WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS PODCAST.

The backstory this episode leads to Tuross on the South Coast of Australia. Beaches here are so numerous they are numbered not named. Shell picking at T1 is a whale of a time and landscape in painting is a journey through memory.

A little golf action gets going on the aptly named ”Heart attack Hill”, with the killer view. Legend has it the brown snake of the second hole may not be mere legend, while the bounce from the green definitely is.

Coming home at the end of this tale we come home to the action of a loaded brush and a new canvas on the paint wall with no plan or outcome on the horizon.

The meditation begins today at 10:20 in the recording and is the longest of all the season 1 meditations at almost 12 minutes. This is meant to be a quick visit so I hope you won’t m might staying with me for a few extra minutes of downtime.

In the meditation a morning walk meanders from the shade of the Norfolk Forest at Plantation Point, along the sandy arc of “Poppies Beach” in “God’s Country”. It is a place where dolphins play in the morning surf and considerable walks are effortless. Join your guide here in paradise for a dose of comfort and support, knowing, “we are never alone”.

TUROSS, Acrylic on Canvas. Thanks go out to the current owner who as another artist offered me a great compliment in making a purchase. She also kindly took a few snapshots in her home to pass them along to me for this blog today, This episode is further evidence that my record keeping is lacking and that we all get by with a little help from our friends.

Tuross is the name of today’s Painting and also the name of a place. It is the home of my children’s grandparents but not the landscape I grew up in, so it is also a place of discovery, for all of us.

A new environment allows us to experience a sense of place with a new and open perspective. We see the unfamiliar in new ways and are more observant of details in the landscape. As an artist i think that is kind of how I view the world; with curiosity in the foreground I get to explore every place as if it is my first visit.

Tuross is a coastal town on the South Coast of New South Wales in Australia. It has rolling hills, pastureland, oyster farms and barrier beaches so numerous along the coast they are numbered instead of named. Not all of the beaches are safe swimming zones so if you go make sure to “swim between the flags” like a good and well trained Australian. Surfers like Tuross because the area can get a good swell rolling especially in the Christmas (summer) holidays. The riptides that prevent swimmers on all of the areas beaches are appreciated because they offer a timely ride back out to the break. The rip also saves the surfers energy and their paddling arms.

TUROSS Detail T1. The ocean is featured in the top right of this detail.

From Nanny and Poppy’s verandah where we spent time in the hammock and eating breakfasts and afternoon tea outside, we could see the entrance to freshwater Coila Lake where it met T1. T1 is short for Tuross Beach 1. T1 was sometimes interrupted by the Lake entrance at Coila after a big storm or a Christmas king Tide that washed out the sand bar that sealed the freshwater lake from the ocean by sand build up in milder seasons. T1 is miles long and a sand pickers paradise. From Nanny and Poppy’s Verandah, If we were particularly observant we could make out the spout of a whale heading south during whale season.

Tides are important here and make for some fun and natural, not so lazy river action at the Lakes entrance which is the preferred swimming zone.  Water flows sometimes aggressively  into the ocean and can be a lot of fun. Just make sure you have the ability to cross diagonally to the sand before the “lazy river” meets the waves and the open ocean.

Tuross has all the recreational sites common to coastal resort areas including a golf course and bowling club. Both of which find their way into todays backstory. My husband is an avid golfer used to the tempered conditions of Canadian courses prone to heavier water content in their soils and soft and forgiving grasses. Tuross golf course meanders over 9 holes uphill from the second after a gentle downslope from the clubhouse and the tee off at the first hole.

TUROSS Detail Coila Lake. The water featured in this detail is Coila lake as viewed across the bottom of the golf course.

The second hole of Tuross Golf Course has some water features and is said to be home to a big old brown snake, so do be aware. My cousins coached my husband, sharing some of the finer points of Australian golf etiquette. The first and most important is to never reach your hand into a cup to retrieve your ball. Flip it instead with the end of the putter, to avoid any unecessary handling of the black snake who may or may not have moved into the third or fourth hole. As well, spiders, it goes without saying there are a few of them that will also kill you and they too like small cosy spaces like a golf cup on any hole. Conversations like this are a great way to get a round going.

The other lesson my prairie husband and golfer of long courses and wide open spaces learned  was to reign in his impressive and not always directed swing. Coastal golf courses are often prone to wind and Tuross, with its beautiful cooling breezes featured greens that had about as much give as your average dining room table.

Imagine my husbands golf ball bounding from one area of the course to another as the over zealous swing negotiated the hard compacted coastal earth. A pinball like action that was part of the original plan i had for this composition.

I think you get an idea of Tuross the place. Tuross the painting is a version of the view from the top of the 5th or 6th hole that were up the aptly named “heart attack hill”, close to the road that meandered around the courses perimeter and lured tourists into the town centre itself which was a few windy turns down another set of hills. The hills closer to the shops were not as rolling and gentle as I remember one very hot day pushing a stroller up and down some wrong turns some years ago.

Best laid Plans are usually just plans in my painting practice as once I have colour on the canvas the actions of the brush and the beginning marks in the colour story will lead me in the direction the developing composition dictates.

Pink trees are not that unusual in my paradigm. Spring is a favourite season in Canada. Creative licence is real but with this snapshot you can see i am really not making the pink tree thing up.

The view from the top of the golf course at Tuross is a spectacle. It tumbles visually down to the ocean and the lake entrance. Nothing is flat here, including the greens. My attention always paused on the manicured arcs of the greens that felt like little alien landing sites amidst the more rugged and naturalized Australian landscaping style. This spectacular view cascading down towards the ocean is the subject of my painting painted on 22” x 60” stretched canvas. Its an odd size because I bought a couple of canvases from someone who had had them made, and beautifully made by the way, they were solid and straight, but my friend had decided they didn’t want to work with the shape. (Which definitely was a challenging shape to paint on)

TUROSS: In this view of Hector McWilliam’s Norfolk Pine trees that line the headland all over Tuross, we get a sense of scale. Check out the two people taking in the view on the rocks and it becomes clear that these are not your north American pot plant sized Norfolk Pine trees.

TUROSS at Plantation Point is home to dawn remembrance day services. It is also the starting point for our “walking meditation” in this episode. One day we had to step carefully aside when we discovered what looked like a strip of shade or a branch on the ground was actually a red bellied black snake.Eek!

A narrow horizontal  shape can be a bit of a challenge but I am always up for a painting challenge. The natural angles in the landscape that defined the boundary between fresh water of lake and the ocean were an interesting place to start the composition. That view combined with the flat arcs of the greens that drew my eye down the hill from the road felt playful. I began underpainting in a contrasting colour so the bulk of the foreground of what we emotionally consider should be green was warm in nature. My plan was to add layers over the top so that the discrepancy between the contrasting colours used would bounce the eye around the composition as it naturally sought to balance the visual energy of the competing colours.

Remember I am not trying to replicate some point in a landscape but instead to use the features of a landscape as a starting point for an evolving journey in acrylic across a canvas. Think of it as problem solving an equation but in colour instead of numbers. This painting plan as many of mine do backfired as i liked the loose results that evolved in the beginning and my efforts so from there work on the painting became an exercise in restraint… which is hard for me. :)

Our meditation takes us through this meadow at the waters edge. During one long ago visit a very large seal had taken up residence among these basalt rocks. We visited him every morning and on one of those visits the dolphin trio played their surfing games in a much fuller surf backlit in morning light. Beautiful!

Looking to the sand barrier from across the golf course. The linear marks in the top right of this detail show the area that every few years washes out. Fresh waters from Coila Lake then merge with the ocean. The sand bar that leads miles down T1 is a shell pickers paradise and I have containers of sorted shell families that keep me company at the studio from every visit.

Sometimes i get stuck on a composition and leave it to sit for a bit on a secondary wall where i can see it only peripherally while i am working on something else. A large space is helpful for this, and not so available in my current studio which is tiny.

Less can be more in life and in art. Less definitely became more in the journey of both versions of Tuross, the painting.

TUROSS 2. Here is the version that lives in the bathroom. It makes for a lovely backdrop to morning routines and keeps the past present. I love the sketchiness of this painting. It captured the essence of the view with minimal marks. For me that is a win.

The second view I painted that features part of the Tuross golf course I am calling Tuross II right now, given my record keeping deficits. (see above). This painting lives in my bathroom at home which is always a great place for art by the way.  This piece has no official title that I can recall but it also takes me back to a place and time. Locals are known to take a short cut from Coila avenue across the second hole of the golf course, hence the familiarity with the brown snake’s habitat. From there they scoot across the edge of the first hole to cut off a couple of sizeable hills on the way to the beach at T1. This second version of Tuross is actually a third and replaced on canvas an idea i had painted on paper with chalk pastel. I sold that paper version and ran hindsight it really was one of those pieces that i should have kept.

Every artist has stories of “ the one that got away” and I have a few of them. This version of Tuross in the bathroom is small, I’ll measure it tonight, about 12x 30 or 36”, i think that describes referentially the view from the bowling green that lies just uphill from the scampering locals sneaking across the course to the beach without hills. This view takes in more of Coila Lake and suggests the pastural land beyond the lakes edges in a sketchy washy way. I love its simplicity and i love the memory it ignites of grandchildren watching poppy play lawn bowles in his cremes as we took in the temperate breeze while eating our chicken chips and drinking our lemonade. Priceless.

