Season 2, Episode 1 “CROSSROADS"
WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS PODCAST.
We celebrate connection in todays backstory. Connection to our past: relationships, spaces and places and end up in the present musing about imagination and a sisterhood evolving in vibrant colour on the paint wall.
With the example of “Crossroads”, a marker at the beginning of a new chapter in my studio archive, we are reminded that creativity is a powerful journey.
Marks made in expression are made in many mediums and sometimes might not be a physical action at all.
Life evolves.
Cast across distant memories our backward glances might offer us a little perspective or contextual insight but the present moment is where we live and what will always lead us forward.
The road less travelled beckons as we grow and evolve into the highest version of ourselves.
The meditation in this episode is 10 minutes long. It begins at 10:12 in the recording and takes us on a journey into my impression of a landscape, to a candy coloured windbreak.
Together we’ll allow intention to lead our tranquil breaths to pause between actions on an imaginary journey of self discovery.
What whimsy will build around you at the crossroads where action and presence meet?
“CROSSROADS”, 24”x 36”, Acrylic on Canvas, 2010 by Amanda Onchulenko
Connecting to others through creative enterprise has been a highlight of my journey so far. It never ceases to amaze me how our stories and our histories intersect and how many connections I have made through my work as an artist.
There is so much to celebrate in our connections from the briefest acquaintance to our longest and oldest friendships.
Today’s podcast, the beginning of Season 2, celebrates connections made and rekindled. The back story of “Crossroads” the painting takes me back to first friends in Canada. For me, the image is a reminder of new beginnings and new stories. This new season of the podcast similarly puts me in mind of things starting anew, of the potential for new connections and the beginning of stories that are yet to bloom.
This past little while, while I have been contemplating where to take Season 2, I took myself on a midsummer hiatus out of town. It’s great to get away but equally good to return to some routine and for me that is the comfort of paint and colour. So at the studio I have been working on a triptych inspired by a casual section of poppies planted at the edge of a local vegetable plot carefully tended by a neighbour I am yet to meet.
I am always open to new inspiration. This group of cheer leaders lined the edge of a public garden plot along a local cycle route. I couldn’t help but to stop and “smell the roses” and store some pics for a later date with colour.
I am always on the lookout for little incidental greenspaces and poppies call to me every time. It's something about their cheeky personalities and their floppy faces suspended above fragile stems. I naturally paused to take some pictures on my phone that I thought I would use as a painting starting point in the future.
A new season of painting after a break is a crossroads of sorts. When i begin a painting I start with casual and loose colour and gesso to cover the surface and rid the canvas of white. The underpainting tends to lead me on its own journey as I paint regardless of what my original intentions are. In the “Sisterhood” trio I allowed myself to be guided by new marks as I laid them down. I was intentional about using my brushes in different ways, of including a rubber spatula in my painterly tool box and to see where the unfamiliar application of media would take me.
As a new beginning after a break this trio helped me to get back into a painterly groove. They began at the crossroads where action and stillness meet. They took me on a ride, became a sisterhood as they conversed with each other, became friends and then a community. The beginning always flows freely and without restriction. The middle of the process got a little rocky ( you know everything went to heck in a handbasket ) but I accepted where they were and trust in my experience with the process to bring them to a compositional resolution. I’ll share the finished version on the blog when they are complete but for now I just want you to know how good it felt for me to get back to a routine, to feel grounded in my own painterly rhythms.
This is part ! of the “SISTERHOOD” triptych that was developing on my paint wall as I was writing this podcast. See the finished Trio in the gallery pages. ( because I can’t for the life of me get them to show up aligned in this blog) tech….
Taking a break is refreshing and necessary but getting back on the horse is equally necessary. How about you? Do you have something in your life that you simply must get back to?
“Crossroads” is the name of today’s painting from my archive. This painting from 2010 has inspired many things for me since then, including a book I published in 2018 titled “WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS” and this Podcast. My little book so generously described by a friend “as weightier than its small stature” was the result of my personal experience with change. I called it wisdom at the crossroads because it was at a crossroads that my life came to a literal and metaphoric halt. In a split second my world was altered.
A Ford F150 careened through the intersection on my turn light and i thankfully, walked away from the wreckage, changed. The healing journey took longer than anticipated but on that journey I discovered meditation and a spiritual practice at a time before Mindfulness was a term in common practice. I couldn’t lift a paintbrush for a long time but the quiet of healing translated creative expression into words. I came to realize I was gifted time to slow down, and I remembered I loved to write.
Taking a page out of my book. Here is a snapshot of CROSSROADS as an illustration. “Wisdom at the Crossroads” the book inspired the name of this Podcast. This little book I like to refer to as “Yoga for the Mind” or a picture book for adults. It has proven to be a favourite for girlfriend gifting and appears on coffee tables and book shelves everywhere. Send me message if you are interested.
I found myself at a new crossroads recently on this podcasting journey. I held a desire to do things differently post covid in ways that did not involve schlepping large paintings. Sorting out the details was a “bit of a challenge”. I enlisted my daughters help to figure out a title and after many unsuccessful versions she typed in WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS to see what would happen…the name was miraculously available.
