Painting in a Pandemic

 Lately people have been asking if I am still painting.  The world has been in turmoil for a while now, however most of us artists just carry on as usual.  We go to our studios and pick up a paintbrush or whatever is our favourite tool. 

After I sent my paintings to Newzones Gallery in Calgary for my landscape show in March (yes, that March and no I wasn’t able to attend the opening), I returned to a series that I had started in 2019.  The subject is something new for me, or new/old.  Years ago I painted flowers, flowers by themselves or flowers in still lifes.  I had some success with those paintings and was very happy with them.  Eventually though I decided that I couldn’t compete with nature, nature had more sophisticated tools than I had, and I turned aside from that challenge.

 

It seems that this past decade of exploring colour – and simplifying detail to do so – has somehow led me full circle, however. Looking for a new starting point I started tentatively thinking of flowers again. In the same way that I had simplified the landscape, I saw how the flowers could be a beginning. This wouldn’t be an attempt at verisimilitude; this series isn’t really ‘of’ flowers.  The flowers with their radiance and intensity initiate the act of putting paint on canvas but they don’t control the result. The result has more to do with the curious act of ‘painting’, playing with hue, surface texture and markmaking.

You can see Neil Wedman's essay in my previous post.  He explains it much better than I can do.

Reading About Other Artists

I have read quite a few good books about artists lately.  There are so many biographies around now, fat books that take a long time to read.  I find them fascinating; it is endlessly interesting to read about the struggles and the successes.  'Lee Krasner, a Biography' by Gail Levin; 'Agnes Martin Pioneer, Painter, Icon' by Henry Martin; 'Edward Hopper An Intimate Biography' by Gail Levin; 'Joan Mitchell Lady Painter' by Patricia Albers are examples of the many you can find in your favourite bookstores (mine happens to be Pulpfiction Books on Main Street here in Vancouver - or if you are in the depths of Kerrisdale, Hager Books will find them for you).

'Ninth Street Women' is a heavy tome that was sitting on my friend Bob Christie's desk when I was in Saskatoon a while ago.  Pretty soon it was sitting on my desk also.  The author Mary Gabriel chronicles the lives of female artists who were very involved in the abstract expressionist movement but didn't get the attention the guys got.  Now it seems to be their time - some fabulous paintings are hitting the auctions with great success.

Myself, sometimes I feel like an imposter because I didn't go to art school and didn't start painting until I was over 20.   That was not the problem with these artists.  They were fully engaged in the process of painting and learning to paint and figuring out how to get better from an early age and completely committed to the challenge.  They were driven in a powerful way to make canvases, engaging new and innovative ways to put down the paint.

Memories

Yesterday there was a memorial gathering at the Art Gallery of Alberta for the artist Douglas Haynes, who passed away unexpectedly two weeks ago.  I wish I could have been there to join the others in remembering the many ways in which Doug was a part of our lives.  He gave me so very much encouragement when I first met him at Emma Lake in 1980, and in subsequent years. Even today when I am working on a painting, I wonder, what would Doug think of this?

In those days we used to have great studio visits.  This is Doug, myself, and Scott Plear  on Thormanby Island studying some watercolours painted that day.  The photo is a bit fuzzy, but it was 35 years ago!

Happy Friends

Jane Crow took this photo at the opening of my exhibition in Calgary on Saturday.  I met both these two good friends many years ago at Emma Lake, the professional artists workshop in northern Saskatchewan.  Barbara Ballachey, when she is not voyaging around the world, lives and paints in Calgary;  she and I have travelled many times together to attend exhibitions in New York and London.  Michael Matthews hales originally from Calgary, but he and his partner Jane, also a painter, do their creating part of the year in Harrogate, B. C. and the other part in Syracuse, New York.  They both also travel extensively, and took the time to join us last fall to see the Matisse Cut-Outs Show at the Museum of Modern Art.