Expressing Creativity Beyond the Canvas

 Creativity comes in many forms.

This is a view of the blood, sweat and tears of the past summer.
(Or should I say, the past 3 years...)

I love art. I also love my boat...
Allow me to introduce our boat and home, S.V. Nyon. 

Isn't she pretty?

On a side note, the yellow deck was my idea.

Our artist friends love it, our sailor friends think we're crazy.

But that's okay. We never had beige walls when we lived on land.

Why should it be any different with a sailboat?

Canvases come in many forms.

I'm proud of this masterpiece.

We call it our labour of love.

These lovely photos were taken by Julie Crouzat

Exploring Melancholy

 

William Blake 

Illustration to Milton's “Il Penseroso”

c. 1816-20

Melancholy, 1891

Edvard Munch

Oil on canvas

72 x 98 cm

 Melencolia I

Albrecht Dürer

Engraving

1514

 

Fantastical Landscapes

I feel a kinship. Something in this artist's work reveals a part of me to myself.  He creates floating, whimsical landscapes one wants to get lost in...  They seem at once familiar, yet oddly dreamlike... this dicotomy makes the eye want to wander aimlessly over the  cascading and intricate sculptures... 

I feel giddy when I look at Chris Natrop's work.

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)