Wisdom at the Crossroads, The Podcast.

This week on the podcast we are “Singing the Blues” with a little painting from “The Trespassing Series” that definitely brings back simplicity. It is a reminder that in life and in art, our work is a record of a moment in time. This little painting reminds me to give myself permission to play.

We chat a bit about critique versus criticism and i am reminded when I am true to my creative instincts the outcomes are always more successful. When we trust we Flow. Life is seriously too short to take ourselves seriously.

The meditation that begins at 13.30 in this episode’s recording will help us to Flow in the present moment..

“Singing the Blues”, acrylic on panel, 13” x 14”, 2006

Welcome back to the podcast. I want to thank you for sharing your valuable time and joining me for Episode 10. I wanted to begin todays chat at the studio with a conversation that evolved with an actual visitor, my friend and painting colleague Fia. We were just returned to our studios after absences chatting about taking breaks from our work and how it feels to come back to where we left off. Regardless of the difference and duration of our trips we both basically agreed that while sometimes fresh eyes are helpful at other times a critical eye returns and with it come insecurities and questions.

Like…what am I doing? Why am I even doing it? I think any creative can relate.

In my studio practice I usually try to finish a project before a deadline or break from painting but because our families break was a spontaneous play, of the get out of dodge now card, I came back to a commission piece I had left mid-sentence. I realise there are areas of it that I just love but while they provide interest in the colour story they confuse the composition spatially. I am not striving for realism but fundamental landscape cues do need to make the grade in this painting. I felt like I had lost my groove.

A commission can be an important part of the business equation but it often means I end up second guessing myself and stifling my painterly instincts. Choices made on behalf of someone else I guess if I am really honest aren’t always the right choices. I can be guilty of allowing my head to get in the way of my heart.

Then I need to remind myself of the many clients who were beyond happy with the piece or pieces they have commissioned. Every artist handles the commission process differently. I like to establish a size and discuss the client’s wishes to determine a theme. I then prep to create 2 pieces. The first being what I think they are telling me they want.

The second piece is what I want to paint within even broader parameters I set without any input. Usually the client will end up adopting one of the two pieces I paint but I insist there is never any obligation. While I don’t ever want anyone to invest in something they don’t love, there are limits to how much time I am willing to invest in someone elses project. Generally I find when we are true to ourselves the outcome is always more successful. Which painting do you think is most often adopted? 

Some clients have even been known to adopt both fraternal twins. 

“Singing the Blues” used a very limited colour palette. It was painted on panel and the colour was built up in layers to shows the action of the brushstrokes on a resistant surface

Coming back to a project mid stride this week was just not in my cards so instead I unwrapped a new 3’ x 4’ canvas. I wanted to feel the creative action of painting, to duel with the resistance and acceptance the tension of the stretched canvas offered my loaded brush. Art making grounds me in presence. And I felt I needed to dive into the process without any attachment to an outcome. Really, I just needed to  play.

A blank canvas is like chocolate to a painter. You know it’s going to be delicious but like Forest Gump you just don’t know what you are going to get. I like to get back into my rhythm by preparing a canvas with gesso. Gesso is a primer that conditions the raw canvas, gives the paint something to bite into and prevents the subsequent layers of paint from spreading softly into the porous base of raw untreated canvas. 

The action of doing it gets my thoughts and muscle memory flowing and helps me to get into the process. I was disappointed to realise my gesso bucket barely had a sniff remaining but with the final dregs I managed to inscribe a word into the surface. This setting of an intention is a casual addition to my process. Words are powerful and I like to paint a word into the protective base layer. It is whatever comes to mind without too much conscious thought. In this way, I feel I am setting the tone of the project and that broad intention might also provide another opportunity for a future viewer to make a connection to.

 The word CHI came to mind on this morning and I had just enough opaque gesso to complete the job. CHI is the life force within us, universal energy. I guess I needed to tap into my own energy to feel my own presence in the process, to ground myself in my studio practice with the act of beginning. The making of initial marks and the covering of the surface in a foundation of gestural colour was my goal. While these marks may or may not come to the surface in the finished version of this painting, the energy or Chi will remain within it in the remnant marks that describe the action of my brush on the canvas. The process is active and meditative, my only concern to address the physical need to feel the action of the brush against a surface.

Once I ran out of opaque gesso I used clear gesso and a limited palate that included a new Golden green gold and … wait for it….benzimidazolene yellow medium, in liquid acrylic. I really have to ask, who makes up these names? How do we even pronounce that… and with an accent no less? 

This liquid pair was joined by a regular favourite of mine, quinacridone red light, again, those names?  I had made sure to move the in progress works off the painting wall so I would , A) not drip on them and B) to avoid any comments from the gallery as they try to speak up with requests for a bit of this or a bit of that as they can distract me by catching the attention of my peripheral vision.

My colleague and I reminded each other that a painting is not a jurist: there is no need for judgement. Sometimes we can gain real value allowing ourselves to engage in the painting process for the sake of the process itself.

Life is always lived in the details. This one shows what was intended as underpainting but turned into the main event.

I don’t know where this piece will end up. I don’t have a plan for it beyond the vehicle it provided today as a starting point and my personal journey to connect to a part my creative self.

So far it is a document of a moment in time, no more and no less. As each painting episode on this surface evolves the canvas becomes a cumulative tally of all those moments, documented in layers and recorded in colour.

Before we finished our visit, Fia and I talked about paintings at the studio that we consider to be finished but later we think oh yeah I could add this or change that. The conversation reminded me of a book launch I had attended years ago. The book celebrated a chapter in the career of well known Manitoba painter Ivan Eyre. There he was discussing his work and I put up my hand to ask a question I am often asked, “When do you know your work is finished?”

He paused before he responded, then noted the fact that historians get frustrated with him because years after the fact and even after a painting has been published in a catalogue or book, he has been known to redress a painting from his new perspective with the intention to somehow improve it.  Those efforts to polish or clean things up in a composition can be the detriment of us all. I was glad to learn I was not alone in my backward glances toward earlier works. Every piece we create is a record of where we are at a particular point in time. The difference between old and new work is growth.  I try to accept the lessons I have learnt along the way as a document of an age or a stage that will become part of the equation that illustrates the story of one painter’s work in art.

Photographing the Neighbours Poppies to use as future inspiration

“Singing the blues” inspired a new body of work in textiles in 2021. This is a detail of one of the panels.

“Composition” exhibited at La Maison Des artistes in Winnipeg in 2021. Singing the Blues provided inspiration for 2 of the 16 , 20” square panels in textiles.

In this episode I want to introduce you to a small painting I kept because I loved its simplicity. It taught me to leave well enough alone, to walk away from a painting before I addressed the urge to clean it up and tamper with the initial marks I had made. It hails from 2006 and was part of what I then called the “TRESSPASSING SERIES”. I may have had an issue with boundaries at the time but I won’t judge my younger, frazzled young mother, self, for finding inspiration in the front yards of friends I had yet to meet.

2006 was early in the digital age. Then I was usually armed with my elf camera and developed film in duplicate batches. It was cheaper and it gave me the opportunity to write a note to the homeowners and share a lovely image of their fleeting perennial garden with thanks. This little painting is called “Singing the Blues”. It is 13” x 14’ and painted on a plywood panel. The unusual proportion is the result of my adventures in the hardware store where I divided a 4’ x 8’ sheet into a a group of proportionate pieces so I could play in series without feeling I was splurging on materials. My current advice to my younger self… Just buy the darn materials, its worth it and so are you!!!

Anyhow, I prepared the surface with gesso in multiples, a few at a time and taped some inspiration photos above them on my paint wall. The photographs provided a starting point. They reminded me of something that had piqued my interest and inspired me to take the picture in the first place. I never had time to act on my creative urges instantly so this was my way of collecting visual information for later use. I was the mother of young kids. In fact I used to joke I was the stay at home mum who just wasn’t home. .. And was only half joking.

The snapshots acted like flint, igniting the creative process with a foundation in landscape in general but with no intention to replicate the details of a particular place or space.

The poppy motif inspired this pair of Mandart pillows in 2021. “Solitaire” shown here.

“Villagers” will be part of a pillow pop up in 2022. Drop me a line if you would like to be notified when the pop up pops up.

In “Singing the Blues”, just like in the understructure of the piece I was painting the other day i was using colours opposite on the colour wheel to create a foundation or compositional structure,For example this little guy hs a pale yellow sky. This image was going to feature a cluster of fiery red poppies from a local lawn which I naturally underpinned in Liquitex’s brilliant blue liquid acrylic. It is a favourite colour of mine that i have had some difficulty finding lately.

Sometimes in painting I put pressure on myself to produce some predetermined outcome but with my freshly cut hardware store boards I gave myself permission to just play and see what unfolded. By starting without a destination the little composition is fresh and clear and ultimately, to my mind, more successful. 

Luckily I had more boards to play with so I left this piece to cure as I went onto something else. The pause also cured my desire to clean it up or overpaint in a more naturalistic or expected scheme. My use of contrasting colour foundations can sometimes flatten my paintings spatially as tend to defy the natural order where blues recede into the background and warm reds, oranges and yellows step forward. I find the value of the colour used can help that effect from being disruptive but really does it even matter? What is important to me is the developing relationship between elements within the composition’s surface. 

Thank goodness for the garden, in real time and in art. Organization may not be my best feature but I am resourceful and don’t shy away from emergency photography in poor light. A resilient icy snowbank works in a pinch. and yes i am gripping my toes trying not to slip and fall on a rink like back doorstep. Colour vs Winter is real here.

When I began my art school journey it was at the tail end of the photorealism era, I am not Chuck Close and I am in no way attempting to replicate the real world or any existing place, space or event. I am simply creating my own response to landscape where subject is secondary and the final product may or may not bare any resemblance to the inspiration that ignited the journey through process in the first place.

For those interested in my photorealist beginnings stay tuned for episode 13 at the end of Season 1.

There we will learn a little about where my art journey began and how the support of a mentor who saw the painter within me, possibly before I even knew she was there myself, is so important.

 But for now we can take away a couple of lessons from “Singing the Blues”:  like, let’s just play kids. 

Life is seriously too short to take ourselves too seriously. Life and work should be fun.

Let’s remove our attachment to outcome, even temporarily.  I find when I allow myself to fully feel the creative actions I am engaged in I am also allowing myself to be fully immersed in a process. In the creative process I can find myself in a place where the world quietens around me, and I am fully present. I guess really, I am at the intersection, where action and presence meet. 

Don’t get me wrong, studio practice is not all fun and games. It requires discipline and practice too. One last lesson  “Singing the Blues” taught me was that while the hardware store can be a perfectly good resource for a painting support, if I add in the cost of my time, energy and resources, there was no economic advantage whatsoever to my resourceful little scheme. 