You know I love to view life in the details. This little vignette shows the texture of the second panel with the application of only a couple of layers of acrylic paint. Less can definitely be more. This is the view I see while working at an arms length from a surface. We need to take a few steps back in real life to let the perspective settle and allow for the eye to fill in some of the details.

All this talk of memories has me wanting to book our flights. Its been too long. On the home front here we may not be quite ready for golf and beach walks but the ice is off the lake thanks to the howling winds that blew so hard 8’ tall Bruce the spruce has tipped more than a little off his kilter.

Similarly at the studio a new season is beginning, though thankfully, there are no winds to negotiate indoors. My most recent commissions have gone to their forever homes and i am enjoying the beginning of a retro pair of 36” squares. I am calling them retro not because of subject but the current colour story has a seventies vibe. There are some electric acid colours finding their way into the scheme. Right now i am allowing this pair to evolve on the paint wall just because. While its nice to be asked to paint site specific works with commissions  and i am grateful to my clients whose purchases allow me to continue in studio practice, there is something liberating about the feel of liquid acrylic on the end of my brush, piano tunes in the background and a new painting on the paint wall without any plan or outcome in mind.

It’s time to play.

This is the Retro Pair that were on the pair wall while i was writing this reflection. 36” x 36” acrylic on canvas. As yet unnamed but the title might have to have some kinds of a retro vibe inspired by the orange of this colour story. Have a suggestion? Please feel free to reach out.

Well, that’s the end of todays backstory. Thanks 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. 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 10:20 in the recording. I hope you’ll take a listen…and until next time, stay well.

Amanda

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WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS PODCAST.

Art like music plays a role as the backdrop or soundtrack of our lives.Todays introduction to “Nostrum” and “Curative”, a pair of 30” x 40” acrylic paintings on panel, were once given the cold shoulder. Now they offer a little bit of flexible colour magic and a balm for the soul in the depths of a Winnipeg winter.

Do you have a studio? Want a studio? This backstory may be a curative for any romanticised notion you might have dreamed. Unless you are attracted to heavy traffic, emergency sirens and a breeze on your side of the brickwork, that is.

I share a reflective tip to brighten your workspace and add a pro to the cons of my former expansive, frosty space.

We also learn about schlepping, What it means to sail across a parking lot in a brisk breeze and how to safely wrestle a 4’ square painting into the back of an SUV... shlepping. I missed painting this week when the work of art took over.

The meditation begins at 10:45 in the podcast today. I hope you will join me there.

The strong colour story of this pair has inspired a favourite visual journey that rises through the chakra column. Together we visualize a colourful chakra cleanse. We expand, we rise, we imagine and imbue our chakras with crystal magic from head to toe. You will want to return to this practice often.

Simple, energetic colourful, a curative for the winter blahs begins by getting top close and personal with paint.

Thank you for joining me. I hope you find something that resonates for you in today’s journey through the backstory’s of my studio practice. Today I ‘d like to introduce you to “Nostrum” and “Curative”, a pair of 30” x 40” acrylic paintings on panel that we have nick named Em’s Blue Pair. Maybe it’s the Australian coming out in us? Or maybe it’s because her collection is so vast it is simpler to reduce things down to slang terms. Whatever we call them this pair is a reminder of a point in time and place. They offered a little bit of colour magic then as I worked on them in my largest and coldest studio in Winnipeg’s Historic Exchange District through the depths of a winter.

You may have visited one or other of my studio spaces over the years but if we have only met over the airwaves today’s description of my artist’s studio might be all the curative you need to squash any romanticised notion you might have harboured an attachment to. A studio is the term used to describe  an artist’s office, some are large, some are tiny, often they are hobbled together as an economic solution to doing the work of art, wherever we can. The standard is often set by what we can afford cause we are driven to create, whatever that looks like and wherever we are lucky enough to do that. My current space is my smallest ever yet it is also the warmest studio I have inhabited and in the depths of a Canadian winter an appropriately heated work space is worth the price of admission. I definitely won’t be going back to the antique groove in lieu of amenities anytime soon.

If you love the idea of an expansive loft style studio and can handle heavy traffic, emergency sirens and a breeze on your side of the brickwork then Studio 211 would definitely had been the one for you. The space featured all the charm of exposed blonde brickwork common to structures built at the turn of the, 20th century. It had massive exposed timber post and beam construction and intoxicating light. All of this 800 square foot space came with massive single paned windows, that are fine in a more moderate climate but in Downtown Winnipeg when the elements are invited in she gets pretty cold. Like, so cold that my paints and water buckets left too close to a window on an exterior wall would freeze overnight. The frost on the glass in January was not the arc of white spray paint added to the window panes on the set of a hallmark Christmas movie but the real deal that could get so thick the window was opaque. I actually found the patterns formed by frost fascinating and have used dye sublimated printing process to transfer those frosty images to fabric in a textile body of work I exhibited in 2020.

Here are Nostrum and Curative on my very sophisticated photography wall. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. I spent a week fighting weather to shoot images of a batch of paintings including this pair. Of course when I need them they are no where to be found on my camera roll, but just this pair??? Better images will replace these when conditions allow. 30” x 40” each panel.

About half of the 800 square feet in studio 211 really weren’t habitable for large chunks of time so all of my active workspaces were centered around interior walls that were the furthest away from the beautiful natural light that had inspired me to move into the space in the first place.

Brickwork adds character to loft living but so too does actual heat. The brick exterior walls would definitely have been more useful with the insulating factor of drywall that would come with the added flexibility of being able to hang artwork easily onto it without piercing the already fragile mortar rows with nails so large they were almost a javelin. Picture hanging on any wall in that space required something sturdy enough to prevent the paintings from falling off the wall as buses or ambulances rolling down McDermot Avenue rocked the 100 year old walls. I became deaf to emergency sirens during those years in much the same way that someone living along a train line acclimatises to the noise

NOSTRUM has a creamy yellow section that balances out the drama and intensity of the reds and mid range blues that dominate the pair. Apologies for the effects of fluorescent light on the colour story.

My original studio was also on the second floor. A forward thinking previous tenant had painted the ceiling boards white. This made for beautiful reflective light perfect for a painting studio. 211 was a much bigger undertaking so instead of painting the ceiling above the entire space, when the land lord declined my request, I installed 4’ x 8’ laminated Masonite panels above my painting wall and created a similar though modified reflective effect. I highly recommend this strategy if you are looking to improve the light in a work space

This detail view of NOSTRUM shows my habit of painting the edges of a panel so that when seen from the side the image appears to wrap around the canvas or panel. The client then does not have to add a frame. Framing though, is like adding jewellery or mascara. It dresses the artwork up, adds the punctuation.

I did have lots of space to spread out in that downtown studio and that was a huge advantage when I was in textile mode constructing an art quilt project or composing quilt gems from my precious scrap bags. Emma’s pair, Nostrum and Curative were witness to the unique world of my studio at that time. Like many paintings they spent time on the paint wall opposite the breezy windows in the path of the north wind. There they got to take in the entire activity, they saw mini compositions grow in silk and maybe even raised a painterly eyebrow as they observed  fabric fragments accumulate into deep piles at my feet. I know it looks bad if you happen to wander in on a particularly intense creative episode, but sometimes I like everything in view. You never know what tiny square of a former necktie or printed silk remnant might be the final piece in a colourful puzzle in fibre.

Here’s a little climate reference for you. How cold is it? It’s Effing cold! Paint will freeze when the studio lacks insulation. My former space definitely lacked the warmth I had hoped the beautiful light and that expansive space would offer.

This old girl is kitty corner to my former studio building. The view to here was often obscured in the winter because of frost.

These two paintings NOSTRUM and CURATIVE, created in Studio 211 have been in residence in our younger daughter’s basement suite for several years. They’re pretty adaptable down there and have been hung as intended and sometimes in reverse just to change things up; Covid has taught us to be flexible like that. They have more recently appeared on zoom and been the backdrop to interviews with colleagues and clients. Right now she wakes up to this graphic world and sometimes shares them through the structure of her swinging basket chair where they have become an integral part of the perfect student office in a pandemic.

A little comparison for you. The winter landscape lacks the colour of the physical garden

This detail of “Em’s Blue Pair” adds colour to the indoor landscape.

I love how art like music plays a role as the backdrop or soundtrack of our lives. Revisiting them now for this project has first of all granted me more flexible access to my daughter’s space which has been interesting. Getting reacquainted with them has also taken me back to the energy of my former studio space and the other players that grew out of that creative period. I like to paint in multiples. A pair like this diptych are fun to work with and easy to live with. 30” x 40” is a comfortable size to paint: generous meaning the size and shape gives me room to physically get into it as they hang on my painting wall, while not being too big that they are too heavy to lift and carry or what I usually call, schlepping.

I have been doing a lot of schlepping this week, delivering commissioned options to two different homes first for trial and then for adoption into their forever homes. I love to see my work loved and am also fascinated by the decision making process. “” Bear Necessities” and “Tina’s Garden” will get a moment in the blog/show notes (and feels like) it might end my week with a morning visit to my chiropractor after my swim at the Y tomorrow. Podcasting might be more intense with technology and writing but it does not involve negotiating a breeze across a parking lot with a 4’ square panel acting as a sail that then needs to be wrestled it into the back of an SUV. Pros and cons to everything.

I have missed painting this week

Here’s a painting being schlepped. “FIESTA” was donated to the Oseredok art auction where she raised $1700 for Ukraining refugees arriving in the city. I am grateful for the support of the community who placed bids and supported this very worthy cause. At 24” x 60 Fiesta is a simply fit in the back of my car. 48” x 48” is my size limit before i have to enlist the help of a friend with a truck or rent one.

