February 2023

Whenever I'm making photos, writing, playing music, or painting I'm content, and never wish the time away. That's primarily why I paint. Because it helps me be more in the present, which I've found to be far more satisfying than living in the past or the future.

But invariably there are other thoughts associated with any creative act. So here are some relating to this new painting, starting with the least complicated, and meandering on from there. They're written at the moment of hope and euphoria that follows the act of creation. I'm in no doubts that were I to write this in a couple of days, the tone might well be flatter. Like that of one who is worn down. That doesn't feel like the right thing to do for several reasons, of which only a fraction I have any influence over. So I write now. 

First up, before I create work I ask myself several questions, one of which is, if the finished art is going to have the viewer’s attention for 10 seconds, which is probably the case if you see it on the internet, what do I want to place before you during that time?

‘The Glory of Nature’ is often the answer. It was in the case of this painting. I want to help you ponder the glory of nature.

If that’s the only thought my work stimulates in you, it’s enough.

Next, I want to announce my willingness to be part of a real world society rather than a corporate dream, to help build it in a genuinely positive way, and to illustrate my experience of life within that society. An honest visual representation of it is a unique gift that nobody can offer you but me. This painting, for instance, tells of how I’ve spent much of my time during February 2023, at the lush butterfly conservatory in Niagara Falls, at the frog exhibit and orchid show at the Royal Botanical Gardens, and studying cave art. By offering it up to you on the internet maybe I'm saying something like 'I'm here, I exist, this is who I am, I’m into nature, and colour, and trying to do good stuff, and creating in my own way without much care of how the patriarchy dictates how you’re ‘supposed’ to paint, and there are contradictions on show but I'm ok with trying to talk that out, and if you dig all that then maybe we can communicate some more, I sense you're out there, we are part of the same community, society...here is some ground we might meet on, a start point at least...'

Colour. Colour can induce joy and healing and I want to bring it into everyday life as often as I can. The painters I enjoy the most - among them Van Gogh, Monet, Gaugin, and Norval Morrisseau - understood the power of colour. Morrisseau, a painter of Indigenous symbols and mythology, believed that the colour in his paintings had healing power: "Many people have told me I cured them of various sicknesses,’ he said. ‘I told them, I didn’t cure you, it was the colour that cured you.”

He didn’t talk about - as far as I know - the self healing that occurred as he applied the paint. It’s something I’ve noticed as I create my own artwork, though. Sometimes when I paint a subject, say a butterfly, I use the colour that the subject actually is. But more often I use the colour that I sense I need to use. That guidance doesn’t come from my head, but from somewhere deep inside. For me, yellow is very uplifting.

The painting took about 10 days to complete. I’ve enjoyed returning to the painting each morning for a couple of hours, standing before it and considering, what do I need to paint today? What colours do I need to work with? The answers never seem clearcut at first but after a little time painting parts of the canvas that I usually then paint over I zone in on what’s needed. Quite unconsciously it seems. When that happens, I don’t question the direction, I just let go and paint.

I’m fascinated by cave art/paintings, and symbols. On this painting, on the bottom-most, darker sections of rock, you can see copies of Anishinaabe art from Agawa Rock in Northern Ontario. They were based on drawings made by the Ojibway chief and artist Shingwaukonse, for Henry Schoolcraft, around 1850. Shingwaukonse translates as ‘Little Pine’, so I’ve included a small pine tree among my renderings of his work by ways of acknowledging him. If you’d like to read more about him, you can start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingwauk

Incidentally, Henry Schoolcraft’s work heavily influenced Henry Longfellow’s poem ‘The Song of Hiawatha’, you can learn more about the poem here https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/hiawatha.htm

(I identify heavily with the trickster figure of Manabozho, ‘holding both good and bad, sacred and profane, mischief and honour, in tension.’ In the past the idea of a being having several faces and attitudes felt quite wild, unstable, and paranoiac, whilst now being somebody with only 10 faces, all of whom you readily and unashamedly show, feels rather uncomplicated. My identification with the trickster figure could account for my circling around any subject, never settling on a single perspective - or perhaps it's just that little seems true anymore so why should anything I think be any different. Should a minor trickster figure - minor as in not nearly charming enough to be the sort of trickster that’s venerated - ever trust themselves? Moreso than most others, but ultimately, unlikely.)

Henry Schoolcraft was married to Jane Johnston, known as one of the earliest Native American literary writers. More about her here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Johnston_Schoolcraft

Some very interesting people there I think, worth a few hours of anybody's study time.

You might also notice that my style of painting takes much from rock art. The placing of images very close to one another, perspective gained mainly by using size (the smaller images are simply shown further away), and the act of layering over subjects. At some rock art sites ancient peoples had painted over art on the rock face up to 43 times! And that wasn’t just renewing colour, but updating style and subject matter as cultural perspectives changed.

This knowledge of ancient layering technique morphed with my own feelings recently as I was clearing out Mum’s loft after her death. I was aware that all the goods had meant something to her, but without her to tell me about it I could gain little foothold in my efforts to understand it all. Even if she had been there, there had been so much of it! Much of it went to either charity or landfill. As a creator of ‘stuff’, this clearing out business hit me hard. We’re constantly being made aware that we in the West create too much stuff. The evidence seems irrefutable. Even if it’s good stuff, there’s just too much of it! How was I helping to change that if I just churned out new art work every day?

Even artists who care passionately for the environment seem to be committed to adding to the rubbish dump. Cutting down trees to make books, or canvases, or photos or whatever, using up the Earth’s other precious resources for paint or chemicals, and for what? To alert the public to the fact that we shouldn’t be using up the Earth’s resources? But if we don't do it, how do we spread the message of environmental responsibility, and on a personal level, how do we live? I looked around my studio space. So much art! I have no kids, so who’s going to dump it all when I die! What beautiful natural space will be made into a rubbish dump to house it! Can’t I think my way out of this issue? Is staying purely in the digital, online world an answer?

My answer, at the moment, wasn’t to go purely digital. Digital art - photos, Ebooks, AI art or music, etc - seems lacking, for me. So instead I decided to restrict myself to owning just 12 medium size, high quality canvases, for the forseeable future. If one sells, I buy a new one but if none sell then I simply paint over the oldest painting. In the style of the ancient artists, I’ll just keep adding to it, renewing it with each new image and colour.

(This tactic wouldn't address the issue of consumption and creating too much stuff if I sold my art every day, or even every week, but I don't, so it's a decent plan for me at the moment. And of course the trickster part of me is mocking even as I type, whilst also suggesting that the act of overpainting does help overcome foolish notions such as ownership and permanence...).

So this painting isn’t finished, although for the moment it'll stay as it is. If it sells one day, the new owner can do as they like with it. If it doesn’t sell then I’ll be adding to it when I run out of fresh canvas to paint on.

This idea of adding to artwork also brings to mind the series of ancient Chinese scrolls all titled ‘Mountains and Rivers Without End’. These scrolls were painted with wonderful natural scenes but the idea was never to produce a finished work of art. Instead, there was space on the scroll so that people moved by the painting could add a poem of their own to the scroll, if they wished. I’ll speak about this style of scroll more in my next blog post. For now, I hope this painting brings you joy, and a few fine thoughts about nature.