Let’s be sure to remember we and the work we create are worth the investment in materials, always.

 Thank you for tuning in to this episode. 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.

It’s all FREE content that I very happy to share with you. If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review. You can listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.

This week’s meditation begins at 13:30 in the recording.

Feel free to leave your questions or comments on the website or find me on instagram @mandartcanada. I would love to hear from you

Until next time, stay well,

all best

Amanda

Apple Trailer - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-at-the-crossroads-trailer/id1609992256?i=1000551067035

Wisdom at The Crossroads, the Podcast

“Pink at Ponemah” offers an invitation to park yourself on a sandy beach on a shimmery summer day no matter the season. In today’s episode we step into Canadian cottage country to find connection in community. We take a pause, find ourselves pretty in pink and learn a simple way to leave our own marks on the world.

We learn how to celebrate our creative missteps by making a mistake feel intentional and we continue to explore the backstories of my work in art.

The meditation that begins at 10:55 in this episode’s recording will help us to ease into a peaceful moment.

We get into the pink and seek to experience ease when we allow ourselves to dream and are encouraged to come back to ourselves. We invite the light around us to become the light within.

Life is lived in the Details. This one introduces my solution to a creative misstep. When I dropped my painting panel and snapped a Eucalyptus leaf embedded into the gesso, I chose to. celebrate your it. I painted it aqua in an effort to make my accident appear intentional,

Welcome back to the podcast. I want to thank you for sharing your valuable time with me. 

Last week, feeling the need for a bit of a break I picked up the March edition of Health magazine. In it Editor Liz Vaccariello wrote in the Editor’s Note about her own writing process. I totally resonated with her admission when she said, “I think better with a pen in my hand”. I was grateful to know I am not alone in my comfortable ways, even though I might prefer a pencil. It was a reminder of how a few simple words can connect us to each other.

Liz went on to explain, “If we read to know the world, we write to know ourselves``

While considering this podcasting adventure I had wondered how my visual medium as a painter and textile artist would translate as an audio experience, I am working it out and hopefully making connections. Thanks to those who have reached out to tell me how my stories and meditations or reflections have made a difference so far.  Liz’s editorial note seemed to capture the essence of what I am trying to do as she continued.

 “When we share our experiences we invite others to not only feel what we felt but to find themselves in our stories” and that is essentially my hope for you, that you will find something of your story within mine as we continue to explore the backstories of my work in art.

In today’s episode we will meet, “Pink at Ponemah” from the shores of lake Winnipeg, a painting that hangs by my front door at home. It is a small acrylic on panel that welcomes guests indoors. I’m finding it funny as I write about it and only now realise that it’s not until we really explore the reasoning behind the ways we curate our personal spaces that subliminal motives become clear. I am now realising the 2 sentinel trees that are the primary subject matter in the painting, welcome visitors to our local Ponemah Beach.  Hanging where they are, they are facilitating that same action at home. I guess it really is true` life imitates art, imitates life.

 This little gem is only 12” x 30” and was painted on a cradled board back in 2005. 

Ponemah is part of the smallest municipality in Manitoba . The Village of Dunnottar sits on the western edge of Lake Winnipeg’s South basin. An inland ocean on the Canadian Prairies.

We didn’t call Ponemah, in the smallest municipality in Manitoba, our summer home until several years after this piece was painted but even then I think I was beginning to understand the Canadian connection to place. Canadians are an endearingly outdoorsy bunch who embrace where they are whatever the weather. Sometimes we push ourselves to get active in spite of it. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent where water bodies abound. Lake Winnipeg is the sixth largest lake in Can, sailors, water enthusiasts and cottagers who reside and play along its extensive perimeter. 

We were initially guests here, at the invitation of friends who had invited our family to share a weekend at the cottage which had been their families’ weekend experience since the 50’s. As broad as the types of recreational properties that exist in Canada there are an equal number of endearing terms to match. This family calls their place the cottage while others are known to reference their summer homes as the camp, the cabin, the lake or the beach, to name just a few.  Everyone it seems takes ownership by prefacing the title with the word “our” or “my”. That is, our cottage, our cabin, my lake, our beach.

At the bottom of their street on the lakeshore at Ponemah stand a pair of weathered Willows that act like sentinels inviting the community to play on its sandy shore. It’s a beach well known to cottagers in the area, a once well-kept secret. In recent years the neighbourhood is welcoming new and unfamiliar faces to our little cottage neighbourhood on picnics and day trips. We are an easy commute from the city and have been garnering added attention since Pokémon planted some virtual characters on òur` point. Bridal parties have discovered our unique swimming piers make a spectacular backdrop to their wedding pictures with vast and expansive prairie skies as a backdrop. Social media too is sharing the seasonal magic of this quaint little beach community.

The lake for me is a magnet. Water is my elemental home.  I swim weekdays year round at the YMCA. When it is minus 40 with a wind chill, getting dressed to drive and get into the Y takes some effort. Our winters may be brutal but our summers are glorious and being by water body in July and august for even just a weekend day trip is the goal of so many of us. As an ex pat Australian who grew up by an ocean, Lake Winnipeg`s shallow wide basin is prone to variable weather and rolling storms that acts as a surrogate ocean for my family. There are of course no salt crusted eyelashes to squint through after a swim and no swell to surf unless there is a crazy storm, but in the middle of a continent I am so totally grateful to be able to look out at that ever changeable horizon and feel at home. When we did purchase what my now neighbour squared described as `Mr Pool`s Cottage, a long neglected log cabin we have smothered in love and major efforts to salvage its quaint stature while bringing its interesting building practices up to code. My husband said to me as we walked along the lake shore on a breezy afternoon that season, “We just breathe better here don`t we”, and I agree. We feel the stress dissolving as we leave the city and by the time we arrive we have already relaxed into that beach hair don’t care state of mind.

The swimming piers are a feature of our little cottage community. They are affectionately called stick docks and are built and dismantled each season. The neighbours celebrate with morning coffees and afternoon “tea” when the pier is finally ready for our gatherings and we declare it to officially be summer.

The little painting we are chatting about  I named ``Pink at Ponemah` because it has a delicate softness about it that puts me in mind of a peaceful summer day, you know those days when you have been outdoors and the sun has blushed, not burnt your skin with that healthy glow. Use sunscreen people but when you do get a chance go out and enjoy that feeling of relaxation that reminds us we are lucky to be such a small part of an expansive nation. 

“PINK at PONEMAH”, Acrylic on Panel, 12” x 30”, 2006

The sentinel trees that feature in the painting are the beginning of two rows of plantings that shade the back edge of the beach in the summer and take the brunt of the wind when it blows. You would have to imagine the shorter row extending to the right beyond the paintings composition to the point and a longer row leading you left parallel to the sandy beach walk along the shore in the opposite direction. `Sand is an invitation to walk here. Every walk is different. Most inspire me to pause to collect lucky stones with intrinsic holes perfect for summer pendants or beach glass weathered smooth by the action of water and ice. One year a beachgoer left messages written in sharpie on smooth and warm summer stones. I collected one that exclaims, `You Rock! I love that. It keeps vigil on the kitchen table year round to inspire all of our guests. What a lovely sentiment to find. I would urge you to make someone’s day next time you find yourself with a smooth stone and a pen in your hand. Write some small affirmation and leave it behind to be found later in the day.

The prairie that flattens out to the west is its own inland ocean…of canola, flax or wheat.

The magic of hoar frost on a breathless early winter morning at Ponemah

The seasonal differences are distinct in this part of the world

In the painting there is more white than I usually incorporate but if flows with the idea of a whispy breeze and sets the scene for a bathing suit bleached with wear or a picnic blanket faded and softened with use. Embedded in the surface are some saved eucalyptus leaves brought in as bookmarks in a novel or clipped from a florists arrangement. Australiana, I am an advocate for it all. On the back of the painting I discovered I had inscribed, `Give me a home amongst the gum trees” which may have been an original intention for this piece and possibly also a reference to the iconic swimming flags on patrolled Australian beaches that are placed a similar distance apart. Remembering we bring to our work our own unique experiences. And though I have lived in Canada since 1991, our beginnings are always our beginnings and mine are clearly evident in my work.

 Unusually in this composition I used some gold and silver leaf. I had some; I was playing with it as an addition and liked the subtle reference to reflections on water that felt so familiar to a part within me. Adding it made reference to the flash of silver we might see underwater or the glare or reflections on the water’s surface that keep our dark sunglasses in place as we tan. I love the metallic addition to the composition that flashes differently depending on the angle of approach and the time of day. The trees I have spoken of are a mere suggestion themselves cast as they are with a few loose marks that describe a breeze.  

Leaves embedded in the gesso feature in this little painting on panel. They connect the beachscapes that are part of my psyche.

Tree detail fro “Pink at Ponemah”. I love the little fleck of gold and silver leaf. They flash in different ways depending on the angle of approach to the painting

 In the painting there is a distinction between areas where sand meets water, meets sky, but it is a suggestion and open to interpretation.  Art and the making have taught me many things over the years. This little gem is no different. In fact as I was screwing in hangers on the back I remember I actually dropped the panel and wouldn’t you know it one of those sacred remnants of Australian, a perfect gum leaf embedded into the surface cracked clearly in half and left a weird gap where a lovely leaf form had been. Ouch that one hurt. The moment may have inspired an uncomplimentary word or two to escape. I don’t remember, it was in 2005, but knowing me I would not be surprised if it did. 

So, what to do? Never one to disguise a flaw I do recall dipping my brush into a lovely aqua tube and filling the void with a startling contrast to that blushing pink I have already told you about. It was a perfect solution and a reminder, when we are presented with lemons, we should totally make lemonade.

This little piece was a great lesson in life and in art that I try always to remember. And that is, what we think as a wrong turn can actually turn into something to celebrate. It also reminds me year round that though the seasonal winds will blow and bring snow into my front door at times, there is always the promise that the sun will shine and soon I will be migrating back to our little beach with the hummingbirds and eagles to feel that blush of pink on my winter weary skin once again. 

Gold Leaf detail “Pink at Ponemah”, 2006

My thanks extend to you today for tuning in to this episode. 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.

It’s all FREE content that I very happy to share with you. If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review. You can listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.

This week’s meditation begins at 10:55 in the recording. I hope you are able to make time for a little self care.

please feel free to leave your questions or comments on the website or find me on instagram @mandartcanada. I would love to hear from you

Until next time, stay well,

all best

Amanda

Apple Trailer - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-at-the-crossroads-trailer/id1609992256?i=1000551067035

Wisdom at the Crossroads, the Podcast.

 Supportive communities, circles of women and flexibility are topics of conversation on the podcast this week…and where would we be without them? In this episode I invite you to find something of your story within mine as together we discover tranquility and presence in morning routines.  We learn how less can be more as we reflect on simplicity and our connections to: place, to those around us and most importantly to ourselves. With a limited palette the view from “Town’s End” illustrates art is definitely open to interpretation.

