The Woman
Found this going through the file I made for the show.
Can you tell I’m an overthinker/explainer?
5/19/23
Becoming Woman/Garden/Physics
I came up with so many ways to introduce the show.
A photo album of all the many-faceted, multi-spectacular, ever-wonderful, crushingly-painful/exhausting occurrences that came together to produce this show; a timeline; a poem.
I’ve never written an artist’s statement, an artist’s anything really.
An artist’s statement is a written document that guides viewers to a better understanding of your artwork.
But, as is so often the case for me, the ideas were long, large, excessive, overwhelming, info-dumping sagas that would tsunami people right back out the door before they had a chance to enter.
So I tried to keep it very simple.
Woman/Garden/Physics
Reflection on the therapy of spending Covid making gardens; discovering and pursuing the joy of painting and making again, despite chronic illness and new diagnoses; the all encompassing embrace of physics in every aspect of existence - life, art, eternity.
Now, the process, for any who are interested.
How to tell the story?
3 main components
Woman
Ill, exhausted, soft, strong, full, sensory seeker, made of the stars
Garden
Sensory stimulation, mental health, beautiful/painful, effort/flare, peace/chaos
Physics
The ribbon running through it all, stitching everything together - carbon, the hardest and softest, in everything everywhere
What do I want people to see?
Peeling back the layers, the fabric of reality, ??Elsewhere??
Translucent of petals, weight of storm clouds, the dance of grass
Juxtaposition, contrast, movement, cacophony
People just don’t see anymore, no matter how hard they look!
So many transcendent points in the day - the physics of reality, the reality of physics
Depth, color upon color, how many greens are there in a spring or summer landscape?
A cloudy day reminds you, acceleration not gravity.
Hurtling through the universe at the speed of c
Do you feel how round the earth is?
Can you taste it?
“Old fashioned” views set against the “modern” world
Skies and flowers
Story of the Coopers Hawk and Little Red
The feeling of the west wind racing over the Blue Mountains and pushing against you hard enough to snap hundred year old maple trees.
Sunrise over hayfields and sunset on the mountain.
In the studio - everyone is either frozen in time or a statue, no movement, no clouds, no grass, carbon at rest
Insights over the last few years - reading, thinking, translating, producing, creating, destroying, therapy of movement, somatic, haptic, tactile
Gustatory architect
Music of the spheres
Light - the speed of c
Major themes
Always a maker/creator
Now finally a place to have
Pets
A studio
A music room for Josh
A library
Timeline/Reading
2019
February
Started weaving on fallen ash branches from our hundred year old ash trees
Continued knitting, crocheting
New birding opportunities
March
Sculptural crochet
Knitting Mosaic cardigan
April
Kokedama
June
First flower garden started
July
Chicken coop started
Incubating Black Copper Marans and Cream Legbar eggs - chosen specifically for quality of eggs, color and breed
August
Chicks hatch
Swallowtails hatch
Welsh Harlequin Ducks - chosen for breed rarity, size, egg laying and beauty
Reading: The Suburban Microfarm, Amy Stross
November
Trip to Montreal
2020
January
First Black Copper Marans egg laid by our girls
March
First paint by numbers - Starry night over the Rhone, Vincent van Gogh
April
May
First chicks our hens hatched out
Added 3 Black Mottled Orpingtons to the flock
June
Return of the Native
Lacewing
Fiddlehead Nursery
Eating off our property
September
Birds nest fungus formed in the mulch on the pathways in the potager
Harvesting and canning
Wild apple foraging
Apple butter and Wild Rose and Apple Jelly
October
Visited Mono Pollinator Garden
November
Feelings wheel
December
Scale of Pain severity
Bought 3 Beltsville Small White Turkeys
Started making soap again