That’s the end of todays backstory. Thanks 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.

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. It costs nothing to do so and i would be very appreciative.

This week’s meditation begins at 10:45 in the recording. I hope you’ll take a listen

The covid university classroom/student office

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Wisdom At The Crossroads, The Podcast.

Art imitates life and sometimes it documents it too.
Pet lovers unite as today we meet the cheeky cat brothers Rylands and Fletcher in a fairy tale of sorts.
The “once upon a time” of today’s backstory leads us through torrential rain, to a job interview in puddling linen. Then onto a creative classroom filled with pre teens and carving tools and a drawer full of band aids. Seriously I can’t make this stuff up.
We also get a glimpse of a simple example of the colour reduction block printing process. In the backstory we are reminded to

a) always bring a brolly and

b) to find creative ways to keep memories close at hand.


The meditation at 8:40 In the recording is dedicated to the fur friends featured in the pet portrait, Rylands and Fletcher, and to our lovely tyrant, the recently departed 159 year old Miss Addy cat.

Joy is definitely invited to this short interaction where we reflect on the weightlessness of dreaming and moments of unconditional love spent in the company of our fur friends and family.
Join us for a little magic in the memory
We know you’ll be smiling and relaxed after this one.

Since we are chatting about portraits I should probably move beyond my personal fear of them and introduce myself. Here I am immersed in colour at the studio the other day with some new blooms fresh from a winter on my paint wall. Day dreaming in colour.

This week at the studio I spent less time painting than I had hoped but bade farewell to 3 commissioned pieces as they made their way to their forever homes. I am so grateful to my loyal clientele who continue to support my work in colour. Thank you.

SEASON 1 EPISODE 15 Pet Portraits.

 This week on the podcast I want to introduce you to some pet portraits. If you have or have had a pet you know how much you have loved them and how grateful you are to receive their wagging tails or bounding paws or to be weighed down by their purring heart beats at the end of the day.

At our house we have just mourned our 150 year old Miss addie cat who happened to be the most expensive free cat anyone has ever owned. Let’s just say her expenses started with 3 couches but we miss her tyrant ways and her work at home pandemic antics. I don’t often do pet portraits and have actually enforced the disclaimer to recipients in the past who have either received a pet portrait as a fun gift, in trade for a Persian rug or maybe even successfully twisted my arm to convince me to do one, not to tell anyone it came from me. Don’t get me wrong I love our fur friends, I just don’t want to do their portraits all the time.

Today though I am making an exception to share the story of a little lino block print I made as a demonstration piece way back in 1990. It has hung in our living room since then because it features the cheeky cat brothers “Rylands” and “Fletcher”, who beyond “Sad “ the Australian feral cat who befriended me when I had a cast to my hip… another story for another day, Rys and Fletch were my very first cat friends. They trained me to be a cat person.

These two tiggers adopted me when I became a thing with their person. They were named after a legal torte that means basically the land owner is responsible for items that escape from their property. Rylands wore a black tuxedo with a little white bow tie and had one white toe while Fletcher was the consummate Tabby with the personality to match.

“Rylands and Fletcher”, Colour reduction print on paper, 1990. By Amanda Onchulenko

Note this example is not numbered but instead reads “A.P.” It is an artist proof which means it was at the front end of the edition and was used to plan and test the registration. An AP is not technically considered to be part of the edition.

The story starts off a bit like a fairy tale as in once upon a time I found myself in London England at the beginning of a school year. I was looking to earn a living so I could continue travelling through the wonders of art history I had learned and loved.

 I had spent the previous summer on a side trip to Canada with my now husband who had followed me through European art museums the previous spring feigning an interest while he was seriously wooing me. In the middle of Canada that year was where I met the subjects of this art print.

I was able to live and work in the UK thanks to my English grandparents and I relished the opportunity. I worked at 2 high schools in the London Borough of Brent, splitting my time between the energetic Wembley and Kingsbury high schools.

Getting those jobs was a miracle given the job interview.

I don’t know if you have any memorable job interviews? As I was sharing my first draft of this episode with my husband he said “I hadn’t heard this story”… in the 30 plus years we have been together, and I was not surprised that I had buried this one.

At the time I was travelling with my minimalist wardrobe in a backpack. I had exactly one dressy interview appropriate outfit, a calf length full circle linen skirt and blazer which by the way were fabulous but took a considerable effort to iron.

Detail of Fletcher the friendly tabby. The registration is a little off in this print but it is a useful example that documents the layering of colour from lightest to darkest in the creation of a limited addition print.

Imagine then, one tube ride through the inner city of London, England, to Kingsbury down the line a bit and a walk across a beautiful lush green park that became an appendix to the school’s expansive grounds. Stunning, right?.

It was the quintessential beautiful, and quaint English postcard setting except for the pouring rain, no, pouring doesn’t quite describe the scene, it was more like a deluge that erupted as I set off across that park after the train ride. I was the nervous yet optimistic Aussie without an umbrella. Remember the two key words here, linen, and deluge.

Bless the administrator and Nema Ferguson head of the art department who both sat curiously across from this literally dripping candidate. I must have looked like Fletcher the tabby cat fresh from a dip in the Thames.

I got the job, miraculiously, and was excited to embark on an ambitious printmaking project with some of my classes.

Rylands was alway such a chill dude. I am sure he would forgive me for accidentally cutting off his outline.

In art school I had double majored in painting and printmaking but had dropped the prinkmaking and its oil based inks and paint thinners as they didn’t agree with my sensitive system. It was too bad because I loved the results.

I did teach colour reduction block printing to my junior high art students though and they rose to the challenge of the occasion using the much greener water based version of printing inks. Lino block prints are not reproductions but are instead a method of producing consistent multiples in small batches. You might have seen a signed print with a title and signature as well as a fraction at the bottom of the image. The process retains an element of the handmade. Producing them involves thinking about 1 colour at a time and can be quite a complex process. I was always proud of my young students in Australia at Holder High, which side note, burned to the ground in a terrible bush fire season some years ago, where some of these examples had proudly hung. Carving a lino tile involves the removal of the surface with a carving tool, rolling ink onto the surface that remains with a roller and running the paper and inked tile through  a press that lifts the ink off the tile and transfers it in reverse onto the paper.

Fine art prints are printed in editions, for example an edition of 10 would mean ten impressions of the same block after what was to remain white was removed. Next the areas that are the next lightest colour are cut away and the block is inked in say yellow and those same ten sheets are aligned and printed with the yellow. The process is cumulative and continues with the artist thinking and planning one colour at a time, carefully registering each page before the next colour is added. A black and white print is a good way to get acquainted with the process, a 4 colour reduction print is quite an accomplishment for 13 and 14 year olds. I was often amazed at the beautiful pieces kids produced and found kids will rise to our expectations.  It’s amazing what creative challenges students will meet when we show them we have faith in them and their ideas.

“Resonance” 48” x 48” has been part of the suite of large paintings that have been blooming on my painting wall through the winter. She was adopted this week by an amazing family to join 3 other paintings in their home that have also bloomed on my painting wall.

“Tina’s garden”, part anniversary gift and part memorial also left the studio this week.

36” x 48” acrylic on canvas, 2022.

My students completed their editions by continuing to work through some industrious lunch and recess breaks. The activity definitely consumed their teenage focus and grounded them in creative presence.

 At Kingsbury High school  fresh from my Canadian interlude I had a couple of snapshots of my fur friends Rylands and Fletcher that I used  as the starting point for my example… with the help of a photocopier and some carbon paper.

Lino tools are sharp. One of the first lessons is always to cut away from yourself. We don’t want anyone bleeding in the classroom but bandaids are always a good insurance policy. The process of cutting a block for printing is reductive which also means when we make a mistake and inadvertently cut something away that we needed to print, there is no longer an opportunity to create a mark in that space with the ink.

In my example I was chatting while demonstrating one of the last layers and  got to demonstrate humility in explaining I had just cut off a crucial outline I needed for the final colour. Oops sorry, I now have a cat with no tail.

This little block print of the brothers Rylands and Fletcher, is a souvenir of both my time in London and the memories of that first Canadian summer being wooed by my now husband . It is also a reminder of the power of our pets and their endearing way of wriggling into our souls with reciprocal unconditional devotion.

“Bear Necessities” , 36” x 48”, acrylic on canvas, was not painted as part of a commission but went home to a commissioning family this week.

Miss Addy cat was part of our family for 22 years.. Her mother was a stray who somehow made her way into my original studio building. We chose the little tiger and named her Adelaide since she was born on the corner of Adelaide and McDermot in downtown Winnipeg.

So what are some of the take aways from today’s backstory?

For me the new rule is to buy that umbrella even if it is destined to be left on a train or the back of a taxi, is key.

 Linen is not the best choice for a job interview outfit, particularly if you are backpacking

Never underestimate the power of creativity especially in the young

 And find fun and creative ways to keep your memories close at hand.

“Kaleidoscope” 48” x 48”, acrylic on panel, 2022 also recently drove off to her forever home.

This week’s meditation begins at 8:40 in the recording.

I called it Meditation pet recollection in honor of the fun characters who were featured in the pet portraits, for the cheeky brothers Rylands and fletcher and our recently departed 150 year old miss Addy cat, our lovely tyrant who we miss dearly.

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 PODCAST.

Lessons of inspiration and creativity inspire change on todays episode.
A Change of season might lead to a change of scale But Scaling down in size does not mean we are scaling down the visual impact.