 The meditation that compliments this episode can be found on the recording only. In it the story of less as more inspires a simple meditative journey. Where we will discover moments of tranquility as we seek ease and refreshment using imagery to curate our own virtual sanctuary.  Catch the meditation at 8.15 in the recording.

“Town’s End” is featured on a version of one of my locally made MANDART PILLOWS. I offer them seasonally as a pop up. Drop me a message if you might be interested so I am sure to let you know when the next one takes place. There are a dozen different pillow designs now. Available in 3 sizes with or without pillow inserts.

“TOWN’S END” , or a detail of the painting appears in my book as an illustration. My book shares the name of my Podcast. “WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS”. Described as weightier than it’s small stature. This book is available at events and pop ups or directly from me personally.

“TOWN’S END” was the starting point for this illustration project that remains on the back burner. One day I will get back to working on my children’s book project. This version of “Town’s End” is painted in acrylic on paper. Shape and scale are quite different to the original in acrylic but the sense of expansion remains.

I know my Season 1 intention has been to introduce you to some of the art work I live with and to chat a little about the stories and lessons that inspired and were inspired by them.  And we will be chatting about art, todays piece is just a little bit out of order. It’s been a very LONG winter here and you know how you sometimes just need to shake things up a little? Well that’s kind of how I am feeling, so, I am allowing myself a little flexibility with my plan. In today’s episode we will be taking a virtual break from my own space to introduce to a piece called “TOWN’S END” that moved in with its forever family some time ago. 

 When our girls were really small I sought ways to acknowledge my creative drive I did some ceramics on the kitchen counter, hand building lanterns at nap time? I doodled with watercolor and chalk pastel and even some stained glass. All of these outlets came with sharp edges, toxic ingredients or were so appealing to inquiring small hands that any progress quickly devolved into a tactile game of squish.

 I learned to compartmentalize my creative projects, to seek nontoxic avenues to address my need for experimentation and discovery Textiles solved that equation. They were tactile, quenched my thirst for colour and could be picked up for short periods of time and abandoned without interfering with the process.

I was composing large art quilts in piecemeal segments that I exhibited internationally. I worked from my basement sewing room under daylight bulbs where I machine stitched into the night. David Bowie serenaded me with his expansive catalogue while I was happily at play and my smalls slept.  

I had befriended neighbors on my street at that time. Two of them were home economics grads who also had an affinity for cloth and textile applications. They kindly invited me to join their “Stitch” group. This was a group of women who had met when their children were small. They had recognized the need for mommy time that did not involve parenting, a place where women gathered in support of each other. 

The stitch girls were 10-15 years ahead of me and had they had figured life out. Together their experiences combined to cover all potentials. They had accomplished, confronted, commanded, conceded, succeeded and failed. They had grown together through all that life had thrown at them, and all of it with the support of each other. … And boy did they have a lot of the answers I then sought. 

Stitch continues and remains a highlight when we get together. They even inspired another circle of women I initiated on the Montessori playground. The mamas are a story for another day. Suffice it to know the gift of friendship grows and supports us through life’s chapters in all of our lives. 

Though not discussed in this week’s podcast I wanted to remind readers that this painting,“FIESTA”, 24’ x 60”, Acrylic on Panel, is my donation in support of The OSEREDOK ART AUCTION and Fundraising initiative in aid of the Canada-Ukraine Fund.

!00% of proceeds from this painting will directly help displaced Ukrainians.

Please contact Osederok’s Fundraising officer for more information katie@oseredok.ca or call 204 942 0218

Fast forward several years to a gracious weekend invitation to the recently remodeled and expanded lake home of one of our stitch girls, in Woodchuck bay which is part of Canada’s picturesque Lake of the Woods. 

 As an aside there is also a little woodchuck bay, a zig zag island and a labyrinth of channels and bays that have obliterated many an undercarriage on speedy watercraft operated by even the savviest of boaters. 

 We arrived at our friend’s home to admire the new addition with awe and were excited we could all be together and be so comfortably accommodated.

The weekend was a welcome retreat and a feast of friendship, camaraderie and support mostly undertaken with laughter in the air and wine glasses in our hands. 

Clear blue skies and friends on the way down to the dock for a morning swim.

Morning coffee, or tea if you are like me with an English background, is a lovely summertime destination.

Lake of The Woods is a beautiful; part of the country

I am a swimmer with a morning weekday habit at the YMCA that I have kept up for most of the 30 years I have been a resident then citizen in Canada. Getting up early is second nature to me so in the early morning after our overnight gathering I crept outside and made my way down to the dock to take in lake life at water level. 

The morning was still and clear before the families of boats towing skiers were on the move and the community that rose each day to play was not quite ready for coffee. 

The view across the lake was wide and majestic, still and inviting. It was tranquil with the remnant sunrise still in the air and the gentle echo of remote ripples lapping quietly against the understructure of the decking. The birds had been awake for hours and were as chatty as our girlfriends had been. the previous night. The moment was a peaceful pause before the day really began and others in our group joined me with coffee. 

Some dipped their toes into the lake from the end of the dock and a few others joined me to swim in the dark cool and refreshing channel. I took some photographs of the view from the dock that morning, of cottages hobbled along the opposite bank in generational groupings. There were Lake Neighbors known and in view yet still set off in the distance. 

The view across to Zig Zag Island. Little Woodchuck Bay goes around the corner to the right

Back at the studio some time later I prepared a square 30” x 30” canvas to accept my painterly thoughts. I began with quinocridone red light that I am sorry but I may have just killed with my pronunciation. I call it q red for short because I really don’t know how to pronounce it and I am not going to pretend that I do. I do love its clear blushing rose vibe. It’s a favorite of mine and with it I sketched in a suggestion of a space divided by a horizon line upon which I added the most basic of lake life infrastructure referencing that which came into view that morning from the end of my friend’s tranquil dock. 

The red pink marks made with a square flat bristled brush developed to suggest the community on the opposite shore backlit in thin early morning sunlight. Initially I added in the ladder rails from which reluctant swimmers made their way into the watery depths and all of us used to climb back onto the dock from the water. 

Their addition felt too literal to me at the time and altered the suggestion I was hoping to achieve of that lovely morning in that ruggedly beautiful lake country. 

The composition felt more restricted with their addition so with a liberal dose of rich cobalt blue among other blues and greens on my palette,  I painted over the man made additions in favour of the suggestion of a natural landscape, raw and unstructured, an image more in tune with that particular moment in time 

I was reminded in the process that sometimes less can be more and in the case of this painting it was definitely simplicity that I sought. My friend could recognize her tranquil oasis while a viewer unfamiliar to lake country terrain could still find their own connection to this painterly suggestion of place. 

Though not mentioned in this episode of the Podcast, “GEORGIAN BAY: AUDIENCE” is a recent work inspired by the Canadian Shield.

“Georgian Bay: Channel” was part of a commission request I painted this past summer. This pair share Canadian Lake country as inspiration.

 I want you to know that I don’t actively seek homes for my art beyond an invitation to studio open houses events or exhibits. I don’t want friends to feel an obligation to buy pieces inspired by their distinct and familiar landscapes. And I definitely don’t want to be forfeited an invitation to lake living for fear of it.

It did so happen that my friend was drawn to this piece in my studio prior to realizing it had been inspired by that peaceful memory at the end of her families dock. She appreciated the simple reference to place and did invite that painting to find a permanent home on a stairway at her lovely lakeside home. It lives where every visitor can’t help but pass it. I may have mentioned in previous stories how a large painting can expand a small space to enhance the experience of both. 

Mounted as it is in a descending stairway this painting, “TOWN’S END”, has the effect of a window. It is also a conversation piece. The 30“square image draws visitors down the stairs to the lake to enjoy their own experience of beautiful lake of the woods at “Town’s end”. 

Town’s End is a play on my friends last name but also a nod to lake country in general as a respite from urban living that is refreshment for anyone lucky enough to be invited to stop in.

“TOWN’S END”, Acrylic on Canvas, 30” x30”, 2013

My thanks extend to you today for tuning in to this episode. 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.

It’s all FREE content that I very happy to share with you. If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review. You can listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.

This week’s meditation begins at 8:15 in the recording.

I will add the new link below when the episode is live but in case you stop by ahead of that you can feel free to google “Wisdom at the Crossroads Podcast” with Amanda Onchulenko, Season 1 Episode 8: “TOWN’S END”

Leave your questions or comments on the website or find me on instagram @mandartcanada. I would love to hear from you

Until next time, stay well,

all best

Amanda

A direct link to the Podcast on Podbean below:

A direct link to the Podcast on Spotify below:

A direct link to the Trailer on Apple podcast below

Apple Trailer - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-at-the-crossroads-trailer/id1609992256?i=1000551067035

Wisdom at the Crossroads, the Podcast.

This week on the podcast we reflect on family road trips and recall the gift of time to be ourselves. We learn creativity is mined from routine actions and chat about some of the painterly traits I commonly use in my painting practice. Sunshine yellow continues in the conversation about composition and inspiration in my work in art.

The meditation begins at 12:44 in this episode. It is available on the recording and I hope you will listen in.   .

“SWEET SIXTEEN”, Named after the yellow Head Highway #16. 30” x 30”, acrylic on Canvas

By Amanda Onchulenko

This pair became an unintentional diptych because of their proximity to each other on my painting wall. “YELLOW HEAD” and “SWEET SIXTEEN” are the names given to a regional highway our family travels on when we head west to visit grandparents. “YELLOW HEAD”, Acrylic on Canvas, 24” x 24”, 2013.

My current work in acrylic is focused on the painting process. I start with a general idea, inspired somehow by landscape. The act of painting for me is a tactile and physical process concerned with the feel of liquid acrylic contacting a surface: a panel being more resistant to the action of the brush, while canvas has a little more give, but hopefully not too much.

I am often asked how do I begin? “Do I start at the top and work down for instance?

No. For me right now a piece begins with no visual reference or defined intention. There is no photographic starting point like there once was, so the 100’s of photographs I have taken and continue to take are not engaged on paint days. The painting process instead flows through layers of visual decision making with a focus on the concept of composition. That is the internal structure that invites the viewer on a prescribed journey through a 2 dimensional surface.

When I paint I use only paint. Drawing is done with a thin flippy brush loaded with very watery acrylic paint. The action is reflexive and intuitive. I will sometimes use this technique right at the very beginning to rough in my initial intentions but mostly I reserve “drawing” for when the composition is more advanced and can benefit from a little clarity.