Found some glorious needle ice when out on a walk at the Eco Park in Stayner
2021
January
Sorted out the Apothecary
February
March
Reading: Hope is the Thing With Feathers, Christopher Cokinos
April
Calmer to help with audio processing issues
Reading: Bringing Nature Home, Douglas Tallamy
June
Watching: Elementary
Started the Rose Garden planning
July
Reading: Bird Cloud, Annie Proulx
The Designer's Dictionary of Color, Sean Adams
August
Reading: Engineering Eden, Jordan Fisher
Reading: Welcome to Your World, Sarah Williams Goldhagen
September
Brought home Bertie and Jeeves
Reading: The Soul of Care, Arthur Kleinman
Reading: Divergent Mind, Jenara Nerenberg
Grey/Bruce Open Studio Weekend
Bought my first painting -
October
Incredible cloudy skies
Reading: A Beautiful Question, Frank Wilzcek
Solitude and Company, Silvana Pasternostro
November
Autism spectrum wheel
ADHD/Autism awareness
Our 2 big, old ash trees on the property were cut down
Stacking firewood
Start of painting in the “studio”
My first painting was a watercolor sunrise over the backfield
Bought my second painting - Jesse Unsworth, Daylily (2022)
December
Adding all the dried plants to the apothecary
Sorting seeds
Making Tinctures
Planning native planting under the roses in the Rose Garden
More Rose Garden planning, sporting what plants to purchase from Palatine
2022
January
Started painting on canvas
February
First collection on canvas and board
Moonrise
Leopard Flowers
Clouds over field
Suns rays
Morning Glories
Misty backfield
Calendula
Painting in studio almost daily on board, canvas, paper
Emily got me a Sta-Wet palette so my acrylics could save to the next day
An Enemy at Heart - pink peony painting, first largeish painting using a grid to get the details right for the drawing
March
Purple Monkey Wrench
More play, this time reusing old encyclopedia pages and watercolor to make a sculptural piece based on the Monkey Wrench quilt block
Stress ball and stim toys for healthier stims
Emily got me my second van Gogh paint by numbers, Irises
Beyond Monet with Josh and Emily in Toronto
Continuing An Enemy at Heart
So much focus on detail I needed a release so the start of the palette abstracts to play (and not waste paint)
First abstract - Peony Sunset
Now most focused paintings are accompanied by an abstract to relax/release and use up any leftover paint
Trip to Walter’s Falls with Emily
First painting sold - An Enemy at Heart, Deconstructed (2022) the palette knife abstract of the larger piece
Second painting sold - Peonies at Laking Garden (2022)
Started a log garden between the ash stumps in the front
Josh bought me a beautiful easel for Plein Airpril
Reading: A Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Illustrated by Inga Moore
April
First plein air painting in light flurries - Backfield (2022)
First plein air painting with my easel outside
Reading: The Illustrated Provence Letters, Martin Bailey
Covid
Sold - Georgian Bay Ice Floes (2022)
First painting on wood from an old cottage Bren demolished -
First collection on wood
View from Swiss meadows
View outfront of Blue Mountains
And yard
Backfield and treeline
May
Purchased piece from for Josh
Reading: Letters of Note, Shaun Usher
June
Bought a stack of large canvases on sale from Michaels
Spring Green completed
Our roses start blooming
Reading: Works of Love, Soren Kierkegaard
First You Have to Row a Little Boat, Richard Bode
July
Shoe Fish triptych completed, and sold
Swiss Meadows on canvas completed
Moonrise, November completed
Cumulus, July completed
Reading: Letters of C.S. Lewis
Reading: Love Notes from a Hollow Tree, Jarod K. Anderson
August
Webb, completed
Reading: Better Living Through Criticism, A. O. Scott
Nude studies
Went to see A Like Vision and Wanda Koop at McMichael Gallery
Started making mini books out of watercolor studies
Dancing Fecund, Catcher’s Mitt completed
Start of Pano Sunrise
Experimentation with texture, fractals
Anax Junius and wetlands deep dive
BMFA Squarefoot Show endeavors
