PODCAST Season 1, Episode 3, "ENLIGHTENED AT BEAVER BAY"
Wisdom at the Crossroads, the Podcast.
Art expands spaces and perceptions and becomes the background to family life. In this episode we are encouraged to be mindfully present using the example of a large triptych, “Enlightened at Beaver Bay, 2008.
“Enlightened at Beaver Bay”, by Amanda Onchulenko. Triptych, acrylic on canvas, 2008. (48” x 48”, 24” x 48”, 48” x 48”)
Mindfulness has become a mainstream term in recent years. The practice of paying attention is what I like to call it. By being mindful we can help ourselves to feel centred and it can also help us to self-regulate our emotional responses, to balance stress and anxiety.
Taking a pause in our day is important and I am glad you are joining me as we help each other to be mindfully present, together.
Creativity has long been my avenue to presence. In my day, my work, my life, in the creative process I often find myself in the zone or even zoning out.
Today I want to take you on a journey through the backstory of a large triptych, called, “Enlightened at Beaver Cove” made up of three canvas panels, 48” x 48”, 48” x 24” and 48” x 48” which is an unusual configuration. Ordinarily I would use a consistent shape for a multi panelled painting. This one however was part of a commission I was asked to create for a lovely couple celebrating their 30th anniversary. I was honoured they wanted to gift each other a piece of my work to mark the occasion.
It was a site specific piece which accounts for the unusual dimensions and like all commissioned work I created two versions. “Enlightened at Beaver Bay”, was the larger version that featured a Lake of the Woods inspired landscape.
I remember sketching out the foundation of this piece in broad strokes with a three inch wide brush in warm watery reds and oranges. The action was fast and focused, exhilarating and experimental and crudely mapped out my very rough painterly intentions. A picture paints 1000 words and I had a lot to say about this landscape that was more easily communicated in this sketchy and loose format.
I took both interpretations with me, all 6 potential panels to my clients home as the basis of a preliminary discussion where the clients settled on the smaller version, the prairie theme because it related more specifically to their personal experience of lake life on Lake Winnipeg at the edge of the prairie. It is a place where an inland ocean of fresh water or fields or purple flax rolled in the wind like inland oceans or oceans of land. The images more accurately aligned with their attachment to their family experience of a treasured summer lake community
I was drawn then as I am now to the larger scale triptych and was excited to continue work on the sketchy start I had made as my follow up project. Check out some details below.
Life is lived in the details…
“Enlightened at Beaver Bay” was inspired originally by a series of shoreline photographs I had taken as a guest at a friend’s cottage in Ontario’s appropriately named, “Lake of the Woods”. It seems it is not only Australians who are descriptive with their names. Beaver Bay is the name that appears on an early map of the small curve in the shoreline that must have at one point been home to Canada’s iconic rodent,
I was a grateful guest in this beautiful landscape which felt quintessentially Canadian. Here I immersed myself in deep, rock bottomed waterways with shorelines and islands for days. The area is rich in foliage, with lush evergreens sculpted by the wind and rocky outcroppings of granite, worn smooth by centuries of seasons. It is boating country, self-propelled and motorised. Beaver Bay like my friends, the caretakers of this beautiful part of the country remind me of the support I received as a newcomer to this nation and this particular friendship.
The work of art in any project is an evolving process. It is not always an easy road through the flow state; sometimes it’s hard to start up and it often takes discipline and also a measure of forgiveness.
There is no room for perfection and often no room for expectations even if as the author of the story in colour and composition, I instigate a particular process with a specific intention and end result in mind.
I might start with a plan of sorts but when I am true to myself as a painter, I allow myself to react and respond to the various layers as they evolve and develop in the process. What might start out as a washy expressive under painted mark designed to get the party started, might, with some contemplative pauses inspire me to find ways to bring those initial marks into play as features on the developing canvas.