Each mark has a role to play. At the outset a work flows together with large active strokes and gestures that are first concerned with adding colour to a surface and I do aim to cover the entire surface, very often with a large wide brush. This is usually done in a compliment, or colour opposite on the colour wheel to what I think I am intending. Beginning with very basic, yet fluid, divisions of the surface into suggestions of background and foreground. .Way back when I was doing my higher school certificate in Australia my inspirational art teacher impressed on our group her preference for eradicating the white dots of the naked canvas from showing through onto the finished surface.  It was the early 80’s and photo realism was getting to the end of its reign. In covering the surface with underpainting, I feel like I am accommodating Diane Epoff’s voice which remains with me even after all these years, and should these compliments show through I am not leaving the surface untended, instead I am planting seeds that just might help the composition to bloom.

As a composition progresses my additions are slower, smaller and more considered as each mark I make contributes more significantly to the composition… less really does become more. 

Though not discussed in this week’s podcast I wanted to remind readers that this painting,“FIESTA”, 24’ x 60”, Acrylic on Panel, is my donation to The OSEREDOK ART AUCTION and Fundraising initiative in support of the Canada-Ukraine Fund.

!00% of proceeds from this painting will directly help displaced Ukrainians.

Please contact Osederok’s Fundraising officer for more information katie@oseredok.ca or call 204 942 0218

Some of the things I do with regularity that give my work its signature vibe include: washing my brush with regularity, some might say compulsively? This keeps the colour clear. In art school I double majored in painting and printmaking and though printing inks proved too toxic for my system, I did retain the printmakers’ tendency to think in one colour at a time. This practice helps to prevent me from blending colours down to neutrals. I use a single colour on multiple areas of a surface to encourage both movement and balance and I add compliments together to create darks without the use of blacks.

These strategies all contribute to the vibrancy of colour that you see and feel in real life with my work, it may be less obvious in reproduction and since we are on a podcast, well it can be whatever you want it to be. Lol I just hope you aren’t disappointed when you see the actual images on my blog. You know how when you read a book that later becomes a movie and the lead character you imagine as Jaimie Fraser from outlander turns into Ronald MacDonald? I want you to use your imagination here but I am hopeful my images in real life don’t disappoint.    

 I often paint in series and can have multiple pieces on the go at any given time. Sometimes these are defined groups like a triptych with 3 panels or a diptych with 2. These groups also mean I can paint a large piece that I can still fit into my car. These formal groups are always worked on as a team. Sometimes two pieces will be neighbours on my painting wall, like the two pieces we will talk about a bit later. Multi panelled pieces offer the additional challenge of having to be compositionally sound as individual paintings, as adjacent pairs and if there is a third player, as a triptych.

Composition is one of my primary concerns. It is the structure that drives the viewer’s visual path around a surface. For me it is what informs the direction any painting takes regardless of subject. Compositional challenges have been known to turn a painting literally upside down on my painting wall. An altered perspective can be the key action that helps me to solve the visual puzzle. Really when it all boils down painting is a visual problem to be solved and each artist uses their chosen tools in their preferred way to do that. 

Some days I might be frustrated with how a particular work is progressing. Most likely I have overpainted and lost some of the spontaneity that existed in the underpainting by trying too hard to clean things up and control the action. Why do we do that? I ask myself not infrequently. I might even be sulking because I have turned something fresh and fabulous into something , well, a little lacking.

 At that point my energy is better spent refocusing on another piece. By having more than one ball in the air I get to continue in the flow of painting until I feel finished for the day on my terms instead of feeling defeated by a block or a perceived misstep. In life as in art it’s good to remember everything happens for a reason and our journey evolves.

I always want to end the day on a high note. That way when I come back with fresh eyes on my next studio day, having allowed a composition to rest or marinate, the painting will generally lead me back to a resolution and i will be enthusiastic about making my next steps.

Life is definitely lived in the details. Here is a close up of the personality filled cloud that found itself in the composition.

The Cloud formation in these Aces might be distant cousins to the cloud formations that formed in the Sweet 16 pair?

Sometimes under painted marks create something unexpected. Like this open palm in “YELLOW HEAD”.

The unintentional diptych, “Sweet Sixteen” and “Yellowhead” are a sunny pair of paintings that combine aspects of several seasons in only a few major colours. “Yellowhead“ on the right bares some reference to the spring gouges left to tell the story of the farmer’s eagerness. These marks also help to section off the foreground and draw the viewer into the composition on convergent lines that delineate a pink triangle just off centre to the right. A soft rosy pink triangle forms between the 2 edges of these receding lines that might reiterate the idea of fertility in the rich dark earth of central Canada. Clear sunny yellows suggest the abundance of grain ripened at the heart of the prairies. Colourful quadrants are sectioned off by the loose marks that sweep suggestively across both canvases.

The middle ground recedes with the aid of vibrant slashes of azure and cobalt blue that also continues through both compositions. In each piece a lone cloud formed in my wispy under painted marks that began as a subtle sketch in watery blue. Sometimes a little happenstance leads the evolution of the subject like in this case where my watery initial marks combined to suggest an open palm in profile. In “Yellowhead”, if you are familiar with the Rider Waite Tarot, think aces of cups or pentacles and the potential of harvest and another seasonal cycle bearing fruit. In “Sweet Sixteen” on the left a Cloud formation on the far left puts me in mind of a cheeky character ready to forcefully exhale the captured air in his overstuffed cheeks.

The atmospheric upper third of both panels revert again to bright sunshiny cadmium yellow with creamy variations that balance the composition and read as sky. This pair of cousins though originally not intended as a diptych, hold together compositionally by means of a few shared lines that extend from one composition to the other. Sometimes that’s all we need to bring two individual composition together to become more than the simple combination of their parts. Painted in 2013 not long after we  purchased our cottage, when one teenage daughter admired them as a pair it was a simple action to bring them home to take up residence at the lake where wall space was more than plentiful.

Tools of the trade. Here are a few friends at rest on my painting desk. The way a brush feels is important to me. Squares somehow inspire me.

My paintings come into service as backdrops. I found “Yellow Head” masquerading behind this cheeky little buddha who came to the studio via the good will store. We can all use a little peaceful inspiration on occasion.

 The Yellow that dominates this pair is a colour not instinctively embraced by Canadians. At the time I was happy to assume the Australian part of our daughter resonated with this scheme. I resonate with their sunny personalities and personally love waking up to their positivity. Together they have taught me to appreciate the ages and stages of our kids, in all seasons, to observe the seasonal markers of the landscape and in the coldest of seasons to appreciate the radiant light they bring to my space that reminds me of the potential for warmer days ahead.

I hope their sunny disposition resonates with you as it does with me. May they remind you of road trips you have taken or maybe even of roads less travelled that might appear on your bucket list soon?

“Eye on the Sky” 10” x 20” , quilted textile, 2021 though not mentioned in todays podcast episode, it does illustrate another example of the prairie as muse. The yellow colour story also continues in this piece.

Thanks for tuning in to see what “Yellow Head” and “Sweet Sixteen” were all about. I hope you are finding something of your story within mine in listening in to the podcast, our catching up on the images through this blog.

IT’S FREE. If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review. You can listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.

This week’s meditation begins at 12:44 in the recording.

I will add the new link below when the episode is live but in case you stop by ahead of that you can feel free to google “wisdom at the crossroads podcast” with amanda Onchulenko, Season 1 Episode 7: “YELLOW HEAD/ SWEET SIXTEEN”

Leave your questions or comments on the website or find me on instagram @mandartcanada. I would love to hear from you

Until next time, stay well,

all best

Amanda

A direct link to the Podcast on Podbean below:

A direct link to the Podcast on Spotify below:

A direct link to the Trailer on Apple podcast below

Apple Trailer - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-at-the-crossroads-trailer/id1609992256?i=1000551067035

Wisdom at the Crossroads, the Podcast.

Thanks for joining me to on this podcasting journey. This week we weather a prairie storm to be reminded less can definitely be more and firsts are always worth remembering.

Today’s featured pair, “AFTERNOON SHOWERS”, was inspired by an afternoon road trip in the summer of 2008. The pair became members of our household when a same sized pair moved on to their forever home. I didn’t let my husband sell this diptych which became part of the backdrop to our lives when they moved out of the studio and into our living room. They bring sunshine indoors on even the coldest days of a Northern winter on the Prairies.

“AFTERNOON SHOWERS I”, 30’ x 60”, Acrylic on Canvas, 2008 By Amanda Onchulenko

This diptych was the result of a very fun yet focused week of work while the children were at camp and Mum was free to play, all day.

Today at the studio as I was contemplating writing this episode I spent some time in a reflective state taking in the vibes and the winter light in my space. We have had a bumper year from a skiers perspective with record amounts of snow that has created snowbanks as high as fences. Snow ironically usually brings milder temperatures here but as luck would have it we have had record cold as well. 

 Driving conditions aren’t ideal and if you were to ask any Manitoban they would surely tell you they are ready to hang up their snow shovels and replace them with a rake or a trowel to go play in the dirt. Gardening season may be a ways away for us just yet but it never hurts to take ourselves on a little mindful journey when we need to reboot.  

Studio practice isn’t simply the act of creating; getting out meeting and engaging with a new to me audience is always a part of the equation. I love the connections I have made through my art and have found colour is connective particularly in a nation where winters white reigns for a large chunk of the year. After 31 years in Canada, I’m dating myself, I know, I find the morphed accent of mine does still get in the way especially when I am meeting new people or when I am tired and this weekend I was both.  I wrote the following quote many years ago as a way to describe the way I expressed myself without getting tangled up in vowels. 

“Colour quiets me, colour lets me sing. It is my language in all its affectations of nuance, of syntax, of pronunciation. My voice is most clear in colour”. And really it is still accurate; this podcasting venture is challenging me to step out of my comfort zone, to try new things, and to shake up my comfortable paradigm just a little bit. I want to thank you for spending your valuable currency listening in and deciphering my words. I really am trying to slow down, on so many levels lol. This past weekend my boss had me working 12 hour days, during a blizzard, at a convention centre, which explains the contemplative mood I was in at the studio earlier, some might call it exhaustion. 

 Being in a crowded public venue after two years of restrictions and shut downs was a definite contrast to my solo practitioner status where I work alone in a cozy and quiet studio space with piano gently playing in the background. I love to see colour at work on even the most taupe loving, and neutral friendly folks, to field questions and to soak up the enthusiasm of those who are truly touched by what they see.

 At the event which was a departure for me it was interesting to hear peoples questions and comments about my work and also to notice which pieces they connected with in a display I only half-jokingly called “Colour vs Winter”.  

“Fiesta” is a busy floral landscape with lots of action and lots of colour that I finished just in time to include. I called it “Fiesta” because right now I am dreaming of walking on a Mexican beach. Others may have also been in a Mexican frame of mind as “Fiesta” was an early favourite on  the most talked about list. The set up involed a double sided wall so those circling back to see the reverse side were greeted by a large 4’ x 8’ diptych, “Wonderland: Heart and Soul”, striking a pose in the afternoon sunlight.

