Spirit in Nature

spirit (n.) directly from Latin spiritus "a breathing (respiration, and of the wind), breath; breath of a god," hence "inspiration; breath of life," hence "life;" also "disposition, character; high spirit, vigor, courage; pride, arrogance," related to spirare "to breathe."

The word "spirit" has come into my life lately. This happens with words sometimes; they just turn up and keep repeating themselves everywhere. So when I noticed a small sign along the road that said "Spirit in Nature" I made a U-Turn and decided to follow the signs to wherever they might lead me. 

Gratitude in Autumn

Accept What Comes from the Silence / 24" x 30" / acrylic on canvas

At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost. ~Rainer Maria Rilke~

Cascade Forest / 24" x 30" / acrylic on canvas

This has been an extraordinary summer for the artist/gypsy in me. I have never felt so close to the bone of my soul life. I have traveled extensively, inside and out for the past five months. A journey that has peeled away the unnecessary and revealed the essence and interconnectedness of many places, people and things. 

Ten years ago my life was so confused and muddled I didn't think I would ever see clearly again. Today the waters have stilled and are crystal clear. My inner vision is

New Plein Air Paintings Available

Several new paintings fresh off the easel from the Adirondacks in August

River Running / 16" x 20" 

Clouds of Flowers / 18" x 24"

Stay Weird / 18" x 24" 

Glacial Erratic / 18" x 24"

St Regis Canoe Input / 16" x 20"

Talking Trees / 20" x 16"

Squamish and The Chief

After a great visit and dinner with my cousin Shannon in Whistler we headed for Squamish. Fortunately for us  this is where

The Lillooet Highway from Kamloops to Whistler

 A spectacular drive from Kamloops to Whistler begins at Kamloops Lake and then crawlls and winds its way through the Fraser Canyon. Walt and I had Mercan Dede playing as this unearthly landscape unfolded around us in the early morning light. I was filled with emotions as we drove farther away form my two daughters. It is difficult leave your offspring each and every time, no matter how old they are.

Presence

An exhibition of recent paintings that are the result of years of learning and growing and becoming. All the joys & sorrows from where the spirit meets the bone are in these paintings. Late night howling and mid day spirit-rides with the wind are all mixed into the pigment.

Chaos Breeds Creativity

When I enter the studio I shed all my quotidian duties and enter the realm of the imagination. This is the place where rationality and pragmatism have little worth. My mind is allowed to slip into chaos, where everything is fresh and new and waiting to be born for the first time. In the summer I paint outside but I also take endless photos of everywhere I go...photos of colors, textures, shapes. I often leave these piles of photos lying everywhere.

 I have tried to organize the photos but they always end up in piles and boxes littered all over the studio. I use them as reference but not just one, all of them! It is their strewn presence that evokes memories, smells, sights, sounds and even tastes for me as I paint.

Sometimes I sketch from them and have many of these sketch books lying around as well. They are like notes to myself, or notes of a song that has yet to be written. I like having them around me as partially resolved ideas for paintings, nudging their way into my consciousness as I work.

Preparing for the Inhale

Thanksgiving week-end has given me time to reflect on the gratitude I feel for being alive in this moment in this place and with the people who surround me. 

It has been an ever expanding exhale all summer long and even into the autumn months. I have been walking trails, climbing mountains, swimming in lakes and fully immersed in the outdoors as much as possible.

       

Now it is time to take all that extraverted energy and turn it inward in one long inhale over the winter. All the sights, sounds, smells and textures of the living, breathing earth will find their way into my paintings if I am still enough to hear them.

I can't wait to return to my studio for some quiet, solitary months at the easel processing all the beautiful impressions of the summer and autumn months. 

Every year that goes by my impressions appear to broaden and deepen from within and without. The whole landscape seems numinous to me at times. I often feel as though the natural world is lit up from within and radiating beauty and mystery. The more I paint the more I see and more often than not I feel rich beyond my wildest dreams with all that is there in and around me. Its a mystery I don't even want to know the answer to.

Explorations in the Wilderness

Surprised by It's Own Unfolding / 30" x 60" / acrylic on canvas

 

 

 

 

 

 I have been exploring the Adirondacks more this summer. Hiking, paddling and listening to this gorgeous, generous landscape. The air sparkles with clarity, the sky sizzles with blue and my heart soars with gratitude for being alive in this wild world.

I have had the privilege of sharing this time with Walt who is on a unique journey of his own which he has written about most articulately HERE. I encourage you to read this insightful piece of writing and follow along with us as we climb and paddle our way through the rest of the summer and into the Autumn.