There is a new trio evolving on the paint wall in real time. We learn a triptych is not simply an image spread out across three adjoining surfaces but an opportunity to explore 5 independent compositions

The gifting of art part is not something I recommend but A triptych named “Bloom”f did become a fledgling daughter’s housewarming gift. Bloom was also a lesson in keeping things fresh, of letting go of expectations and walking away from a composition before the bloom is off the rose.
Teamwork is key and this group are currently demonstrating they can hang out and and mix things up, and still look fresh and refreshing in a tired utilitarian space. My own art is on loan in my own home for time being, brightening up one our most under appreciated spaces. Art blooms, indoors year round, though this trio might only be with us for a short season.

Practice is the key word when it comes to MEDITATION in this episode which begins at 8:55 In the recording.
In it I am guided to guide you on a visual journey where we plant ourselves in the present. We are reminded meditation is not a test but an evolving process and that our bloom is radiant perfect and open to the potential that exists around and within us. 

I love how a few minimalist strokes are suggestive of personality purely by the shape they create.

This is a detail of Panel 1 of the triptych “BLOOM” Hopefully this snippet gives you an idea of the loose marks on the surface. Each Panel 18” x 24”, Acrylic on panel, 2020

In this episode a new season inspires change. For me after a long northern winter (some might say relentless this year) I am more than eager to shake off the heaviness of winter coats and boots and get outside in a landscape that is not always conducive to a simple walk around the park.

 At the studio I have been very productive through the long winter. I have been working on a lot of commissions and one of them is a triptych on panel. Each panel is 18” x 24” which is an adjustment from the run of 48” squares and pairs, 4’ x 8’ that have kept me busy for the best part of the last year.

 I find I get physically comfortable working in a particular size or shape so changing it up requires some physical as well as mental adjustments. Going from large squares to much smaller rectangles has been noticeable. This new trio was inspired by “Bear Necessities”, a relatively new piece on canvas, 36’ X 48”, which the client loved but could not fit into her space. I like to remind clients with particular requests that I cannot replicate any image exactly, and I don’t want to but knowing what they like when I start can be helpful.

BLOOM Panrel 1, 18” x 24”, Acrylic on panel, 2021. The gold orange was a new purchase that became the central focus of the colour story in this trio,. I love the way it balances with the pink/choral.

Translating a painting of mine into a triptych doesn’t mean simply spreading the image across three surfaces. A triptych requires each of the individual images to solve an individual compositional puzzle. Together the trio then becomes a separate composition, enhanced by all of the parts presented together. This group so far are a colourful team. Painting them while spring is delayed outside has been a nice contrast to the muted greys of late winter snow and ice underfoot and they have kept me mindful of the potential for spring to eventually arrive.

This triptych might be finished in time to appear in the blog for this episode in which case I will include it, but I can’t make any promises that I won’t over paint it just yet. (sorry just some details available below) :)

Today I would like to introduce you to a same sized triptych also painted on panels 18” x 24” each. They were painted in 2020 and I have just recently hung them up in an often overlooked space but our back door. Painting them was a short journey through process before they embarked on a longer physical journey internationally when our daughter first left home.

 Too much time indoors for me recently highlighted the desire, I called it a need, to refresh indoor spaces at home. This trio now hangs in our back entry way is called “BLOOM”. The name partially describes the suggestion of a garden loosely defined across the surface and also references our hopes for our daughters as she set off on a new academic adventure.

Words are powerful, just like the name of a painting , they connect us to memories, sometimes lessons we have learned through our experiences. This triptych though a gift had spent the best part of this past school year leaning out of the way after our daughter returned from the US to complete her studies in Canada. I have taken it upon myself to refresh an area we had become blind to  and show them off while they are visiting.

BLOOM Panel 2, Acrylic on panel, 18” x 24”, 2021. Without supervision I can’t get the trio together so please bare with me. This panel though painted as the central panel and intended to hang as the middle child, is now hanging on an adjacent wall to the left and right panels. The sisters are .. accommodating a tight space and hanging up and down from each other. .. and I like it.

I have to say, I don’t recommend gifting art, mine or anybody else’s. In this case though I know my first born pretty well and since she had been  at my studio before leaving home and had shown enthusiasm for the trio that was then developing on my paint wall, I knew they would be well received. As a rule I don’t encourage my clients to gift art to anyone but themselves. Art is subjective right, and though you might be a regular client and a big fan, bless you, wanting to support my studio practice with a purchase, someone else unfamiliar with my work might find my use of colour scary and relegate your gift to a back bedroom , the equivalent of the time out chair for a painting, and nobody wants that. I want you to celebrate your art and display it proudly in your personal space.

 If you have listened in before you might remember me telling you how the beginning of a composition is loose and expressive as I allow myself to feel the process and act instinctively without too much attachment to an outcome. These early stages help to get me into the flow of the composition as I strive to cover the substrate in a foundation colour or colours .

In this little triptych the energetic action of the brushstroke is visible in transitions made between what would be the main attraction of subject and  the supportive “foil” characters of foreground and background. In the composition there is no definitive horizon line. There is a definite suggestion of a space but that space is open to suggestion.

This triptych did become  a gift and the trio made their way out of town wedged strategically into the tightly packed carload of possessions. In pandemic lockdown with International borders closed, sending a daughter off with a fresh triptych was the equivalent of me popping into her new space with a bouquet of fresh flowers for the kitchen table. They were designed to remind her this new space would still feel like home and in a pinch the seasonal colour of the natural world might help to add a little sunshine to a heavy academic load.

The timing of the departure probably did me a favour. Having a deadline can be helpful to the over painter within me as I didn’t have time to second guess myself or try to improve them and make them somehow “better” or more literal. Instead I added hardware to the backs and brought them home in time to pack them up with her belongings and send them on their way. This short time frame kept the trio fresh and sketchy, the colours are springy and by springy I mean they are soft and unmuddied. There is a peachy choral colour, it is not pink not orange, that reminded me of her baby gap favourites that make those colours hers in my mind.

BLOOM Panel 3, acrylic on Panel, 18” x 24”, 2022. The gift of art is not recommended. Personal taste is subjective. I know my work is not for everyone and I am ok with that.

In fact, “BLOOM:1/2/3.” seemed like an appropriate title in a lot of ways. Like any parent I wished for her to similarly bloom with no pre determined outcomes to confine her. Instead of giving each panel their own individual title as I normally would, I simply numbered them 1, 2, 3. I am as prone to being lazy as the next person and have been known to skip a couple of steps now and again but in this instance the numbers felt like they defined the trio as a unit while also making a reference to a few simple steps in the process of becoming.

 The trio served their intended purpose during that school year but since then they have been taking up space banished to a random corner for most of this school year so I have reclaimed them, at least temporarily. They have been swept up, literally in a spring cleaning activity that decluttered a winters worth of jumble from the back entry way. It felt good to put this trio into view to remind us all that even though this winter is reluctant to leave there is hope that something will eventually bloom.

.Details from the new triptych on the paint wall

Compositional details , or poppers as we call them at our house, are what drive the viewer’s attention into and through a composition

The new triptych is the same size as BLOOM but the colour story is very different.

It didn’t matter to me that the trio was painted to be hung as a horizontal team. Without the appropriate sized space I simply  stacked them. The composition is strong enough within the group that areas relate to each other no matter which way they are displayed. There is no dedicated lighting and the third panel is even around a corner on an adjacent wall but instead of feeling cluttered and busy the trio actually soften a much used utilitarian spaced and are inspiring a new season to bloom indoors, for now at least.

There are some lessons I have learned from this trio. The first as a painter to keep things fresh and simple and walk away from a composition before I try to “fix” it our clean it up.

Bloom Panel 1 Detail. Life is definitely lived in the details. I find myself drawn to small areas, always.

I love how a few minimalist strokes are suggestive of personality purely by the shape they create.

 A painting, like the garden, is most inviting when left to its own devices. Our children are like a piece of art; precious, inspiring and something we hope will bloom in its own way, in its own time.

 If your children are like mine, they, and their possessions, might head out on a personal journey but home will always call them home… and you can reclaim some of their possessions, at least for a while should you feel so inspired.

On the paint as I was preparing this episode was “Bear Necessities”. Since this episode was published this painting found a new home with newly transplanted clients who were keen to share their space with local art.

Thats the end of todays backstory. Thanks 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.

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. It costs nothing to do so and i would be very appreciative.

This week’s meditation begins at 10:55 in the recording. I hope you’ll take a listen

We are reminded meditation is not a test but an evolving process and that our bloom is radiant perfect and open to the potential that exists around and within us. all best

Should you have any questions or comments please feel free to reach out. I would be happy to connect.

Amanda

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

Wisdom At The Crossroads, The Podcast.

A mixed media pair called “SIDEYARD / BACKYARD” are the stars of the perennial show in the lucky 13th episode of the podcast this week.
Together they introduce a hardy cast of characters whose cheeky personalities take shape in chalk pastel and acrylic on paper.
We hear the story of friendship as it played out in the garden, learn a simple way to impersonate a deckled edge and get a glimpse of art history at work in the painters studio.

The meditation begins at 12:53 in the recording. In it we practice Independently yet together we define our own version of a personal oasis. Whether this place is real or imagined, while there, we can move our to do lists aside for a short while and recharge, unhurried in the peace we’ll find in the natural world.

Using the breath as our guide we accept an unhurried moment and pause reflectively, together. And isn’t that what the garden is all about?