  “Bear Necessities” had a distinct following too by the end of the weekend, among them my hubby who “in air quotes,” borrowed” her for a zoom courtroom he was refreshing at the office. These pieces might feature in future episodes but for now I want to take a brief journey back through the archive to an august road trip that resulted in another diptych named, “AFTERNOON SHOWERS I and II”. It is a pair of 30’ x 60” vertical canvases from 2008. (Shown above)

“FIESTA”, 24’ x 60”, is a busy floral landscape that inspired winter weary visitors in Winnipeg in February with thoughts of Mexican holidays and retreats to warmer climates. Since this podcast was recorded this painting has been donated to The OSEREDOK ART AUCTION and Fundraising initiative in support of the Canada-Ukraine Fund and local initiatives to support what Manitoban’s expect to be an influx of Ukrainian Refugees locally.

!00% of proceeds from this painting will be donated. Please contact Osederok’s Fundraising officer for more information katie@oseredok.ca or call 204 942 0218 (w)

With the snow continuing to pile up outside there are no rain showers in our forecast other than this pair that straddles our family room fireplace and fills our living area with prairie sunshine year round. 

They were the last piece I created to fill a gap in wall space when I exhibited, I forget where, that year. It was also the first pair I painted without having to set my alarm to pick up my kids or to fit painting time in around summer or school activities.

I was the stay at home mum at the time. I used to joke that I just wasn’t home. Instead  I would drop the girls off at school and head to the studio where I would be up to my elbows in paint or ankles in fabric until the alarm sounded to remind me it was time to go. Summer was something we all looked forward to but the downside for me was that studio time was pretty much out until the school year began again in September.

 In this particular year our girls were playing ringette among other sports. It is a game played on ice with a hook less stick and rubber ring instead of a hockey stick. It encourages team play, passing and without having to stick handle a puck, is played at full speed. It is fun to watch at even the early age groups.

 Anyway without grandparents nearby when the girls attended ringette camp together it was the first time we were without children since having children. The camp was a sleepover camp about 40 minutes to the south east. There was a request for cabin mums, which I successfully dodged. Sorry kids but date week and paint week loomed and I really needed it. Everyone was excited. I had bought and prepped two new large canvases for the occasion and plotted out 4 nights of restaurants for date night dinners out, so I was ready. Joy was palpable.

 The Sunday drop off day arrived and we packed up and drove to the camp where we watched the little teams of girls excitedly sort out their bunking arrangements according to age group and met the cabin mums. (Bless you)  A quick bbq and we were on the road heading home. Summer days are endless this far north. After what had been a beautiful prairie summer day we could see the sky grumbling in the rear view mirror as a spectacle of a prairie storm rolled directly towards the camp we had just left. The drive by shooter that I was I snapped a series of photographs from the passenger seat as I wondered if I was doing the right thing in leaving my babies behind. 

Life is definitely lived in the details. This one from the middle ground of “Afternoon Showers I” (Left side)

This washy layer was not originally intended to remain on the surface but I love the effect that it has. Afternoon Showers II

Sometimes under painted marks remain and help to define the direction a composition takes.

No phone calls home and the week went off perfectly. I remember feeling exhilarated and exhausted from all that work at play. The storm had inspired the subject matter and I had a lot of fun allowing myself the luxury of uninterrupted time to paint. I used some big brushes on the underpainting  with loose liquid acrylic and remember enjoying watching a watered down version of  liquitex’s brilliant blue drip into the horizon line and beyond from the sky as a reference to the stormy show we had witness on the drive home to the city.

The girls had a wonderful time and so did we. And a few days later I had the girls with me as we stopped by the studio. They loved to go there and we often did back to school fashion shoots on the roof with a turn of the century architectural backdrop. On this day I handed our youngest the studio keys as she always wanted to be first. She raced up the stairs to unlock the door as our eldest and I climbed to the second floor behind her. As we reached the top steps my youngest met us there, ashen faced and clearly upset. I worried she had fallen and hurt herself,” No” she explained, she had seen the paintings and was saddened to tell me, ”Mum, your paintings have dripped”. She thought they had been ruined. It was so sweet.

“Afternoon Showers” exhibited briefly but around that time my hubby had convinced me to sell one of my first poppy pairs also 30” x 60” that had hung on either side of our fireplace, to a client who had been campaigning for them. I agreed to send them on their way despite the fact that I tried to keep the firsts of new bodies work. “Afternoon Showers” made for a simple replacement.  It turns out the yellow that shines in the centre of this pair somehow speaks to me as an ex pat Australian where yellow is embraced more commonly than it is in the northern hemisphere. It might be something about the light, it is definitely something about that volatile prairie storm that neutralised the tension of worry and excitement and reminds me we all need a little journey on occasion that refreshes our perspective and soothes us from our core. 

Tools of the trade. This square bristled brush is a favourite. It is even loaded with canola yellow

This spring bouquet, likely one of the first from a spring garden benefited from an afternoon shower in the background

 “Afternoon Showers” has hung by the fireplace ever since. It’s true that we get comfortable with items in our home that help to make it feel like our own. These two are part of the furniture but they are not shrinking violets. Originally a temporary stop gap to painting storage I should confess  we have only recently added a picture hook and attached wires to their backs for hanging after they had been bumped too often from their push pin temporary supports and crashed down to the floor one too many times. 

This pair reminds me of that week at the end of a summer. My journey was intense. It took me away from my usual responsibilities and allowed me to play, to express myself as a creative. There was no accent to be misinterpreted beyond the accent on colour that clearly shines.

 Another lesson I learned from this pair was that less can definitely be more. With only 4 very full studio days I covered a lot of literal ground. I didn’t have time to go in and “neaten or clean” things up which generally leads to overdoing it so the end result remains fresh and seemingly unstructured. It also reminds me to respect the perception of young patrons who have their own very distinct set of parameters for how they see and interpret the world. Ruin is subjective.

 The foreground reflects the idea of scrubby and wild grasses by means of reductive brush strokes made with a square bristled brush. The marks are generally in solid colour on top of the washy rouged underpainting.  

These paintings work as a diptych but the compositions standalone individually so that if one day our competitive children can’t decide who gets what the pair of paintings can be easily separated to solve the problem, to literally balance the visual equation.

Podcast cover art. Keep your eye out for this image wherever you listen to your podcasts

Inspired by “:Afternoon Showers I and II” this little acrylic on paper uses the sky as a starting point for an illustrative project I have on the back burner. No time frame as yet for the follow through.

I hope my stories are inspiring and help you to recall some of your own stellar moments. on the road of life you have thus far travelled. I appreciate you joining me on the ride that is mine.

If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review

Listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.

This week’s meditation begins at 10:55 in the recording

I will add the new link below when the episode is live but in case you stop by ahead of that you can feel free to google “wisdom at the crossroads podcast” with amanda Onchulenko, Season 1 Episode 6 :”AFTERNOON SHOWERS”

Leave your questions or comments on the website or find me on instagram @mandartcanada. I would love to hear from you

Until next time, stay well, all best

Amanda

A direct link to the Podcast on Podbean below

https://wisdomofthecrossroads.podbean.com/e/afternoon-showers/?token=998d99e082cb4bfdc5697ef71cbe4407

A direct link to the Podcast on Spotify below

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6rDElSmkHfPDMVnMRtSpf0?si=hmriAnf3S_e-7hYcvHNLeQ
Apple URL for the Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/widsom-at-the-crossroads/id1609992256

A direct link to the Trailer on Apple podcast below

Apple Trailer - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-at-the-crossroads-trailer/id1609992256?i=1000551067035

Tom Thomson’s iconic Jack Pine image is reversed in this painting as a nod to the idea that Down under means upside down

Ode to Tom Detail 1

Collecting visual data for this composition included some home grown eucalyptus leaves

I love the personality of this bundle of gum leaves. Their shapes helped to contain the action of the various elements within the composition.

This week on the Podcast we take a walk down Memory Lane where I introduce you to a mixed media painting on paper from the earliest days of my studio practice. We chat about my tendency to paint like a printmaker, about gathering visual ideas and why I included some of the images that I did. North meets South as we meet at the imaginary place where universal flatlands become coastal and inland oceans and nocturnal auras and painterly signatures merge in colour and process.



Opposite my “Painted Ladies” in our dining room lives an “Ode to Tom”. This was one of my very early works in mixed media, an acrylic and chalk pastel on water colour paper, with eucalyptus leaves, 22 1/2” x 30”

Tom is a ladies man and “the Painted Ladies” opposite enjoy the view. Together they act as foils reflecting aspects of the past and the present to each other. Painted in 2001 this piece was an image that grew as a collage would by compiling a group of thoughts graphically into a single image.

At that time in my life, with some time to myself to contemplate creatively, I began looking for thematic starts by asking myself what I wanted to paint. Is there a purpose? Does there need to be? Why or why not? The advice one would give to a writer, to “write what you know” was just as applicable to me as a painter then and so that is where I began.

I was in my first ever shared studio in The Exchange district in downtown Winnipeg where my tight little shared space within a space snuggly accommodated the full sheet of paper and that was about it.

 The thought of “paint what you know” got me to thinking about where I was and where I was from and what were some of the common elements these very different landscapes shared. I called it “Ode to Tom” because I made a reference to Tom Thomson’s iconic Jack pine. This was an image I associated with Canada because a poster of it had hung in a classroom in my small town on the south coast of Australia. I can’t recall what grade I was in, possibly grade 3 or 4, but I do remember admiring this image often on hot weekday afternoons when we all wanted a swim but the school day lingered on. Like everyone around me I felt the desire to seek the relief of water but in the meantime my thoughts waded through wedges of sunlight shining to illuminate chalk dust floating in the humid air.

I must have been young and extremely literal as I had assumed at the time that Tom Thomson’s image must be what Canada looked like. The label beneath the image clearly stated “Canadian Art”. It should be noted at the time there was no disclaimer stating this was only a brief window in the summer and my younger self accepted it on face value.

 I grew up in the Wollongong region on the south coast of Australia which includes the shores of Lake Illawarra. The ocean was always close by. How’s that for some tongue twisting names? Here I loved to explore the edges where ocean and earth met: on sandy beaches or in rocky tidal pools and so it was a simple extension for some part of my younger self to have connected emotionally with that wind sculpted tree at the edge of a body of water. 

Then I had no plans to become Canadian or even to visit by way of Paris to live full time on the Canadian prairies, ironically on Australia Day in 1991.  31 years later I am still here. As a newcomer to Canada there were things to learn; like driving on the wrong side of the road not to mention language and communication despite the fact that my first language was English. As any expat can appreciate, the vowels specifically can be an issue. 

