the Garden Series and it is actually my favourite of the ten completed works to date. I particularly like the way the imagery moves from highly realistic to very abstract. There are all kinds of surprises within it when you take a closer look. I really wanted to take a common scene that many people just pass by without a second look, and create something that reveals the energy and life tucked away in the tall grass evident to those who take a closer look. Both this painting and the one from the previous post are the same meadow.







While the sky is overcast, there is a defiant energy and brightness in the flowers and grasses that is always there even in the rain. Do you have a favourite between the two? I'd love to hear from you.

When to call it quits

Summer Baromenter, 2008, (16 x 16) mixed media on canvas

Today I went looking for an image and found this misplaced documentation of a painting I sold last year. This piece had a long gestation period. I could never seem to get it just right and it kept me company in my studio for three years. One day last spring, it just happened! Soon after it was chosen for a juried fine art/craft show and sold to an American tourist. I like the thought that someone else can share the joy of my early years.

In this piece I wanted to capture both my memory of the physical aspects of the landscape where I grew up, and my feelings for the meadow where we played most days of summer vacations until I was a teenager. It was a time of freedom, where we were allowed to run rampant through tall grass, over rocks, along the water's edge and through the woods that bordered our property.

I find that when I create work that is intensely personal to me and I want to get it perfect, it hampers my free flow of ideas. Nothing is good enough, and I often refuse to follow up on ideas, throwing them on the reject pile before they have had time to grow. As a result, I either have a piece that ends up in my recycle pile or I have a piece staring at me for long blocks of time. The challenge is knowing when to call it quits. I'm glad I waited for this one.

What is a garden?

As a child when the word garden was spoken, to me it meant a vast meadow that flowed to the sea in a sheet of green or white depending on the season. It meant games, running, rolling in the grass, the sparkle of wildflowers, a canopy of blue or fun in the snow in winter.

The cottage garden was a less developed concept, only experienced at my maternal grandmother's in Keels, NL. This small plot bordered by a white fence and gate was the exact opposite of my usual garden experiences. It was special, protected and tended- nothing wild was allowed.

When I walked the grounds of Birr Castle, I re-connected with my early life. I kept going back to the wildflower meadow because it was here I felt a home. I loved the sculptural aspects and order of the formal garden, but I always felt like a visitor there.

Millenium Garden at Birr Castle

When we left our cottage located within Birr Castle Demesne and stepped through our "secret" door in the wall, we were in another world, the world of the The Millennium Garden - a formal garden of the highest order. Since I am a lover of the more informal, meandering cottage garden, full of colour and energy and the wildflower meadow, ripe with nature's throw of the dice, the geometric order of the formal garden took some getting use to. It didn't take long to recognize that the number four was a prominent feature of the design and straight lines were everywhere.

I fully expected the geometry of this garden to show prominently in the composition of my new work, but up to this point it hasn't. It has, however, displayed itself more subtly. Behind one of the statues near our door, the vines around the arbour where backlit. The resulting piece created from this experience has an interesting look. Again you only get a slice from the whole painting. Just enough to tease.