These are two newly completed paintings that will be exhibited in my upcoming Adirondack Pop-Up exhibition being held at a private "Great Camp". Please contact me if you would like to attend (August 15 & 16).

Wild & Precious Moment

This is a photo of me working on my last painting, "One Wild & Precious Moment" taken by my oldest daughter, Amy as we hung out in the studio for a brief hour before taking her to the airport. Amy lives across the country from me and I rarely see her these days as she finishes her teaching degree in Kamloops, BC so this was indeed one of those precious moments.

I was keenly aware that Amy would be leaving again shortly. After having spent a glorious ten days traipsing across Italy with her, this was a beautiful gift to have her resting on the couch while I returned to my "ordinary" daily life in the studio. While the music of her ipod filled the studio, my body relaxed into the finishing touches of a painting that I felt was both successful and succinct in expressing my inward landscape of tumultuous and ephemeral joy. The title for the painting is inspired by Mary Oliver's delightful poem "Summer Day" where the act of attention is a form of prayer.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver, The House Light Beacon Press Boston, 1990.

Preview of Tremblant Exhibition

This is the launching of my new store as well as the online preview for the upcoming exhibition at Galerie 806 in Mont-Tremblant, QC which opens December 19th and runs until January 15th, 2014.
This exhibition is a celebration of an amazing year; meeting new people, traveling to new places and discovering the endless potential of this planet to reveal her beauty in new and invigorating ways. I am humbled and awed by the process of painting and the magical, mystery tour it continually takes me on. I feel it to be a great privilege to live this world as a painter. The paints not only guide my heart & hands but opens my eyes to marvels I would never have even noticed were I not stopping and taking the time to look as is necessary when making a painting.

Abundance in the Adirondacks

It has been a while since I have posted anything. I have been off on many new adventures and it has been hard to keep up with my online communication. A tremendously full and prosperous summer has flown by. There has been much hard work, lugging paintings to and from exhibitions, working at starting up "ArtBomb Montreal" and continuing to paint in spite of all this activity.

Ferocious Beauty

This spring after a yoga class I went and searched out the Lachine Rapids which I had never seen before. I had to walk through a bird sanctuary that was erupting with spring birdsong. There were photographers everywhere capturing the many different species singing their hearts out in the marshes leading up to the river. I heard and felt the river before I saw it. As it was early spring there were a few tender green buds on the trees but no leaves yet and the water was roaring! I sat on a rock by the rapids and felt a wellspring of gratitude bubble up from inside. Sitting in that spot of sunshine listening to the roar of the rapids, I felt thrilled to be alive in the moment. I love when life takes you by surprise and knocks the breath out of you with one of its endless forms of beauty!

From the Deep Forest

 

 These two paintings are finally complete. I feel as though I have been on a journey deep within the mossy, wooded gardens of my own interiorority which is reflected outward as these silent, thrumming paintings.

Erratic Moment / Deep Forest I, 36" x 48" acrylic on canvas

Resting Ground / Deep Forest II, 36" x 48" acrylic on canvas

Erratic Behavior

 

A glacial erratic is a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it rests. In the Adirondacks these rocks are also known as Wabeeks. These huge rock beings were pushed all the way from the Laurentians to the Adirondacks by glaciers. I find this fact most fascinating as I too have arrived with a car full of paintings from the Laurentians which feel like they have found their home here in the Adirondacks.

 

A more charming or gracious pair of hosts could not be found then Tom and Marsha who  welcomed me into their home and community with a natural warmth and generosity of spirit that seems to be the prevailing spirit in this part of the world.

A bronze sculpture of the elusive mountain lion done by local artist PJ LaBarge greets me as I pull into the driveway. I am thrilled to see where I will be spending my next few days, in the coziest guest cottage in the world, nestled into the hillside above Lac Saranac.

 

 

Held within this environment I begin to absorb the Adirondack landscape...feeling it's rocks and trees. Listening to its textures and sounds. Slowly getting to know its unique presence as I photograph and sketch for future paintings.

View of Indian's Pass across a lush meadow.

More to come in the next post on the Pop Up gallery held at this charming Adirondack home on Lake Saranac.

Painting from the Inside Out

"The power of painting has to come from the inside out, not the outside in. It's not just an image; it's an image with a body and that body has to contain its spirit.... it's the weight of the intention that defines everything." 

-Sean Scully

 Cloud Garden, 30" x 24", acrylic on canvas

Numinous Notes

My exhibition at Galerie de la Ville continues until this Sunday, April 21st. I love the venue and the space that these large scale works are given to breath as ONE body of work.