My sense of humour was sadly lost on literal Canadians but many did think it funny to ask about silly assumptions like was it true the water went the wrong way down the drain in the Southern Hemisphere? Naturally I agreed. “Of course it does”, and “we all have kangaroos as pets instead of dogs” I would add for good measure.

I grew up in the Wollongong Region. Wollongong is the indigenous name that translates to, “between the mountains and the Sea”. Navigation was simplified with the hills to the west and the beach in the east. This image of Wollongong Harbour is credited to Rise Photography.

In collecting visual ideas for my composition using a suggestion of Tom Thomson’s jack pine in the composition seemed like a natural fit. Reversing the jack pine mimicked the topsy turvy nature of moving hemispheres and living “ upside down” or back to front .

The prairie was a surprise to me when I first experienced it but it definitely grows on you and it gradually shares its seasonal expanses. What might look and feel lifeless and extraordinarily flat at first sight is subtle as it draws us in to share in its inspirational personality that unfurls in seasonal chapters. In the early days I found it a challenge to get my bearings in this very flat landscape where roads and sky reached for days and the visual cues within it changed with the seasons.

 I remember thinking of Chicken Little and the sky falling. Those skies were large and expansive. Without the mountains I grew up with on the coast, between the mountains and the sea, what could possibly be holding that broad sky up? Directions were a much simpler proposition when the beach was east and the mountains were clearly visible to the west. 

My very first visit to lake country in Canada was to Shoal Lake in Lake of the Woods at the western edge of Ontario not far from the Manitoba border and very close to the centre of Canada.

 This felt like the quintessential Canadian landscape I had daydreamed of in that long ago classroom. Moonlight reflected beautifully here on deep cold water as we sipped gin and tonics in the screen porch and listened to loons calling to each other in the dark. Our dinners spent under an inky night sky filled with stars and the glowing northern lights with friends are still memorable. 

 This part of the country etched itself firmly into my memory and I painted this nighttime lake magic in the background of “An ode to Tom”. I balanced the flow of ocean and earth by describing their merger as waves of golden wheat in the foreground since wheat is an annual crop that grows on the flatlands of both continents.

I got to know Tom a little better in the process as I took a closer look at his brief body of work, a lot of it painted in the elements on summer painting excursions as sketchy, expressive references to a landscape at the heart of the national psyche.

Paper was my choice of media for those early paintings which buckled and warped with my inattention to preparations for wet media. Resourceful as ever I ended up developing a complex system to flatten the finished pages. My friend and picture framer, whose work elevated mine, was very helpful but it quickly became clear that I wasn’t going to be framing every piece I created on paper. Who can afford to? It wasn’t long before canvas became the less fragile, more substantial ground and the logical next step in my painting practice.

Shoal lake on the western edge of the Canadian Shield was much further west than the landscape Tom Thomson explored on painting trips around Georgian Bay and Northern Ontario's lake country, but both areas shared geological similarities. The lake has many stories to share but we’ll save some for another day. You’ll find I love the lake and it has been the focus of a lot of art and experience over my 20 plus years engaged in studio practice.

“ODE TO TOM”, Acrylic, Chalk Pastel, Eucalyptus Leaves on Watercolour paper, 22 1/2” x 30”, 2002. Apologies for the poor quality of this image. The painting lives behind glass and I was reluctant to tamper with my framer’s fine craftsmanship. Reflections are due to poor lighting and my poor photographic skills.

Imagine the colours to be much clearer and without reflections to interrupt the surface. there you go, you get the idea. :)

I was doing some Re training when I painted these early works on paper, resisting blending colour down to earthy neutrals as had been my early habit. The choice of chalk pastels forced me to use one colour at a time like the printmaker I had been in art school when even then I couldn’t decide on one course of action and had double majored in both painting and printmaking. 

 Duality was a thing even then but I wasn’t fully aware the concept would become such a feature in my life going forward. 

I bought pastels in kits, in batches in fact in any brand I could find as I explored what felt right. Some went on like butter while others flaked off unexpectedly and the occasional one had a gravelly bit that caught the paper like a finger nail on a chalk board that sent my teeth into that awful and undeniable skunk face, you know like biting into tinfoil with a filling.

 The marks I see in “Ode to Tom” in hindsight show the markings as varied as the pastels that made them. There are hints of haste and lines made quickly. Was I trying to do a few more things before I had to leave to pick up kids from pre school or was I imagining Tom Thomson painting plain air roughing in the structure of his subject in loose red unstructured shapes to begin before the weather turned? We both allowed and encouraged these residual marks to speak up on the surface and I always enjoy the visual zing they provide that encourages the eyes movement through a composition. 

“Ode to Tom”, like most of my work shared lessons with me too. It taught me to enjoy materials, to know that there was more available if I needed some so go ahead and dive in and feel free to play. I discovered there is no wrong answer when we talk about creativity that my voice though accented is equally valid.

 I also learned that when your free and expressive nature gets so involved in the making that you inadvertently tear the deckled edge of the paper, to be resourceful and repair it, it is not the end of the world. Life is precious, full of bumps and bruises and wear and tear, but we learn through doing and when we find ourselves going off course we can just redirect and carry on.

As I moved across continents I brought with me a collection of gum leaves and a few of these beauties were literally embedded into the paper surface with gesso. Together they frame the action and act as a counter balance to the Jack Pine image. Those gum leaves are a literal piece of Australiana I have rescued from the yards of friends and family to join in on my lifetime odyssey. 

I don’t know if it is because I am an artist that I immerse myself in landscape in thought and action every day? Or if it is just who I am? I remember walking in Manhattan with my daughter who was freshly graduated from environmental design in architecture. The trip was a grad gift and a chance to take in the sights together. We were both bedraggling as my family would say, stopping to pause and check out ancient details in this densely populated urban environment that 1000’s of people pass each day and would probably not notice. “Mum”, she said, as she realized we were both distracted by details, “we see things differently don’t we”. So maybe it’s hereditary and there is no need for a Question or statement to justify why I see the world the way I do, it just is what it is.

 I wonder how you experience landscape.  What do you see and perceive in your world? 

In our reflection today we explore an imaginary experience of landscape together. Find the recording at 10.55 in the podcast recording. Season 1 Episode 5 “Ode to Tom”

I hope you will join me for a restorative moment inspired by memories of connection: to place, and to the wisdom of our younger selves.

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

Everything takes time and sometimes inspiration waits longer than we intend

Painted Ladies were inspired by this celebratory bouquet

I should maybe have called the painting “Patient Ladies”

Welcome to WISDOM at the CROSSROADS, The PODCAST Season 1, Episode 3, “PAINTED LADIES”, 2019.

The desire for me as a Painter and a Textile artist, to do things a little differently began when I moved out of Winnipeg’s Historic Exchange District after 20 years in the same studio building. I occupied 3 different spaces at 318 McDermot, the last of which was Studio 311. It was here in this space the “Painted Ladies evolved after very patiently waiting for me to catch up with the backlog of inspiration I had collected. By the time I got around to painting them in acrylic, the inspiration had devolved into a bundle of brittle twigs. That’s where creative licence came into play.

Before we get into the podcast notes, …As I was prepping to begin this episode I was juggling the endings of a couple of large canvases I am working on. I am fighting a deadline and wanting to be painting more but as life would have it I am juggling too many other things to closet myself away from reality for as long as I would like to play at solving the vibrant problems I have waiting for me on the wall. I have mentioned I often have multiple pieces on the go and this is because a painting, like preparations for a good meal, can sometimes need some marinating.  Often I will hang an almost finished piece, if space allows, on a wall in the studio so I can see the work indirectly in the comings and goings of my routine.

Today I arrived with a clear intention I had planned for the foreground.

 My current project is quite far along in the process. At this point in a painting each mark has a larger impact on the composition so I try to tread carefully to avoid my over painting tendencies. Today I didn’t have as much time as I had hoped for but the time I did have was engaging and inspiring and ended with a signature which to me is kind of like an exclamation mark that states. Yes. This baby is finished. 

I paused yet still painted and walked away content. It was a good d at the office.

“Painted Ladies, 30” x 30”, Acrylic on Canvas, 2019

“Painted Ladies” is a Still Life: a loose and sketchy suggestion of a once beautiful bouquet that graced the then newly re opened Adelaide McDermott Gallery in Winnipeg. The gallery was on the main floor of the building I rented studio space in from 2001-2019 in Winnipeg’s Historic Exchange District. The Exchange was the centre of Canada’s Grain industry in the late 19th and early 20th,  centuries that became a national historic site in 1997. For those unfamiliar with the city, The Exchange District was the original financial and business hub of the downtown, home to warehouses built at the turn of the century that accommodated the exponential growth of a city known then as the gateway to the west and the Chicago of the north. It harbors a unique collection of early modern warehouse architecture, hip tech start-ups, art galleries, restaurants and more recently, loft style apartments. The area is regularly used as a period movie set. 

In fact, Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck were my neighbours during the filming of “The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford”, which debuted at the Venice film festival way back in 2007. The funeral scene among others I remember being filmed around and alongside the studio building. I watched the action unfold with other tenants from the roof as all the street side windows along McDermot had been blacked out for the shoot. It was inspiring to see the bustling vibe of the area morph over a few short weeks into a time stamped set where all electrical references to the 20th century were removed overnight just before our streets, the set, closed down for public use and the paved sidewalks became a sawdust covered boardwalk in the old west for filming to begin. 

The whole neighbourhood was involved. The building kitty corner to ours was extra central and at the sound of horn, from my window on Adelaide, I could see whole communities of period dressed actors spill out onto the pavement for their scene. Brad Pitt’s trailer was set up in our loading dock and the stables for all the livestock took over our parking lot across the street, so, yes, I can legitimately say, “Brad Pitt has parked his horse on my space. Movie making in the city might be a theme for another episode, for now I want to get back to those “Painted Ladies” who also had their beginnings in the Exchange district, the subject though, reaches much further south than Chicago.

 After the official opening of the gallery the beautiful flower arrangement purchased for the occasion which featured some Australians: eucalyptus and a central clutch of King Proteas, made their way to my studio for inspiration.  As an expat Australian I have a habit of rescuing Australiana when I come across it. In fact I have a stellar collection of linen tea towels from the goodwill store on Princess, which were a once upon a souvenir featuring all kinds of Australian flora and fauna. My intention with the flowers was first to rescue them so I could paint the arrangement but of course I had so many balls in the air as I usually do that I didn’t get to it until the bloom was well and truly off the rose.

 I did enjoy the view of the shapes though as they dried into a brittle silhouette against my windows light. Someone without an emotional attachment to the subject might have discounted the flowers as a bunch of dead sticks and looked elsewhere for inspiration. Eventually I took out a 30” x 30” canvas and loosely sketched the forms in paint. I’m a Painter. I like to paint and even when I draw I like to sketch in loose liquid paint with a flexible long flippy brush. ”Drawing”, for me even if it is done in paint offers a change of pace from the rhythm of my favoured square bristled brushes. I think most artists have specific tools they are drawn to and those choices become part of the distinctive painterly signature each individual has.