Shinrin yoku series
Gneiss series
Sunflower series
September
BMFA plein air group at the Arboretum in Collingwood
Watched the baby snapping turtles hatch out
Collingwood Art Crawl with Em, Bren and Maddy
Keats Autumn series completed, sold
Discomane series completed
Had the BMFA plein air group here
Reading: Ways of Seeing, John Berger
Trip to Prince Edward County
Stopped at the Peterborough Art Gallery along the way
Saw the Oeno Sculpture Gallery in PEC
October
3rd place winner at the BMFA Juried Photo Show
Doctor’s appointments in the city and trip to AGO
Trip to Montreal
Untamed Things at Nottawa General
Lost Clyde in a windstorm
Reading: Portrait of An Artist: Georgia O’Keeffe, Laurie Lisle
November
Reading: Started The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron
2023
January
Sorted out my logo for branding
Joined Thrive Together Network
Put in my Taking Up Space commitment form
Rusty Roof and November Moon were hung in the front window of the BMFA
Reading: The Accidental Masterpiece, Michael Kimmelman
Started:Seed
Flat Top Mountain
Completed: 44* 24' 26.5" N 80* 15' 39.3" W (2023)
Imagined Coast (2023)
Cottage Garden 1 (2023)
Manor Garden (2023)
Imogen and the Tadpoles (2023)
Maisie and the Goldfish (2023)
Money Plant and Jeeves (2023)
Tiarella cordifolia & Cypripedium acaule (2023)
Symphony of Mums and Grasses (2023)
What’s a Tea Party Without Tea? (2023)
Played with gilding wood and adding “minerals”
Played with molding clay as one of my Artist’s Dates
Spirographs and visible mending
February
Started my TTN Virtual Art Residency
Studio session set up
Sketch of Just out of Reach and then Full size completed
Sketches of cellos and the celloesque
Watercolor florals
Nudes and statues
Abstract, graffiti
A Nap in the Garden completed
Fractal Sunset completed
Tiny Hand completed
3 Silver Squares completed
Reading: The Shadow Drawing, Francesca Fiorani
March
Reading: Art and Physics, Leonard Shlain
Studies: Tesseract
Perspective
Fractals
The universe as an oscillating system
Spectrograph of elements
Continued Flat Top Mountain
Seed
Learned the Fancy Diamond knitting pattern
Started Grasses
Playing around with collage
Reworked an old self-framing paper painting into a new one, Sakura (2023)
Josh has his piano delivered and the music room as all set up
Completed collaged Dahlia/Section of a Cone series
v=⅓ hπr2
Sections of a cone
Cones and cones
Equation for eccentricity
April
Dropped a giant log on my foot and bruised it really bad
Reading: Flatland, Edwin A. Abbott
When Einstein Walked with Godel, Jim Holt
Men of Mathematics, E. T. Bell
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, Bertrand Russell
Planted some native trees and bushes I had been stratifying in the fridge overwinter
Saw work by Dragica Vidakovic at Nottawa General
Studies: Mass and Gravity
Minkowski spacetime
The Seikilos Epitath
Quintessence
Math symbols as language
The perfection of roundness of an electron
Sound waves/ Light waves
Pigment as particle, water as field
Space-time, Energy-matter, Universe-mind, Observer-observed, Intension-extension, X-y, Diamond-graphite
Completed Particle/Field
6C
Fields and Particles series: Alephnull
Here and Now
Fields and Particles series: Fractal Filler
6CPom Pom Dahlia
Apple Orchard, Spring Texture
Apple Orchard, Smooth
The Mother of All Roots
Reworked some old pieces:
Atomic Family (2023)
“Couleur Cardinal” (2023)
May
Completed
Biological Partners
Consumer Beware
Squaring the Circle with Masking
Started
Koch fractals
Playing with three dimensional paintings, flowers?
Framing and planning for the show
Sorting and organizing
Ordered show paraphernalia, and forgot to hand them out .. oh, well.
Made up Potager plans
Weeded and mulched the potager
Started seeds out in the cold frames
All the final little finicky things to do before the show
Signage
Labels and stickers
Where should this go?
How could I have possibly lost a 16x20” painting? ( I did find it eventually, it had dropped behind some shelves)