We’re chatting about new (old) media today and this detail shows the watery layers of acrylic used as water colour with the addition of chalk pastel on the surface. I love the details, that’s where I live. I am glad I invested in a polarizing lens to photograph framed art behind glass without the interference of reflections.

Spring time always inspires. It gets me thinking of my garden which has always been a muse. The black earth of the prairie is a rich and supportive host for my perennials, annuals and herbs. I love to touch the earth, to feel connected to something larger than myself, to be literally grounded in the moment and the action of curating a seasonal show.

 My camera was my studio assistant when the activities of my athletic family necessitated storing my inspiration on film. Much of that inspiration came from the garden and those images became starting points for paintings that often grew in series.

 My intention has never been to replicate my source but to allow the work to evolve as the energy of circumstance; memory and intention converge in acrylic colour across a 2D surface.

I strive to capture the essence of the moment, to describe with the action of a loaded and wet flippy brush or a flat square bristle; the cheeky personalities of the poppy, the shapes of a perennial community, the buoyancy of a cluster of daisies, the strength of spring bulbs or the expansive nature of a prairie landscape.

In my studio Inspiration is infinite, discipline is a necessary constant, and the garden is a perennial theme blooming year round, indoors on canvas and panel in colour, outdoors in its natural state.

Right now in the studio I am working on a couple of commissions. These new clients have seen some of my new work and chose to use that as a starting point for their respective projects. I intentionally leave sold works on my website so new clients can get a sense of what I do, or what I have done in the past.. A picture is worth a 1000 words so it also makes for a simpler conversation when examples of previous work can help to explain a thought, or preferences, mine or the clients.

BACKYARD, Acrylic and Chalk Pastel; on Water-colour paper. 11” x 30”, 2003. By Amanda Onchulenko

SIDE YARD, detail, Acrylic and Chalk Pastel on Watercolour Paper, 11” x 30”, 2003. By Amanda Onchulenko.

Painting a garden or landscape subject  keeps me excited for the next growing season even if it is still a bit further off in the distance than I would like. This year the late spring and record April snowstorms have kept the distraction of the garden at bay for now so I have more time to apply to these painting projects for the time being. I am definitely ready to play in the dirt though. I love the garden, all gardens. I love the little incidental green spaces in urban and suburban environments. Some might call the plants that grow there weeds, weeds might be a little harsh. But I do I love to see plants thrive in challenging circumstances. That’s probably why in Canada I have been so enamored with the perennials and biennials I experience here in my northern backyard.

When I first came to Canada my novice attempts to break soil in our zone 3 backyard involved the rescuing of hardware store packages of bulbs and bare roots that I tossed casually into a neglected triangular garden bed, and I use the term “garden bed” very loosely in our then, under sized backyard. In the front were a couple of trees a lawn and some shaded overgrown foundation plantings. There was a small rectangle of grass in the back, a patio and a mature hedge of heritage lilacs along the side fence that were a spectacle in their brief season. These lilacs might have partially obscured a small potential garden bed while they bloomed but once their show had settled there became a clear need to add some kind of colour to the space.

This is a detail of a painting we have seen in our home for almost 20 years. Taking the time to re photograph and to really look at the details has given me a new appreciation for these very early works

  This side yard plot lay just beyond the canopy of a gnarled and craggy apple tree that had overtaken the feature corner of our postage stamp lot. The bed was home to variegated bishop’s gout weed which at the time I did not realize was invasive. I watched that semi shaded spot from the vantage point of a small patio table and chair and was amazed to witness the compressed growing season usher to life a leggy stem that burst open with the most magnificent bloom. The stargazer Lilly was pungent and beautiful and was definitely an inspiration. I had never seen one bloom in a garden. I had only seen them on daytime TV, on Y and R and thought they were so perfect they must have been artificial.

“My” bloom was almost too heavy to be supported by the stem that held it safely above the variegated tangle at its feet. It was a mesmerizing spectacle with the added bonus that I could safely play in the dirt around it without my Instinctive Australia fear of spiders kicking in.

 It wasn’t long before I became the horticultural student of my next door neighbor who shared her passion for the colourful succession of reblooming perennials with me. I remain in her debt and think of her each year when I see fuchsia petunias return to the garden centre.

The sideboard last summer. Those gifted delphiniums have multiplied and been transplanted to various areas in the backyard.

I love the colour of delphiniums and their many flower heads. I also love that they are a food source to the monarch butterfly

The gift of the garden extends beyond colour in the landscape to encourage friendship; the garden also brings out the kindness of strangers. When we moved from the postage stamp sized apple tree garden with the staggering solo stargazer Lilly a colleague of my husbands arrived on our driveway with a trailer load of labelled cuttings and seed heads to get our perennial garden started. Some of these I tossed liberally into a strip of side yard that caught and held the warmth of the afternoon sun. Tucked along a fence this little incidental plot grew carnation headed poppies, bachelor buttons, blue delphiniums, yellow Asiatic lilies and a sprinkling of wild daisies. These little colonies welcomed me into the backyard from the driveway and ushered me back out front through the gate. Nobody benefited from this joyful little oasis but me and I was happy to pick and play with it while the larger efforts out back took hold. They wouldn’t be ready to show any results until after a season or two of growth.

To prolong the brief bloom time I took some snapshots from the in and out vantage points of this little garden plot to use later in the studio. Painted in 2006 the pair I painted on paper, inspired by this spot keep a mixed media record of the earliest days of my current garden. In 2006 I was still working on paper and this pair shared a full sheet of water colour paper scored vertically so the images are about 11” x 30”. The full sheet had a lovely deckled edge which can’t be replicated but the cut edge was softened by scoring a crease down the centre, applying water with a paintbrush along the scored line, and with a little patience and some gentle pressure, tearing the sheet in half. The process allowed me to achieve, if not a true deckled edge then at least a softened edge that still allowed me to float mount the finished pieces and keep the organic edge of the paper on display.

 My garden was small yet expansive and could easily have filled full sheets but the idea of a narrow vertical composition was appealing and has been a shape I have used periodically over the years. The finished pieces are framed and fit comfortably into small spaces. I gifted this pair, one to each of our daughters who at the time were keen to see what was happening in my little studio. The paintings live separately in our house but will move out with our girls when they eventually leave home.

  As I was contemplating this pair we were in the midst of what was forecast to be a generational spring storm. Thankfully the storm didn’t live up to the dire early predictions but we did still see snow pile up on grass that was just beginning to show the promise of future growth. Bringing my once upon a garden indoors in a painting gives me hope that the earth will eventually rebloom. My buried perennial garden in this northern climate will soon demonstrate its resilience and burst back to life for its fleeting yet vibrant display, soon is definitely the key word we are all holding onto here.

 When I was painting on paper I used the heaviest paper I could find to try to mitigate or at least minimize warping after the addition of wet media on paper. A traditional watercolorist might tape the dry paper to a board to keep the ground taut while it dried but that would take the deckled edge out of the equation. I wanted to paint to the edges of the paper and found ways to flatten the paper after painting. The process began with by spraying a mist of water to the back of the paintings to relax the paper, I then layered the paintings between glassine and blotting papers while and weighted them in groups under sheets of Masonite and my art history books. It was a work out but it seemed to work out.

Life in the details. Marks made in this duo were suggestive of a shape or a flower form only. Backyard Detail.

The perennial garden is dependant on the weather and each year is different. While the delphiniums continue to flourish and multiply in my side yard, the lilies did not. A Lilly beetle infestation a few years ago decimated Lillies across the province.

 I began this pair of paintings using watered down acrylic paint. Acrylic dries quickly which was helpful on my limited budget of painting time in those days. Having two compositions to work on simultaneously was also helpful in maximizing my studio time. At the end of my studio visit I would let the pieces dry. When I returned to them the following day I would either add further layers of acrylic or draw into them with chalk pastel. The pastels allowed me to avoid browning when wet colours merged on paper and also helped me to focus on highlights or add details or refinements using one colour literally in my hand at a time.

 My studio was on the second floor of the building then and I made frequent trips downstairs to the loading dock with spray fixative to seal in the layers of paints and pastel. The resultant images have a sketchy feel to them, no horizon line and suggest rather than accurately describe the inhabitants of that narrow garden bed.

 I love the effects of chalk pastel. The media was a good choice for describing the plant material in a simplified way while still being able to render them as recognizable. The acrylic base got me started on my journey through layers and is essentially how I continue to begin my paintings in the present.

 Chalk pastel can be a bit fragile, despite best laid plans to seal it with a fixative so I could continue working over top of earlier layers, there was a tendency for small crumbs to separate from the surface. The pair was framed; Float mounted with matting behind glass and they look comfortable in their frames. I good framer is a good investment especially if you are working with paper. Over the years there has been some crumbling of pastel from the surface of these paintings but other than the memory of chalk pastel screeching across my finger nails and sending my teeth into a desperate clench the paintings are still appreciated and are an accurate record of some of my early practices.

The perennial garden is hardy, colourful and always a challenge. Conditions vary every season so best laid plans are really only that. But these challenges keep gardeners like me inspired and hopeful for what will rebloom in the following season. This is the bunkhouse at the cottage, where we host the WAVE Interlake Artists Studio Tour twice annually and also where I paint and create while away from my city studio. I love the lake and i love tinkering in my lake garden.

 Some of the lessons I learned from this pair:

 Process is personal and though we are always evolving there are some aspects of each new chapter that stay with us as we grow. For me the use of one colour at a time has helped me to avid blending clear colour down to neutrals.