The “PAINTED LADIES” are 30” x 30” acrylic on canvas. A still life that reminded me that inspiration can wait but the creative process is not something that can be put off indefinitely.

The stars of the dormant bouquet were what I grew up calling king proteas because the same Native flowers had grown vigorously in a sandy oasis of a garden bed ,alongside the extended driveway in front of the garage at my childhood home. It was a hot spot and these shrubs loved the heat. The flowers bloomed vigorously alongside the driveway where they were witness to the frequent handball tournaments between the neighbourhood kids and the competitive nature of my pseudo brothers keeping score. This still life is representative of a time and place and I kept it because it resonates as a connection to both my Canadian home and my Australian beginnings, breaching a gap between my past and the present. She was also one of the last pieces I painted in my old studio before I finally moved out of the Exchange after almost 20 years in the same building. These painted ladies became my souvenir.

 The painting is a new addition to my home’s collection. This is partly a space issue as our walls are pretty saturated. Maybe it was a combination of timing and subject that brought her home. I had thought about entering the piece into a competition so she hung on the walls of my last hoorah at the old space but despite inquiries I did not offer her for sale.

 If you are an artist you can probably understand getting into a groove with your work, but I think anyone can relate to the idea of getting proficient at something and relaxing into a process. My process evolves through seasonal chapters, meaning each physical break away from the rhythm of the studio generally results in some variation or change in the subsequent work. Sometimes nuances I only see in hindsight, and I have to admit, this process of storytelling through my archive is really bringing some elements and tendencies into focus. (Thank you Dona and Cindy for your insight)

 For many years my studio life slotted in around the school year and the hectic sporting schedules of our girls. In fact I might still be conditioned to keep that structure as I find I am wearing out energetically at about 10 to 3 in the afternoon which is when I would have packed up for afternoon pickups. Coming back to the studio after a break or a holiday means it takes a bit of time and effort to return to flow.

 I am often asked how long it took to paint “that” piece.  I could respond with an estimate of 25 years, since everything we do brings us to where we are right now, but generally getting back into the saddle after a period away means the effort in the beginning is greater and the results are tighter,. Tighter for me refers to the work feeling  more constrained and depending on your perspective, everything is subjective right, less successful according to my personal painting paradigm.

Once I am in the groove, let’s use the analogy of a marathon runner whose training is prescriptive. When you first start out, there is some pain as your body works out the kinks in your style and technique, by mid-season the muscle memory is more relaxed and the output is too. As a painter that means the work gets progressively looser and freer as I get back on my painting horse and if I have a deadline or am nearing the end of a painting season I get into a flow state and magic can happen. 

 “Painted Ladies” came about during one of those relaxed and comfortable flow periods so the action was quick and fluid and the composition is strong but appears effortless. Muscle memory can account for part of that ease in the final image. Sitting at the dining room table, across from the painting and evaluating her with a critical eye I see her as a blend of presence and memory. There is a distinct structure, the composition in hindsight is showing me a broad square visually (loosely) divided as a peace sign. Colour balances compliments as is my habit but the primary colours are present but variations are more subtle. Yellows are a combination of: lemon, acid green, cream, beige and yellow oxide. Blues feature cobalt blue, emerald green, pale aqua and mint, while the red range is more fuchsia, light pink and quinacridone red light, one of my faves used sparingly carries heavier impact.

 There is balance between the intense rich colours of one quadrant in contrast with the subtle creamy highlights of another. There is movement and action in this still life and a whispy arc drawn in that wet flippy brush in white gesso, washed with mint that simply describes the transparency of the globular glass bowl in which those dried sticks sit.

 I am glad I kept this bouquet which felt a bit like a parting gift as I closed up shop downtown and moved into a new chapter. One of the lessons I learned might be that not everything is for sale and it is perfectly ok to keep personal things personal. I am the queen of overpainting because sometimes I am just so darn attached to the actions of liquid acrylic at the end of my brush that I want to keep going even when a composition is flashing a red stop light that is screaming at me to slow down and come back with fresh eyes. When time becomes a constraint like when a deadline looms for a show or on a rare occasion like this when I was moving, walking away from a piece while it is still loose and fresh naturally comes about as I stop overthinking and get out of my own way. Less can definitely be more. 

“Painted Ladies” became a gift to me. It was a reminder to commemorate both endings and beginnings, to take a pause and to accept where we are, as well as where we have been, before we head off to where we are going.

The colour is more subtle in real life but the gestural essence is the same regardless if the colours are distorted by variations in our computers settings .

Describing glass with a wet flppy brush

Here is the link to go back to the podcast to take in the meditation if you haven’t already. It can be found at 11:11 in the recording of this episode.

Wisdom at the Crossroads, The Podcast is also available wherever you listen to your podcasts. I appreciate you tuning in and joining me as this new journey begins. I will look forward to connecting with you again soon as we journey through the backstories of my artistic practice in the search for presence.

Until then, may you be more, be present and do a little less.

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

SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6vfUjwApDxZ5ScqohexDe3?si=cgi3nlaVT3ywCqdBTOLbbg

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

Childhood memories are deeply etched for this prairie boy, now dad to these prairie girls.

My current studio is a tiny nest.

Dad drives the toboggan train…many moons ago.

Welcome back

Thanks for joining me for a virtual visit today.

 I want to invite you back into my studio which is very cozy right now, atmospherically light filled and as a bonus tempered with heat in the winter and cooled air in the summers, in life as in art, there is always a balance right and the question, Do I want the comfort of heat or do I want a larger but colder space to work in? I might miss the 800 square feet I once enjoyed but I love not having my water bucket freeze on the window sill overnight in the depths of winter, or the need to wear multiple layers of clothing to work in.

So, Just like at home where spaces within spaces have popped up and been given new designations, during these past 2 years, I have all kinds of specified areas here at the studio, they just happen to fit into about 140 square feet. 

You will have to imagine liberal use of air quotes as I describe my space. For those who have been there I hope you recognise it from the description. 

At the studio I have a lunch and meeting room, which is in reality two hand me down leather bucket chairs and a side table In between that is loaded with collections of rocks and twigs and shiny things. I sometimes touch or hold some of these while I am taking a contemplative break to look at and think about the current composition on the painting wall. 

I have a reference library which doubles as a privacy screen when the door is open and a kitchen or tea station on the bottom shelf when it is closed. My painting wall is of course the main attraction at about 10 feet long but I also have a cutting and creative table that I refer to as the office with canvas storage beneath it. Butted tightly up against the window wall is my writing desk which is also my painting table strewn with supplies, brushes, pallets, paints in tubes and tubs and a water bucket.  My hardy reblooming orchids have moved to the new space here with me too. They love the light and the view to the river and supervise the place when I am not here on weekends and evenings.. Weekdays are my regular routine here

 On this morning my Riverview desk is uncommonly cleared and is spaciously accepting of notepaper and my thoughts. Later in the day it will morph to its usual disorder to accommodate my paints as I get back to a commission I am just beginning. I have been working large lately or as large as my painting wall can accommodate. 4 x 8 foot diptychs have bloomed pretty regularly here throughout the pandemic. 

This new one is a 4 foot square canvas that is at that early stage where the underpainting is energetic fun that aims to cover the surface in colour in a loose and expressive way. It is at this stage that I usually write an intention with gesso on the surface as I am prepping it as a little extra reminder for me as the process evolves.

“Child’s Play”, Acrylic and Chalk Pastel on Paper, 2001

This morning with a clean desk feels like a pause before the action begins. My view to the river is covered in winters white, trees are bare structures along the river trail and from here through those trees standing witness to all the comings and goings, I have a front row seat to take in all the action on the river. There are skaters gliding by on freshly groomed river ice, solo and with purpose, or  in pairs and groups at a more relaxed pace. There are runners, dogs, walkers and fat bike cyclists too. It’s a community on the move embracing the outdoors in very, very, cold weather.

The view has gotten me thinking about communities and the outdoor spaces that speak to us, that invite us to play and to have fun in and around. So as a reminder to play in the great outdoors, I want to introduce you to a painting from the very early days of studio practice that I am calling “Child’s Play” , see the illustration above.

It was painted on a  half sheet of water colour paper, split horizontally, in 2001.  The first lesson this 11’ x 30” mixed media piece is reminding me is again the need to keep accurate records. I seem to be learning that one in hindsight. If you are an artist just starting out, keeping accurate records might be my best advice.

 “Child’s Play”, lives behind glass in our living room above a long silent upright piano adjacent to the Starbucks corner we chatted about last time.

You know, it’s hard to go back to look critically at early work without being critical. This piece is so different to what I am working on now, “Childs Play” is small and on paper and way more representational than anything I have done in a very long while. I am trying not to be judgemental with current eyes on my archive but I have to say it would never qualify as one of my best works. Instead it is a  representative of a specific time and place in both life and in art.. Beyond that it is also a reminder of the growth in my practice as a painter over the last 20 or so years and that is a perfectly good reason to keep older art in view.

As a side note here I very recently learned another lesson from this painting as I played a preview of the recording to gather my husband’s impressions. He emphatically added a disclaimer disagreeing with my critical observations. In stating his admiration for this painting he reminded me just how subjective the visual world is. Everyone’s opinions matter and he loves this little piece.

This painting was inspired by a Christmas visit to my husband’s hometown in small town Manitoba, and may have even been a gift. As a side note I don’t recommend gifting art because art is such a subjective and personal choice.

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”,

Said William Morris, and he was right.

And though this one was for a gift for my hubby, it represents something uniquely personal and so it gets a pass in our home. It came about after a discussion of favourite spaces and places growing up. As an ex pat Australian in 2001 I was always curious about landscape. I wanted to know what had inspired this former kid on the prairies, how seasons played a role and of course how snow came literally into play. 

These were favourite hats and favourite past times… snapshots taken on Tower Hill in the middle of the Canadian Prairies.

Our experiences differed obviously. I was never too fond of the cold and knew only oceans and sandy beaches. Ironically I ended up in the middle of a northern continent. It was also ironic that I was kicked out of my local swimming club as a winy preteen for complaining about cold water. To my defence it was an unheated outdoor, Olympic sized swimming pool at the start of an Australian spring… and training started at 6am in the mornings. It was without a doubt nippy. Older swimmers taught us to smear our shivering skinny bodies with Vaseline, like the English Channel swimmers, to insulate us from the cold water. The action of swimming warmed us up but never quite enough for me. To this day though, the water remains my happy place and I am proud to be a lifelong weekday swimmer at the Y where I swim indoors in a heated pool with no Vaseline required.

