Finding Inspiration in Music

There is a marvelous singer, whose songs I return to again and again. Her songs sound familiar, yet they're incredibly original.  She sings in three languages: French, English and Spanish. I, myself, find that irresistible.  Over her three albums, she has transformed her sound by using influences from Europe's Gypsies, her Mexican roots and the likes of Jacques Brel and Tom Waits, whose works I thoroughly enjoy.

She has a lovely video for the song called "Rising". The song's mood strikes a chord with my melancholic side. And the illustrations, well, i just love their simplicity and thoughtfulness. The transformation of the figures add to the already dreamlike narrative.

The singer's name is Lhasa de Sela. Her music is a balm for the soul.

You can watch her videos, including "Rising", here.

Zooming into a Moment

As i'm getting busy in the studio again - what seems to be happening is portraits.

Not portrait, portraits; but images of women, caught in a moment. A moment of recognition, self-realization, or simply an emotion that is revealed for but a brief moment. A fellow painter who saw these, said they were like inside-out portraits. I like the sound of that. Inside-out.

I feel like i'm being led somewhere interesting, but I don't know where that is. As an artist, that's the best feeling in the world.

These are some of the works in progress:

the first - familiar territory

the second: playing with modeling
and flat colours

the third: i'm baffled
but i like it

images: property of kyra crouzat

And the summer flew by...

This summer I've been focusing on the sailboat. My home and means of transportation in these beautiful B.C. waters. Boats, especially older wooden boats are a lot of work, luckily I enjoy a lot of it. I haven't been in the studio as much as I like to be. That will of course change, come this Autumn.

I have been sketching, playing with ideas earlier in the summer, here are a couple of them.




I did partake in an art show for Atomic Vaudeville, named the Sweatshop Festival. We were to create a piece and repeat the central image 6 more times. It was a fun exercise for me, and gave me some good ideas for the new body of work I'm beginning in the Fall.

Here are my favourite pieces from the show.

Incarnation #6

Incarnation #1

Incarnation #7

I also had the pleasure of creating a commission for a good friend. Here is the final product.

Becoming


Please respect that these are copyright images.
Thank you

On Birth and Death

This past month was a busy one in the studio.

I finished a commission - this one was a quite the birthing process. Some paintings don't come into the light easily. This struggle is often part of the creative process, I continue to paint sometimes with sweat and tears, until I reach the place where I need to take it.

Another project I tackled, was that of designing art work for a tombstone. It was interesting and challenging. How does one give two lovely figures justice while working within the parameters of the medium. (Sandblasting the image on stone/marble requires minimum line widths, etc). It was an honour to be asked to create this piece in the loving memory of someone's parents.

I'm enjoying the intuitive aspect of the work I'm doing right now - I'm trying to remove myself from intellectualizing it. Let it be what it is. That in itself, is work!

Playing with abstraction once again.

The reward of suffering is experience. 
(Aeschylus) 

2009: The First Quarter

I'm busy in the studio with a commission and some new projects. This winter, I hit a dry spell like no other. I began to worry I would never be able to create again... thankfully, the drought ended.

The joy I feel to be working in the studio is sweetened by gratitude.

It seems that I needed that time to replenish.

Figurative Works

Here are some of my pieces that were in
the June and September shows
at On Canvas Gallery.

Ondaatje and Matisse - What they taught me.

This morning, my friend and I talked about imagery in the written word.

We were discussing one of my favourite authors, Michael Ondaatje. I am introducing this friend to Ondaatje, with the book In the Skin of a Lion. (He had read only a part of it when we had this conversation). I was marveling at Ondaatje's incredible ability to paint scenes with words. And my friend described it as instead of having the character introduce themselves... Ondaatje literally depicts their environment and their response to that environment. And through that, you get the story and character development. My friend added that he writes with tableaux... He somehow connects each tableau in order to form an intensely original piece of writing. My favourite bit of written word, is actually a chapter in the book In the Skin of a Lion. It's the story within the story, of the nun who fell off the bridge. I'll leave it at that, as you may want to read it for yourself... I recommend that you do.

My objective as an artist, is to move away from simply reflecting what I see - but move into the realm of storytelling... I want to use something other than the act of applying paint to give my work weight. I want my work to tell a story.

On Matisse:

When I was in France 2 years ago. I had the opportunity to go to the Matisse Museum in Nice. While I liked some of Matisse's 2-dimensional works, I was not at all acquainted with his bronze sculptures. That is when truly I fell in love with his works, it is the raw power of his imagery that attracts my every senses. Matisse put it this way: "I sculpted as a painter, I did not sculpt like a sculptor." This is yet another example of using approaches from another medium to strengthen your storytelling power with visual art.

Large Seated Nude

bronze, lost-wax cast
1922-29

Magdaliene I

1901

I will leave you with a Matisse quote:

[...] I know perfectly well what a human body looks like - for me, a model is a springboard, a door I have to break down so as to get into the garden in which I am so alone and so happy.