Framing is an investment especially for works on paper and definitely worth doing properly.

The perennial garden will return each year no matter how later the last spring snow storm barrels through. Each year it will show a little differently depending on the seasonal conditions and the amount of attention or neglect it receives. Surprisingly perennials are sometimes best left to their own devices.

 Our cottage garden has been the beneficiary of my time in recent years but the delphiniums in that sunny patch of side yard have multiplied and make a spectacular leggy show without or despite my efforts each year.

 Chalk pastel still makes my teeth grate; it’s even hard to type a description of it without the memory of chalky teeth and my face instinctively twisting itself into a sour taste in response.

 There is no such thing as a trespasser in my yard, just friends we are yet to meet.

Should you find yourself in my neighborhood please know I am always happy to spread the garden joy by sharing cuttings and seeds in the example of our friends who arrived on the driveway of our new home, and my former neighbor, who shared their knowledge and generosity with me as I will, in turn, with you.

As a final note in this the lucky 13th episode, it is good to remember that in life as in art: friendships, plants and pastimes, will all continue to evolve and to grow, with and without our help and encouragement.

This week’s meditation begins at 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 13: “BACVKYARD/ SIDEYARD”

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.

This week on the podcast we are introduced to a “Cocktail Hour” that is a welcome treat at any time of the day or night. “Strawberry Margarita” is one of the 4 Players in a 2004 Mixed media series on paper that gives us a colourful take on a winter subject .

Welcome to COCKTAIL HOUR I hope your week has been a good one. Mine felt a bit wobbly as we dealt with a Covid hostage in our house that is thankfully, now recovered. Wearing my mother/ nursemaid hat resulted in limited studio time. On the days that I could get to the studio I have been working on a commission, a process that can often get me second guessing myself. The last couple of painting sessions have seen progress to the point where I need to let a 4 foot square canvas rest a bit. Moving on to a second piece with the same theme yet of a different shape and structure has been fun. The idea of an invitation is common to both pieces and I am working to develop a sense of depth to assist with inviting the viewer into the image. 

There is no snow on my painting wall but plenty still melting and freezing outside in what is becoming a reluctant beginning to spring. Colour inside the studio is an antidote to the greyness of winters end before spring is really ready to spring to life. We can hardly wait. 

“Strawberry Margarita” of the Cocktail Hour Series. Acrylic and Chalk Pastel on watercolour paper, 22 1/2” x 30”, 2004. By Amanda Onchulenko .

Someone commented one time that I live in a climate where winter is a feature yet the work I exhibited was vibrant and colourful with a distinct absence of snow. I appreciate the observation. I should probably confess I have for many years used the winter to work on the inspiration I had gathered during the rest of the year. Colour in the studio has been an antidote to the variations of winters white that is more than abundant in the northern climate where we live.

 The photographic inspiration I gathered way back when was usually taken enroute between the activities of my children, and mostly during the spring and summer when my schedule was a bit more flexible. 

 The fall was busy with new school years and sporting schedules and winter had ice. It was slippery and cold and strangely unfamiliar. I was then, and can still be, a bit like a version of young Bambi navigating a frozen pond for the first time. The upending of my teapot was a very common thing so I did a lot less discovery and photography after the snow arrived.

I think it would have been pretty clear to Canadians I was not a local. I was very carefully around ice, tip toeing around it to try to avoid a spill in contrast to the Canadians in my family who run and shuffle speedily towards it to enjoy the slide.

 I had no such winter association having grown up in what poet Banjo Patterson called a sunburnt country. There is snow in the southern highlands in Australia but I have experienced the chill of the snowy mountains exactly once and only very briefly before finding myself living on the Canadian prairies.

Australia is dominated by coastline with vast expanses of sand and surf. I am an excellent swimmer, I could handle a surfboard but I am not so great at the winter balance gene my Canadian husband and kids naturally share. 

A heavy early winter snow storm kept our neighbours shovelling for hours and the city hopping for weeks cleaning up the debris from what our city described as Tee Armegeddon.

There is snow in the Southern Highlands in Australia but I experienced the chill of the Snowy Mountains only once very briefly before finding myself living on the Canadian Prairies. Life is an evolution and just like Forest Gump and his box of chocolates, we just can’t know what we are going to get as we evolve through the decisions and choices we make along the way. Signing up for the road less travelled is never a bad thing. I highly recommend it and am grateful for all the lessons the great white north has taught me.

As an immigrant we bring with us what we know in our souls so colour and warmer weather were naturally more familiar to me and became the natural choices in my paintings. As I got to experience the nuances of the prairie and her seasons I became more aware of the action of light on white, the reflections and refractions that brought colour into the seasonal landscape in bold and subtle ways. I learned to look and to really see. 

Getting back to painting and my friends comment about a lack of winter subjects in my work, I was undaunted by the observation and inspired to take up the challenge to express the winter landscape around me from my personal perspective

With my focus on winter inspiration I sought out subjects after fresh snow falls. Wet snow is sticky and holds onto the boughs and limbs of trees and shrubs making for some lovely shapes.  It can even be so heavy it takes trees and electrical wires down with it. This we know from an experience a couple of years ago and what we still refer to as the tree Armageddon in our neighborhood. 

“Pina Colada”, another player in the Cocktail Hour series. I love the fact that a painting looks like one thing close up and our eyes merge colours and shapes when we take a step, or 7 back. Playing with variations of the same subject makes for a fun little studio game.

At the time I was planning this winter series I had carloads of kids, mine and their friends, neighbours or team mates piling in and out of my car for school and sporting events on any given day. 

One morning I discovered a lovely snow laden evergreen on the way to school and made a quick turn around after drop off to photograph it before the morning light had faded. My friends ‘side yard provided the subject matter this time so thankfully I was not trespassing. 

 The series that evolved from this casual challenge came to be called “cocktail hour” in part because of the vibrant colour palette I used on these winter subjects. All artists I have found have particular tendencies when it comes to colour choices and preferences and I am no different. 

This group was painted in 2005 when I still relied on photographic inspiration and traditional film. There was a delay between filming for processing and developing that my children in their instant gratification world might not fully appreciate today. Once I had my inspirational imagery in hand I cleared off a studio wall and installed four full sheets of arches heavy weight water colour paper, 221/2” x 30” each. The pieces were later float mounted as the entire surface became part of the composition. 

By pinning each piece heavily using the arc of the many thumbtacks to secure the paper to the wall I did not perforate the edges with pin holes. This process also helped to prevent the heavy paper sheets loaded with wet media from warping as they dried. 

 I used four sheets because that’s what I had in hand and that’s also the extent of what could fit along the length of my wall. I used the same photograph as inspiration for all four paintings in what became a visual game I played at the studio.

This pic was taken more than ten years after the first inspiration photo was taken. There has definitely been some growth in my neighbours front yard since last i was there picking up kids. I missed a fresh snowfall but I think you get the idea that some creative licence is taken when it comes to colour in the winter landscape when my paintbrushes are involved.

My linear thinking husband and I joke about our respective approaches to problem solving. He thinks logically in a straight line while I tend to spiral around until we both mostly end with the same conclusions. (although he is not an artist). His stories of solo play are funny. He was ten years younger than his older brother and five years younger than his sister so neither sibling was available or interested in the energetic games he played. So he became an expert at creatively entertaining himself with complex games enacting sporting events where he provided the commentary, the plays and all the players, of entire football games. I can just imagine him running up and down the side yard catching his own high passes, sometimes with sound effects like the hiss of a cheering crowd, for hours on end. I laughed at his explanation of childhood games and may have even raised a cautious eyebrow that suggested “really”? 

But in hindsight it seems problem solving games are something we share. 

Both of us have developed imaginary worlds. While he may have aspired to be an actual quarterback, I was designing the plays that took place across my painterly playing field. 

 I challenged myself by beginning the group of four paintings in different ways: starting with a foundation image drawn in washy liquid acrylic, by blocking in a foundation structure in complimentary colours with a wide brush, by using a different colour palette to begin and on one of them I hooked in to the “Drawing on the Right hand side of the brain” theory by painting upside down. The painting not me was inverted. 

As a side note turning a composition upside down is a strategy I often use when a painting has me stuck and unsure of where to take it. 

“Cocktail Hour: Pina Colada”

“Cocktail Hour: Classic Daquari”

“Cocktail Hour: Mojito”

When you are your own boss you can give yourself permission to have some fun with your process, because nobody is watching.  My boss by the way can be a hard task master and often pushes me to try new things, to expand and to grow even though I have been resistant at times to stepping out of my comfortable routines. Thankfully my boss embraced the idea of play in the work of art I was making in 2005.

 One of the four paintings that make up the group I called “Cocktail Hour” lives behind glass on the landing of our stairs at home. This painting is not far from “Pink at Ponemah” whom I introduced on the podcast in Season 1 Episode 9. Opposite the front door, “Strawberry Margarita “welcomes visitors to our home no matter what the season. The subject reads a bit ambiguously from a distance given my colour choices but on closer inspection the snow story takes shape and it is clear it is a winter scene. 

In painting this series I remember striving for depth by focusing on the snow heavy pine back lit with morning sun. I kept with this intention regardless of the colour choices or process I used for each of the individual paintings. 

 I loved the shapes freshly accumulated wet snow made in real time on the boughs of this evergreen tree. 