In 2001 when I painted “Child’s Play”, as a new to the Canadian climate young mother, one of the first lessons I learned in this country was that everything is better when you dress for the conditions. That lesson was quickly followed by the freedom of sliding, intentional and otherwise. 

Tobogganing at Tower Hill I learned, was a feature at the top of my hubby’s childhood list. The hill was part of an incidental greenspace in the small western Canadian town he grew up in. It still had a large pocket of scrubby forest at the base of the toboggan hill that all the town’s kids called their own.  That was before the late 2000’s when a new subdivision claimed some of that forested green space for the backyards of a new cul-de-sac. Generations of town residents who had grown up playing hide and seek and building forts under its summertime canopy were clearly disappointed.

Discussion of this place animated my husband’s features as he described memories of games, real and imaginary, neighbourhood kids painting wooden clothespins that raced in spring runoff water down the hill, the winner aerodynamically carved with a blade all the country kids carried (I am told) was the first to reach the deep forest puddles at the bottom of the hill. Each season featured its own exploits that took place in this treed realm at the collective heart of the under ten crowd who found ample ammunition there for the shooting sagas featuring stick guns and duelling swords.

He shared stories of his experiences in that forest with me as we walked from Grandmas house to the hill to go sledding. Dad was the head of the toboggan train and behind him he dragged two small girls on their bellies, on sleds, for this afternoon family adventure.

In illustrated letters I made the old fashioned way, literally cutting and pasting snapshots and text, we shared our North American experiences with cousins and grandparents overseas who like me had no experience with winter games.

“Our Christmas is cold and white at Grandmas house” we wrote,

There are no bikes being ridden on the streets as there are in Australia at Christmas. There are no beaches to swim at but Santa still comes to our house with too many gifts and we eat too much of everything”

“Daddy pulled us in a toboggan train. He likes to take us where he played when he was young” the story reads.

“It was quiet and peaceful on the way through the forest to the hill. Eventually we had to pull our own sleds. Small branches and twigs were coated white with tiny ice crystals” the pictured letter continued before action shots of kids alive with the thrill of motion sliding downhill on snow whooshed past.

 It makes me smile thinking of those simple pleasures. The picture letter ends with an invitation for cousins to join us for a white Christmas, to remind them they did not have to be sweaty and hot in an Australian summer, they could come to Canada where cooling off was a s simple as unzipping a jacket or taking off hats and mitts.. The story ends with hot chocolate as most events did in those long ago winters. I have since quit the hot chocolate

My life experience meant winter white was not part of my equation. We are who we are and we each bring our own preferences to what we do whatever that is and wherever that might be. The painting “Child’s Play”, from my perspective focused on the lush undergrowth of that favoured forest because the growing season was more familiar to me.

 My experience of the Australian bush also came into play. In a eucalyptus forest there is no fall season where the tree divests itself of its leaves and the branches lay bare like the North American deciduous norms. Instead much to the chagrin of homeowners, whose backyard features a native gum, leaves run an independent lifecycle where some leaves are dropping year round. A close look at leaf litter will show a range of colours in play all the time so spring green is not the only fair weather colour in the landscape of foliage that I painted. Strong earthy reds and rusty browns show up in this composition in the under layers.

 Those early works on paper followed a similar path. First under painted in acrylic which I often watered down to be similar to gouache or watercolour. I was precious with materials then and didn’t want to waste whole sheets on these early experiments that got me back in touch with my creative self.

 The underpainting gave me a foundation for the composition. I had previously had an attachment to earthy ochres and neutral oxides that I painstakingly blended together. At this time I was trying to train myself to resist greying everything down so I bought myself some chalk pastels so I would be forced to hold one colour at a time in my hand as I worked on top of the painted acrylic base. I am also keen on clear colour so I am in the habit of washing brushes a lot, some might say excessively but hey it keeps the colour clear and that is my preference.

In early works like this one I may have done some sketching or at least roughed in the basic structure of the composition in pencil and I was most definitely using photo references as I began. In this painting I gave precedence to the literal landscape. My goal here was to document an actual place and to provide an invitation into a space that had been so precious from the child’s perspective. 

It was interesting; Scale my husband explained was noticeably different returning to that sacred forest as an adult with our own children. The density of the foliage and the size of the trees that had once dwarfed him felt a little scrubbier and less the imposing fortress that had contained the exhilaration of breaking trail through long prairie grasses while chasing or being chased by a buddy in the undergrowth.

Art I find, can take us to places, both real and imaginary, it can inspire process in the creator and it can process aspects of inspiration from the past and bring that inspiration into the present. I hope you have pieces in your home that inspire memories of attachment to special places in your history 

This episode of the podcast ends with a brief meditation. This one was a reminder for me of the importance of the pause. and the comfort of looking to our memories for experiences within the landscapes that have brought us joy. You can find the episode by clicking the link below or searching out, Season 1, Episode 2 , Wisdom at the crossroads, The Podcast ,wherever you listen to your podcasts.

I hope you will accept the gift of a few minutes in your own presence by listening in. May you find your own rhythm: where nothing is forced, nothing is extended and nothing is withheld.

Next Tuesday we will gather here again to be “Enlightened at Beaver bay”. Please consider joining me as we reflect on how some of my favourite paintings have evolved and what wisdom i have found at the crossroads where action and presence meet. Invite a friend , drop me a line, with your questions or comments, subscribe or leave a review. It all helps to get a new venture off the ground.

Thanks for being here. I am Looking forward to meeting you here again soon

all best, 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

From left to right: #39 “Birch Church”, #48 “Dancers”, #63 “Flaxen”, #87 “Hustle”, and #73 “ Transition.”

Adelaide McDermot Gallery reopened in the spring in downtown Winnipeg. It is a lovely refreshed space on the ground floor of the building that has housed my studio(s) since 2001. I am very glad to be exhibiting here at 318 McDermot Avenue in the Exchange District over the First Friday weekend in December.


•Friday, December 6th, 5-9pm

Continuing through the weekend:
•Saturday, December 7th, 12-5pm
•Sunday, December 8th, 12-5pm

BACK TO WORK AT PLAY

September is a time of new beginnings. It is when Canadian schools return to programming after the luxury of our extended prairie summers. September is about new class schedules, renewed focus and a return to routine.

Working as an artist is like working in any job. Getting back to work after a break requires some motivation and a little easing in before we get back to optimum productivity.


My studio is a sanctuary and I am always happy to go back to work there, in fact I will be there all weekend if given the opportunity. There is no shortage of inspiration yet, sometimes the challenge lies in how best to apply that inspiration.

The fall season this year was no different. As my family resumed new schedules at work and school I too needed to refocus. The Painting 101 Series began as a means to refocus my creativity, to reacquaint with the feel of liquid acrylic on my brush. The project began slowly but soon blossomed into a solid goal after the summer break.

WHY:

Both craving and resisting routine, the goal was to give myself a challenge that helped to reset my creative rhythms for the new season.
I began where I am on the prairie and liked the idea of giving a vertical emphasis to what is traditionally considered a horizontal subject. I divided full sheets of water colour paper into 11” x 6” sections. By painting small I resolved to play without my inner critic and the fun began.

HOW:

When painting on larger canvas I hang panels in groups on my wall and work standing. Smalls did not fit that format so along with physical adjustments and a reorganized space, the process forced me to reevaluate how I use designated areas within my studio space. It was an additional challenge for a creature of habit like myself.

The discipline of this studio project helped to reestablish my creative process and soothed the loss I felt with summer routines now in the rear view mirror.

WHAT:

Liquid acrylic paint on my brush and the challenge of composition energized me enough to cut more paper and set myself the official Painting 101 Series challenge.

A self imposed deadline can be useful for the sole practitioner. My studio is a lovely oasis, but also a work space. “Boss lady”, my studio alter ego, did a great job of shielding my studio time from well intentioned distraction, and visitors, and inspired me on both weekdays and weekends to accomplish this goal.

SUBJECT:

Themes developed as I arrived at the studio and dug through my long collected stash of photographic inspiration. Using a visual cue can be a useful starting point, it helps to establish a beginning, a jumping off point from which the composition can bloom.

I use visual stimuli as a suggestion only and allow the process of physically painting to evolve through any composition.

What felt right on any given day varied. The garden, the poppy, the lake, fall colour and summer snapshots all bloomed freely as source material inspired a beginning but did not dictate an outcome.

PROCESS:

There was no plan, no order and not even consistency on any given day beyond the colours waiting on my palette. I wanted to feel the joy of wet acrylic on my brush, to paint loosely, to review the familiar and enjoy my work without expectation.

Completed pieces assembled in loose rows on my floor and on more than one occasion piqued the interest of Sarah Anne Johnson’s fur friends, Kitty and Lola, who stopped in, sniffed them out delicately, and went on their way to their own office next door.

FURTHER PROCESSES:

Water colour paper warped and curled under the loose application of wet media and meant the pieces required flattening in batches under some of the art world’s heavyweights at the studio.

Some pieces even hid in their drying stacks of books and caused me to overshoot my goal.

With a little help from my friends I worked through labelling, photography, ( Rob Barrow), and matting ( Tim of Chicken Coop Productions) This work is now complete and these 101 pieces of original art will be on sale for $101 plus taxes at my upcoming show.

When I published my book, “Wisdom at the Crossroads”, one of my first customers described it as being “weightier than its small stature”. This body of work similarly is small, energetic and colourful but visually they deliver a punch above their weight class. Mounted on archival matt board they are ready for gifting or framing and are perfect for first time collectors.

I am pleased to be exhibiting the entire completed challenge during The Exchange District’s FIRST FRIDAY in DECEMBER weekend 2019, along with some recent works on canvas and the Healing Blanket Project.

With December comes the holiday season, a sacred time of celebration and connection.
While the Painting 101 Series will provide visitors with colourful inspiration, the holiday season can be tough for those experiencing difficult times.

THE HEALING BLANKET:

Imagined as a receptacle for the physical, creative marks of those who ordinarily would not have that opportunity, this community based project is an ongoing initiative that will be available for visitors to work on during my show.

Come join us and add a stitch in time, with, or in honour of, someone you love or have loved.

To date, The Healing Blanket has been the recipient of many encouraging, beautiful, inspiring and sometimes heartbreaking stories.

My hope is for it to remind visitors that no matter what difficult circumstances prevail in their lives, particularly over the holidays, we can be reminded, we are not alone in our struggles.

My family has added stitches in honour of the youngest branch of our family tree, my niece, Edyn Tani, who is our littlest angel.

She inspires us still and in her honour a portion of all weekend sales will be assigned to a memorial fund for our angel Edy.

I am grateful for all the connections I have made through my art and look forward to seeing friends old and new over the weekend. We hope you will join us and be inspired by the colour of my world.
Friends and family all welcome.

"Be more. Do less." ATO