Every action becomes a decision that impacts every other choice. The ones that came before impact the following decisions to be made. That foundation sketch made with a loosely applied washy mark with what is essentially a housepainters paint brush was so lovely and compelling I felt I had to re-evaluate my plans and find ways to keep the most appealing parts of the under structure in view. I wanted to keep the warmth and glow that backlit areas I wanted to infer as those richly evergreen trees in the foreground. That red residue of my initial thoughts is also a reference to another Canadian icon, painter Tom Thompson who’s “Jack Pine” among other examples shows the under structure glowing loosely around the boughs in a similar red.
Living with large art expands a small space. Art becomes part of the family.
Colour is a thing for me and I love to tinker with the relationships, the push and pull of spaces painted in colours opposite on the colour wheel that become dueling features our eyes visually try to bring into balance.
This disparity creates a literal vibration between areas and also assists me in moving the viewer’s eye into and through a composition. Sometimes it is a small mark, a brushstroke or shape set within an area of contrast that becomes what I like to call a “Popper” or a compositional seed.
Balancing, rebalancing organising and redistributing become the thoughtful actions of a fun visual equation I try to solve on the canvas or panelled surfaces. It is my work at play.
In a multi panelled image such as this 3 panelled triptych, it is not a matter of dividing an image into 3 equal parts and joining them back together. A true triptych is actually 3 separate and independently resolved compositions that combine to form something more. Each composition pairs with the adjacent panel to create two further compositions and finally the three panels all together become a final sixth composition, which to me is more than the sum of its parts.
It is all about problem solving a visual equation in brilliant colour. The process inspires me, challenges me and quiets my soul as I work. It draws me in, pardon the pun, and sometimes takes me to the zone where time slows down and I am led to a place where I am fully and unequivocally present.
This painting, “Enlightened at Beaver Cove”, lives in our front living room. It came home to fill a gap left behind when a 40” pair went off to their forever home. If you have ever taken a large image out of a small space you will have felt the absence and the space metaphorically collapsing inwards.
“Enlightened at Beaver Bay” expands not only my living room wall, the view expands me with gratitude for the friendship that invited myself and my young family into this summer haven, their Lake home in the picturesque Canadian Shield.
It reminds me of the support I have been shown in my 30 years in Canada and the gift of friendship I am honoured to share. It reminds me also of the two bear sightings we made enroute and the trio of galloping deer that kept pace with our vehicle along a stretch of the highway on the drive out.. The image takes me back to days of young children in life jackets leaping off the dock into refreshing dark water, and the sharing of gin and tonics on the deck at dinner. It helps me to recall the transplanting of garden cuttings into a literal cottage garden not to mention the visiting friends in canoes who initiated my eager young girls into the experience of a twilight paddle across glasslike reflections as the call of Loons sounded off in the distance.
My friend and neighbour is a regular visitor to my front room. She has seen this trio many times. In the spring and fall at a particular time of the afternoon when light enters that room from opposite ends of the house, the light somehow illuminates the trio into a glowing beacon. My friend has commented more than once as she has taken in the view, “Mand, I know that’s my view, but I just can’t quite fathom how you interpret it like that”. I love her honesty and I love this painting
Fond memories definitely dominate our living room. The images document a time in our lives and stand witness to the seasonal moments that unfold in our space. Our annual live Christmas tree joins the painted evergreen forest and fills the room with its heady evergreen scent as colourful baubles of the season naturally blend into the vibrant semi abstracted scene that “Enlightens us all from Beaver Bay”
My podcast shares the name of my book which launched on Australia day in 2019. Then I was very grateful for the support my creative efforts were shown not to mention to find myself sharing table space, even for a short while , on the best seller list locally with Michelle Obama.
I am similarly grateful for your support, listening in on this new creative venture.
Listen to the full episode and participate in the Meditation for this episode below.
Until next time, stay well,
Amanda
Apple URL for the Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/widsom-at-the-crossroads/id1609992256
Apple Trailer - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-at-the-crossroads-trailer/id1609992256?i=1000551067035
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5AbmRHQor17IeJJivYaYJf