It is amazing the diversity we find in snow laden landscapes in shape texture and even colour when we take a little more time to really look with a view to seeing. I like to say life is lived in the details. When we are aware we are present, where we are, whatever the season, and our lives are enriched because of it. 

This week at the studio I used this tactic to help resolve the composition. A literal change in perspective.

The other three paintings of this group quickly found their forever homes. The one I have may have been the runt of the litter? I don’t know. What I do know is that it was the one that was left over and therefore available to fill a void when my hubby sent some dinner guests home with a framed still life that had occupied that welcome location at our front door.

We laugh now about his early sales model but I have to say seeing art work in appropriately scaled living spaces helps a client to visualize how a piece might work in their own environment. App makers have realized this fact recently as there are several available that make for helpful marketing tools.

A personal connection has always been my favourite model. I enjoy people, and I am extremely grateful for the supportive clients, many of them now friends, with whom I have made connections with because of my art. 

The cocktail hour series and “Strawberry Margarita“, in particular made for an appropriate backdrop to some of our once upon a dinner parties when our kids were quite young. Eventually I actually did ban my husband from selling paintings off our walls, particularly while our guests were drinking the good wine. I didn’t want our friends to decline an invitation to join us for an event worrying the night would end up more expensive than the bottle of wine or appetizer that contributed. These were fun times for sure and it’s still fun to reimagine the stories the artwork could tell of the entertaining interactions that have taken place on that stairwell landing.

Living with art. “Cocktail Hour’s “Strawberry Margarita” inspires a Christmas gathering of the clan.

Thanks for listening in to the podcast and taking the time to search out the images here on the blog.

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

This week’s meditation begins at 11:55 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 12: “COCKTAIL HOUR”

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,

Amanda

A direct link to the Podcast on Podbean below:

https://wisdomofthecrossroads.podbean.com/e/cocktail-hour/?token=e1d363df2369a267872f3a56f5c831e65

A direct link to the Podcast on Spotify below:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xiGyTcvL5k2ZqneU3PbQa?si=z6qv4eL9Q9GrIS9f50eHJQ

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 are introduced to a triptych painted in 2006. “BREATHING SPACE” and her three players: “INHALE”, “EXHALE” and “RELAX” inspires us to do just that. As well they are an invitation to consider our home and how art can offer comfort within the discomfort of transition. We learn big art can expand our spaces and our perceptions.

This trio feature a cast of perennial personalities that are a reminder that sometimes the pieces we are meant to have find their way to us, sometimes in unusual or unexpected ways.

The meditation begins at 10:54 in this episode. It is available on the recording only and I hope you will listen in.   This one was inspired by a dessert landscape in the middle of a Northern winter. In it we ground ourselves in colour to expand our chakras as we experience the blessing of a magical morning interaction accompanied by curiosity and a new/ old friend. It’s one of my faves.

BREATHING SPACE: INHALE, EXHALE, RELAX”, Acrylic on Canvas, c.25” x 30” each panel”, 2006. By Amanda Onchulenko

Breathing Space Detail. I love the fact that a painting looks like one thing close up and our eyes merge colours and shapes when we take a step, or 7 back, to create a totally different visual.

I have been spending more time at home lately. I am feeling the need to clear some things out and to change things up. It might be the new season bringing with it a need to adjust and refresh the space around me.

 I wonder when you are home

What is it that makes you feel at home? 

If you were to move, what would travel with you from your current space that would help you to feel comfort within the discomfort of transition? 

A good friend and also a client of mine moved recently and I offered to help her settle in by hanging a couple of key pieces of art work. They are iconic images within her home, you know, the pieces have been the backdrop of her adult life. They are paintings that she loves and has lived with for some time so their presence instantly helped to define her new space as her own. Isn’t that our goal? 

To curate the things we love within our personal environments to make our house a home and a space we can be at ease? To create a space that is our sanctuary, a place where we can take a pause and one we can call our own.

Today on the podcast I’d like to introduce you to a painting, rather a series of paintings. The triptych is called “Breathing Space, The components are: “Inhale, Exhale and Relax” respectively

The aptly named “Breathing Space” both grounds and defines our living space at the lake. 

The story of how it came to reside there is a bit of a convoluted one that involves 2 galleries, a couple of flights and a considerable passage of time. This piece has shared many lessons with me.

 When it was painted in 2006 our family had neither cottage nor even any plans to invest in one, but in life as in art, there is always room for an evolving journey. Change really is our only constant.

 At the time I painted this trio I must have been on some kind of a mission to be self-sufficient and frugal in my little business because somehow I decided it would be a good idea for me personally to build my own stretcher frames??? 

In art school I had the most impressive canvas stretchers. They were handmade by my master builder father who sought the strongest and lightest timber, mitered the corners perfectly and added cross bracing for added strength and support. As a bonus I have always enjoyed process so the process of stretching the raw canvas was appealing.  

I may have inherited my dad’s analytical mind but really I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided building my own stretchers was to be my next DIY project. 

It’s not like I had studio time to spare. Maybe the art supply chain was suffering some shortages at the time or maybe I had one too many canvases warp after painting? I can’t quite remember my motivation at the time.

I had possibly spent too much time distracting myself in the aisles of the hardware store where my young kids could be entertained in the cart while we measured and imagined on one of our little creative adventures? 

However it happened I determined to build a trio of stretcher panels that I would then attach a panel of plywood to create a painting surface. 

Home Depot did not offer mitered cuts so everything was straight edged and hammered not too expertly together Without clamps or a table to appropriately brace and glue the painting surface to the supportive understructure, I took out my handy drill and slammed those panels together in quick time making sure to add a generous splash of wood glue between the bracing and the painting panel for good measure 

In another life you might compare and contrast my efforts and my dad’s handiwork as the difference between an orthopedic and a plastic surgeon. 

Of course I screwed the panels from the top surface instead of discretely from the bottom so I then had to figure out a way to make this over sight appear intentional. My resourceful plan evolved and I set myself up to disguise the screw heads by burying them in gesso and applying some of my contraband dried gum leaves over the top to add some  surface interest. As I painted them my perfectionist self felt uneasy but I persisted. If we are taking away some studio lessons we could begin here with the following gems Know your skill set Ask for help And Invest in materials 

Shapes can be suggestive.

Perennial personalities

Standing out in a crowd

There are more lessons I earned from this trio but I don’t want to overwhelm you before we get to know the actual paintings at least a little

“Breathing Space”, is a triptych one of my very good friends declared recently while taking in the trio from across the living room at the cottage, as her absolute favorite of my poppy series. I appreciated her compliment. We go way back and she has seen the colour stories of my work evolve and grow over many chapters.

The poppy has been a perennial favorite of mine from the earliest days of studio practice. They are my bread and butter, the equivalent in my business to the mugs and small bowls of a potters practice.

Anyway, this trio welcomes guests into the main living space and together they help to establish a carefree and casual vibe which is just what our space is about. 

My work benefits from being able to be viewed from a distance as well as being able to be explored up close so a large open room is a comfortable spot for them to reside Looking back at these paintings I feel I was just getting into my stride as a painter, developing confidence and feeling free to be myself in my work. The imagery was beginning to flow. 

I have been asked in the past why the poppy? Well as a vehicle for colour the poppy is happy to do the compositional heavy lifting. As a shape the poppy, solo or in community offers both diversity and uniformity which I find appealing. I also love their personified personalities that can add another narrative thread for myself and the viewer to pick up on in the experience of the painting. The poppy grows on every continent, has a cultural or symbolic connection to so many. For me they are fragile, and delicate yet they are also strong and resilient.

 After Art School I travelled to Europe to experience the art history I had studied. On day one during a roadhouse stop we tumbled out of the tour bus where on the side of the gravel shoulder I gathered a handful of miniature stray poppy blooms. Their playful faces and serious symbolism has stayed with me along with those memories of that enlightening and life changing journey .

Life in the details. Check out the life altering screws right here

These screws are particularly visible, but also a great reminder to invest in materials and to invest in ourselves. WE are surely worth it.

 The semi abstracted landscape that is “Breathing Space”, combines with a floral foreground that is more suggestive than naturalistic or representational. The composition describes a sense of a breeze across the three panels.

 If you are not from the prairies you have got to know that without hills the wind can get up to speed in all seasons pretty quickly here. That breezy sentiment is described by a sense of movement within the composition that leads the viewer into and through the image.

The colour story uses a lot of my favorite colour friends with an emphasis on sun bleached limes and creamy lemons Brushstrokes are confident and mostly made with a square ended brush and unlike some works the horizon line rests in the boundary that defines the upper third of the composition Instinctively I referred to the “Golden Mean” or the simplified versions that is the rule of thirds in my work. I use these compositional devises regularly but not rigidly. Being a little off can sometimes be the feature that enlivens the 2D surface.

Structure is important to me and that might be a good word to add in under lesson 4 The addition of diagonal features, sometimes as simple as a trail of barely there marks flowing in a single direction, will be enough information for the eye to gather and read as part of a visual sentence. The panels flowed together and were finished at about the same time as I received an invitation from a Toronto gallery to join their organization. Messaging was a little vague but I accepted the invitation and packaged up the fresh work. I was definitely excited about the potential collaboration. The gallery loved the imagery but they were concerned about the inclusions in the paintings surface, my resourceful screw head concealing eucalyptus leaves became a liability which resulted in the triptych being returned.

This was disappointing obviously and a reminder to know my skill set and to direct my attention there. Carpentry was not my forte and my frugal choose turner out to be an expensive one 

“Breathing Space” Relaxed v view from the couch

Once home, the journey of this trio continued to a local gallery who had sold several recent paintings of mine in the past, though they did tend to favour individual compositions and might have been known to sell the centre panel of a triptych first. 

