A few days away...

I spent a wonderful 3 days away at St. Michael's Retreat Center, Lumsden and found this beautiful bird flitting amongst the trees.  They move so quickly it is difficult to find them paused long enough to get a photo!

Below, some always beautiful lilacs which may have been planted by former residents - farmers/ homesteaders - as they were back in the trees. 

I think of these

inside  & outside paths as leading to a sense of mystery. 

The one on the left is the outer circle which surrounds the inner sanctuary - the heart of St. Michael's.  

The path on the right  leads towards an open vista of the valley below and the hills beyond. 

Both may be experienced as paths to the beautiful and contemplative.

Stop, look, and listen to life...

“Literature, painting, music – the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot.  In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.”

Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

“Creativity is a way of living life – no matter what our vocation, or how we earn our living… The creator is not afraid to leap over the ‘accidental fences’ and to plunge into the deep waters of creation.  There once again, and in yet another way we lose ourselves to find ourselves…”

Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

On May 3rd I began this painting of the Peony - and today, I've finally finished after many hours. As I've said before, "There comes a time to say, enough!"  

That doesn't mean I'm satisfied with the painting, or that it couldn't be improved upon, or indeed that it couldn't have been painted in an entirely different manner - it just means, simply, enough... time to let it go:)

A painting such as this is for me meditative. It takes hours of quiet, steady, pondering time.  I work in silence mostly.  I lose myself in a strange way.  There is a point when there is absolute dread and fear and the decision needs to be made -  to throw it away in despair or move on in faith.  I hope that by moving on with it I have learned more of myself, my art, and of my life.

 

An Iris Blessing

I came across this blessing today while looking at poems about Irises because I had come across this painting which had been hidden away and sometimes try to relate my paintings to poems or writings.  Not being creative that way I need to appropriate these from others....

.... and well, yes, I was thinking spring, because the snow did not come and even though it is cold, the sky is blue.  As well, because it is Easter the purple of the iris reminds that it is the symbolic colour for the Christ - the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The blessing clearly relates to us as humans - one of the host of nature poems that are really expressing thoughts about you and me.  May you be encouraged to live your life airborne, sublimely, gracefully and artfully.

 

An Iris Blessing

May your blooms be floriferous and in good form,
Distinctive, with good substance, flare, and airborne,
With standards and falls that endure, never torn.
May you display many buds and blooms sublime,
In graceful proportion on strong stalks each day,
Gently floating above the fans and the fray.
May you too reach toward the moon and stars,
Bloom after bloom, many seasons in the sun,
Enjoying your life, health, and each loved one,
Until your 'living days are artfully done.

By Georgia Gudykunst

Art Show

Event:  2012 Big Sky Artists Show & Sale

Location :  Grace Westminster Church Auditorium

                       10th St and Eastlake Ave, Saskatoon SK

Times:       Friday April 20th  7 to 9:30pm

                  Saturday April 21st  10am to 5pm

                  Sunday April 22nd  12 to 4pm

Sometimes one just needs to stop!

There comes a time when working on a painting that I say, "That's enough!" It's time for the painting to sit while the paint settles into the paper.  It's time to get on with something new.  If I continue to work on this painting I will likely come to dislike it - one begins to fiddle and pick at things and then nothing seems quite right...

It has taken over a month of working off and on - an evening snatched here, an afternoon several days later - to actually get this painting to the place where I have decided to stop.  I'm exhausted because this type of painting is very time consuming and tends to pull me into myself.  Perhaps it's time to do an acrylic painting which is for me, a less meditative and more confrontational way of painting.  With acrylics I tend to fight with the paint and talk to the picture out loud.  A few days to regroup my thoughts, adjust my vision and tackle something different.

Meanwhile this will be hidden away while we wait for the Flowering Ornamental Crabapples that line our streets to once again burst into a million pink and white blossoms and welcome the spring.

"Visual Memories"

I am amazed at the diversity of God's creation and mankind's creativity!  What a privilege to enjoy a week visiting my sister and her husband in Savannah, Georgia where we explored an entirely different physical environment and a city full of history, memories, inspiring architecture, and diverse artistic creativity.  A blend of old and new, classic and modern, ancient cobblestone and plenty of spanish moss.  Because it is still difficult for me to wrap my head around all we saw and experienced I've decided to pull together a few photos to give a visual picture of the beauty and diversity that makes up a minute portion that part of the world...

Blue Heron in the stream by the house

view from the back deck - driving range just past the trees

lichens - wonderful colour!

Bonaventure Cemetery

one of many beautiful statues in the cemetery

First Baptist Church - Cross erected on Ash Wednesday

Cathedral of St John the Baptist

typical sidewalk in the historic district

Art Market

Book Store - lots of nooks and crannies

hallway at the Savannah College of Art and Design

Gallery Espresso - our favorite coffee shop - one of ~ 24 city park squares in the background

Inside Gallery Espresso

one level of the fountain in Forsyth Park

post to tie a horse to - wonder how old this would be?

one of many courtyards

marina on Skidaway Island

salt marshes - they seem to surround Skidaway Island

Tea Room

Tea time - Memories of Gran

 museum at the Savannah College of Art & Design

  

Tybee Island

Simple Sights

I often wonder why I paint... why write... or play a tune....

Do I simply push around the colours until they form a pleasing image, rework words into an expression of yet another interpretation, form scales, triads, and trills into one more melody...?

Sometimes it seems that what has already been done I am simply copying or reforming.

I suppose one thought is, "Yes, but this painting, this writing, this tune, is remade according to who I am, my delights, my sorrows, my vision and senses."

There is a fulfillment that comes when light and colour clash or flow into one another and reflect back to me from the paper, when words formed into a short phrase embody much ponderings, when a tune causes my mind to forget words, my eyes to close and my spirit to soar in pleasant release.

Oscar Wilde, wrote, "Humility in the artist is his frank acceptance of all experiences, just as Love in the artist is simply that sense of Beauty that reveals to the world its body and its soul."

I don't know in what context this was written but it reminds me that "before the mystery of what is, and what happens, I offer homage because it is not of my own making, and that I am stirred and blessed simultaneously by nature's beauty and depth revealed in the 'ordinary'." How grateful I am to be able to see, hear, smell and touch - and how grateful I am to live life where I can "glimpse the infinity that hides in the simple sights," and  respond creatively to what is.

For the Senses  [John O'Donohue]  
May the touch of your skin
Register the beauty
Of the otherness
That surrounds you.

May your listening be attuned
To the deeper silence
Where sound is honed
To bring distance home.

May the fragrance
Of a breathing meadow
Refresh your heart
And remind you you are
A child of the earth.

And when you partake
Of food and drink,
May your taste quicken
To the gift and sweetness
That flows from the earth.

May your inner eye
See through the surfaces
And glean the real presence
Of everything that meets you.

May your soul beautify
The desire of your eyes
That you might glimpse
The infinity that hides
In the simple sights
That seem worn
To your usual eyes.