Triangle Workshop 30 Year Anniversary

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Triangle workshop, which first took place in Mashomack in upstate New York.  I attended in 1983 and again in 1993. My studio space was on the cavernous top floor of the big old dairy barn and I have vivid sensual memories of the hot dry space.  Other artists were strewn throughout the barns and outbuildings, while the sculptors worked outside.  For lunch, we sat on the grass under the trees and feasted on the tasty food they trucked over from the club house.  (It was an old dairy farm, but converted to a fishing club.)

As a painter of landscape, I revelled in the surrounding scenery with its gently rolling hills and expansive cornfields.  One of the visiting artists, Graham Nickson,  suggested that I set up outside and go crazy with big cans of oil paint :

It was a challenge, but fun.  However the hardest part was getting the cans of oil paint back to Canada. I couldn't pack them with me because they are considered flammable; and none of the courier companies would accept them for shipment to Canada.  Finally, another artist came to my rescue.  Ron Shuebrook very kindly put the box into his vehicle which he was driving back to Ontario, and then put the paints on a bus to Vancouver.  He was a true friend.

Trees as Paintings

When I was at the Emma Lake workshop this summer in Northern Saskatchewan, I used tree imagery as starting point for my paintings.  You can see from this photo that I am continuing with this in my studio in Vancouver:

The tree imagery is what gets me going; it is colour, drawing and surface that carry me forward.

Sketchbooks

Here is an example of how I work in my sketch books, recording things around me and taking them back to the studio:

This was part of an installation called The Primary Mark at Diane Farris Gallery as part of the Vancouver Drawing Festival in 2010.

Workshop Progression

When we were setting up in the studio at Emma Lake this summer, my friend Becky (Rebecca Perehudoff) offered to take a photo of me in my space.  Everything looked pretty clean and tidy at this point:

By the end of the week, things had changed slightly:

Here are some of my paintings:  (You can see that trees are still my inspiration.)

We had a pretty good time; weather wise, there were some big storms alternating with sunny days.  The professional artists' workshop being only one week this year, it felt as though we were just getting started when we had to pack up.  As always, it was interesting to meet some new people, while re-connecting with old friends.  The guest artist, Elizabeth Macintosh, who teaches at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, shared some provocative professional experiences with us through her stories; and she also introduced us to new faces through her slide shows.  Eating our meals on the closed-in porch over the lake was more congenial after she pushed all the tables together.

Exhausted after my long drive back, which thankfully was very uneventful, I am left with  good memories of the scenery and the people.

Packing for a Painting Trip

For the past week I have been making preparations to go to Emma Lake, for the professional artists' workshop.  It is a lot of work getting ready.  I have to make sure I have warm clothes to paint in, as well as cool things if it is hot.  Whatever I wear will end up covered in paint, so I don't take anything nice, just something comfortable, with long sleeves and pant legs;  I don't want any mosquito bites.  Then there are decisions about paint, brushes, tools, canvas, paper, equipment, what route to take, who to visit along the way and so on.  I am finally ready I think, exhausted before I leave.  Two days and a half of driving ahead of me.

Van Gogh: Up Close

I am looking forward to seeing this exhibition in Ottawa later this summer.  Organized by both The National Gallery and the Philadelphia Museum, it opened in Philadelphia in the spring and Karen Wilkin writes in The New Criterion that, despite all we have already seen and heard,  there is indeed still something to learn about van Gogh.  She writes:  "...a visually arresting van Gogh exhibition that makes us consider his work in new ways, introduces unfamiliar works and even helps us to see familiar ones with unjaded eyes."  I enjoy Karen's many ways of describing the works, such as 'a dense silt of dabs and dots", " a near monochrome of bleached green", or "insistent gatherings of slender touches'.
Karen Wilkin's Review    Van Gogh: Up Close, National Gallery of Canada   Since I have not yet seen the show, I don't know what is in it, but here is one of van Gogh's commanding works:

National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

When I was in Edinburgh this month, I went to the National Portrait Gallery, which has just re-opened after a major renovation.  There are some very modern exhibition spaces now, as well as some of the more traditional galleries that have been retained.  It is quite stunning.

Amongst the many old-fashioned (boring?) portraits there are some recent ones that are very refreshing.  Ken Currie painted "The Oncologists" in a serious way.  And there is a lively painting of Peter Higgs by Lady Lucinda Mackay that  I liked very much.  When I told an old friend about it at dinner that night, she said, 'Oh, we have two sketches by her."  I see that the writer Alexander McCall Smith dedicated his novel "44 Scotland Street" to her.

There is much to explore in the old/new museum and I hope to have more time on my next visit to Scotland.