We took that as a sign, a nudge from the universe that was allowing me to reflect on the questions I had on the tip of my tongue…”If not now, when” and, “Why not me?” A Podcast host???? Of course you can present a visual discussion, with an accent, and without visuals. What was I thinking?
The painting Crossroads is not large and would easily have fit into the back of my car, 2 x 3 feet. Unlike the groups of 4 foot panels that have bloomed in the last year in my new smaller space. Like my current work Crossroads began with a different intention that evolved into what it became.
In my painting practice I am trying hard to relinquish control of intended outcomes and accept the turns and transitions as they evolve in the process.
“CROSSROADS II” was a commission painted at the request of a client who like me was also taken with the candy coloured trees in the background. I tell my clients that i can never replicate a painting of mine from an earlier era but somehow the intention translates and an impression of the original evolves into its own composition.
Life is full of turns and transitions, some are expected, and many are not. This painting came about after the passing of a close friend when my family had sat beneath the twiggy limbs of a sapling planted to mark the resting place of his ashes. The site is beautiful and expansive, and like our friends passing the location at the top of a ridge on the boundary of a valley carved deep into the endless prairie, is also an anomaly.
I began painting “CROSSROADS” with an intention to describe the horse trails in native undergrowth in the foreground below the ridge, the fields sectioned into colourful quadrants in the middle ground and the homestead in the distance under a prairie sky. I had already under painted in contrasts as is my habit so the upper third of the canvas was a range of pinks and lemons. At my next studio visit I began blocking out what I thought would refer to the farm buildings by inverting positive and negative space. As I worked the variegated pinks of the underpainting evolved into a row of voluminous trees. They felt magical and minimalist but somehow necessary and so the plan was revised. The middle ground does reflect the prairie segmented into sections and the foreground is loosely descriptive but the intended landscape is barely a reference to the original plan, and that is ok.
These curious Icelandic Horses roam the lands the fictitious “CROSSROADS” was inspired by. They are part of a unique herd in Manitoba that agists in the Neepawa Valley.
Those pink trees though are the highlight of the composition. Details of them have appeared on prints, on bookmarks and as greeting cards. This painting, “Crossroads” is definitely one of those paintings that got away. Given its personal significance I really should never have sold it. It was sold back in 2010 through the once upon a “Fish Fly Gallery” at Winnipeg Beach. I did not meet the buyer then, but mid-pandemic I had an opportunity to participate in a little outdoor art market in Manitoba’s Interlake. Under a flimsy canopy in the rain I had a small display that included a triptych I had just completed. It was so fresh is was probably still wet from the palette as well as the rain. It drew lots of attention as new friends and old joined us in our socially distanced space. Among them a couple taking shelter from the rain turned and asked if I had painted a painting called “Crossroads”. They had bought it for their daughter at Fish Fly and told me it resides happily in Toronto where it introduces the magic of this prairie resting place to a vibrant urban environment. I was glad to know it had gone to an appreciative home.
Sometimes a detail of a painting will end up as a MANDART PILLOW like this one called ABUNDANCE from a 2021 painting. The original now resides with CROSSROADS’ original owners. Pillows are available at pop up events or on request.
CROSSROADS is clearly a favourite. I have reprinted the image as a constant member of MANDART GREETING CARDS. Series 6 is recently hot off the press.
That couple went on to commission a new painting for themselves that turned into two paintings. I was glad to have learned where Crossroads had ended up and grateful for the continued support of my clients. Isn’t it neat how the world works, how interactions can come full circle like that.
My book “crossroads” ends with the quote. “There is no going forward looking backwards” I wrote it I know, and I roll my eyes at myself thinking I should be listening to my own advice, but a little backward glance can afford us a little perspective, or some contextual insight when we find ourselves at the beginning of a new chapter or season, can’t it?
“YELLOW BRICK ROAD” acrylic on panel, 11” x 14” is part of “The Sweet Suite” of smalls I painted over the summer. On this panel i was auditioning a rubber spatular as I sought new ways to play with tools. She was inspired by the inspiration gathered earlier in the summer along the cycle path. The rest of the series is soon to be uploaded to the gallery pages.
The painting “crossroads” may well have been the one that got away. It was the marker of a new chapter or beginning in my archive. Whenever I see “Crossroads” on a bookmark or a greeting card in reproduction I am always drawn to the horizon where that row of voluminous pink trees, that added themselves to the painting, rest. They take me back to childhood and sticky servings of candy floss held on leaning wooden sticks at the fair. Australians would know candy floss, spun sugar, as Fairy floss. I love that term as it reminds me of the elemental magic all around us.
In the meditation that is part 2 of this episode I’ll be inviting you to experience your version of a candy coloured wind break. I hope you’ll join in to listen to the episode as we travel an imaginary path to see what lies beyond that fictitious ridge. I know you’ll feel rested and revived after the short pause we take together.
“NEW NATURALISM” Triptych was the freshly completed Trio i took to the Covid Market in the Interlake and the painting that brought the owners of CROSSROADS back into my sphere. BTW a little rain didn’t hurt them at all :) Each panel 18” x 36”
If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review on apple podcasts . Thanks for sharing your time with me. I hope the images are helpful and that you are finding something of your story within mine by listening in to the podcast, or catching up through this blog.
All best, Amanda