If I had been wearing my business hat more often than my mother, driver, ringette, volleyball, soccer and hockey supporter caps, I might have noticed the lack of movement on this group. 

By chance, quite some time later, I learned the trio had been trapped in a storage room and decided the cottage would be a more appropriate caretaker. My records being what they were I was grateful I had inscribed the titles on the back of the stretchers. Rediscovering the Title seemed somehow appropriate;  “Breathing Space: Inhale, Exhale, Relax” Could a title be any more perfect for this trio and their new role? The universe may have invited them on a journey down the road less travelled but the final destination was the right one and we love them just where they are, screw heads, gum leaves and all. 

 Thanks for joining me in the backstory…for tuning in to discover “BREATHING SPACE”. I hope you are finding something of your story within mine in listening in to the podcast, or catching up on the images through this blog.

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 11: “BREATHING SPACE”

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

This is an early winter pic of our “goodwill cottage”. This winter the snowbanks reached the bottom of the windows here. No wonder we need colour in our interior environments.

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

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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

Cleaning my brushes is a thing for me, wasting paint is not. So this is what happened…

Life is definitely lived in the details. Check out this sky feature in the “Prairie Girl”.

You never know what little piece of magic will turn up in the foreground.

Welcome to WISDOM at the CROSSROADS, The PODCAST! I can hardly believe I am typing that. This project has been a while in the works. The desire 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.

At the time of moving into smaller space closer to home I didn’t really know what that would look like. Add in a pandemic and the loss of two long ago friends well before their time and I kind of felt ,a little bit of “If not now when?” and “Why not me?” So here we are and I am ready to launch myself right out of my comfort zone and into the deep end that is this new podcasting venture.

Thanks for joining me on this podcasting journey. I am looking forward to inviting you into my studio space to share in the backstories of inspiration and process that have resulted in my work in art.

After more than 20 years of studio practice I have created a lot of art. Most pieces find their forever home but over the years I have amassed a collection of artwork that spans my career to date and it is these works that we live with that I would like to begin the storytelling. 

There is a wide variety, there are pieces on paper, on canvas and on panel, and art quilts that have travelled further on exhibition than I have … which is saying something, considering I am an expat Australian and the commute to my original home starts at 12000kms. 

The pieces I have kept are all different yet they do share one common denominator and that is the fact that they have taught me a lesson or modelled something in particular that, I feel, is worth remembering.

Living with them reminds me of a time in my personal or family history and mostly they are pieces I have forbidden my husband from selling off the dining room wall. It was a thing there for a while in the early days.

When we have something in our personal interior landscape for a long time, those pieces can make us feel at home and grounded. It’s only when things change, when we rearrange them, move, or as we are, in recent years during this pandemic, spending more and more time at home that we tend to notice our environment more 

Our personal effects can be a comfort but at the same time the familiarity they offer means they can easily blend into the background to be unremarkable. 

The places and spaces we inhabit and are inspired by can be like that collection of paintings on the walls at home. The more familiar they are the less we see them.

Cathy Heller likes to say, “energy flows where attention goes”. Through our interactions I want to help you to see and experience the familiar, to explore and find inspiration in your personal circumstances wherever that might be to come back home to yourself 

I want our interactions to be about finding and seeking presence and I’ll use the process I am most familiar with to do that

I might be painting on larger surfaces with more confidence in the present but colour remains the focus of my choices in paint. “Blue Gums” in progress.

Creativity has always been my road to presence so that’s where I would like to start. For those not familiar with my work it is generally colourful, semi abstracted and though it might be inspired by a particular place, I have no desire to replicate the real world. I prefer inference and reference and an emotional connection to an experience. 

The act of painting takes me to the zone, that place where time stands still and the worries of my world fall away. It is a place where I am fully present in the moment and a place I would like to introduce you to , to share in the stories my paintings tell. 

The painting I want to chat about in this episode  started out inspired by a collection of photographs I took one day on the trip home from the girls’ gym class when the sun was shining on the incidental green space along the side of the road. It was wild and woolly and fully in bloom. This painting has taught me several lessons including a new reminder I am in need of learning and that is ..to keep better records of my work 

I am embarrassed to tell you that I don’t have a professional photograph of this piece, nor a name written on the back of the stretcher, which has been my habit for many years now. 

I am going to rename her “Prairie girl” after the once small prairie girls whose daily activities inspired her beginnings. At home she hangs in what we affectionately have come to refer to as the Starbucks corner. 

I don’t know about you but at our house during covid we have found different uses for the different areas in our house. The dining room has become a multipurpose design studio, a zoom room, an office and a bistro for when the take out boxes are traded for a tablecloth and dimmable lighting. 

The living room is my daughters’ office, preferred by the cat in the afternoon and also the yoga barre. But since I am inviting you into my space and suggesting you get yourself a cup of tea or coffee, something stronger if you prefer,… there is no judgement here.  Let’s imagine we are settling into the Starbucks corner in the lovely morning sun

“PRAIRIE GIRL”, with her eagle taking flight in the background and her fairy magic occupying the foreground.

The painting, newly renamed “Prairie Girl”, is a semi abstracted landscape, 30” square, painted in acrylic on canvas in 2001! That was in the very early days of having a studio when I shared space and barely had time to get there during the course of any week. 

Those were the days when the needs of our then very young children were my focus and my creative practice slotted in anywhere I could squeeze it in. The rhythm of the weekly schedule showed me snippets of inspiration but I did not have the luxury to take a day or an afternoon to seek and be inspired so I took any opportunity as it arose. These moments had to be found as they could so easily have blended into the background of familiarity.

In 2001 our daughters were 6 and 4 year olds and gymnastics was a weekly activity. The facility we attended was a bit of a hike from home, along a secondary road yet still within the city limits.

 I don’t want to say I am a distracted driver, but I am very observant, I am curious and I am always very aware of my environment. 

Each week the roadside foliage along the way, some might say weeds, but that’s a judgement and remember, there is no room for  judgement here… with each passing week the foliage scrambled more and more energetically as the weather warmed into summer and the roadside bloomed. 

I love a little incidental landscape, you know, those un curated spaces along the side of the road, in infill lots, along railway lines, in suburbia, or anywhere really where the weeds and grasses are allowed to compete and freely blossom. 

In the image “Prairie girl”, you can see the suggestion of the prairie landscape stepping into the background and the roadside weeds scrambling in the foreground. 

For me this painting will always be a direct reference to that one sunny day after gymnastics class when I pulled off to the gravel shoulder in my bottle green minivan. I handed my girls a snack and juice box to consume in the backseat while I quickly snapped a dozen or so pics on my elf camera before hopping back into the van and heading home.

 I am dating myself but this was before digital cameras and iphones, nothing was instantaneous and printing the film was a delayed and intentional act. My studio at that time was a shared squeeze but was a space that was exclusively mine while I was there in the odd hours I could make it and it was a place to be creative.

 There, I was not worried someone would eat the chalk pastels or hurt themselves with toxic or sharp implements and I could relax and immerse myself in colour, in the process of interpreting the world around me.

I worked on paper initially and quickly developed the habit of painting on multiple projects simultaneously. I can’t even remember what I was working on as the main focus at the time but I do recall I had this 30” x 30” canvas that kind of became the canvas I ended my day with. ( meaning I used it to clean my brushes and use up any excess paint at the end of my time there. 

The foreground evolved into a reference to that overzealous stretch of wildflowers on the roadside. It is quite colourful as marks were dependant on what had survived the day in my paint pallet. It’s a little repetitive and just like the weedy blooms I was recalling, it too found its own rhythm 

This happened without much conscious thought and the piece evolving from a vague premise without any preliminary thoughts or sketches. My primary goal was to use up the paint and not be late for pick up.  I was immersed in the process with zero expectation and I guess effectively I was getting out of my own way. This incidental green space first encountered in those trips to gymnastic class, had bloomed through the struggle and competition for resources untended just as my painting had began. 

This “Prairie Girl” reminds me to be present, to be observant and to be aware but possibly the most important lesson I learned happened in the top part of the composition, in the sky. When I did take a pause to evaluate what was happening in the canvas I didn’t feel the sky was  working so with one of those critical self-statements I remember telling myself emphatically.. “Mand, this looks like absolute crap!” So I proceeded to paint out the sky with white gesso , effectively overpainting with the intention to erase what I had done and start again. 

As luck would have it the paint oozed in great globs across the surface as well as my desk and since it was almost time to leave I gathered a spoon or something to coral the liquid mess back into a container.

 As I brushed and dabbed at it some of the purple paint from below the surface began to blend with the white and as each spoonful of salvaged paint stretched across the painting to reach its salvaged container, long strings of liquid paint drizzled across the surface

Exasperated and literally up to my elbows in wet paint I paused to take in the sky that had bloomed into a pending prairie storm. And if you look closely there is the suggestion of a giant eagle taking flight. “Prairie Girl” lives in the Starbucks corner of our living room. She has a beautiful handcrafted bloodwood frame crafted by my talented friend and picture framer. In it her presence reminds me of my own “Prairie girl” It reminds me to take those detour adventures when i can and to allow events to unfold. Sometimes what happens will follow the course we have planned while at other times a new path will be forged and that path just might take us to somewhere new and unexpected.

Years later while I was doing some experiments with dye sublimating imagery onto fabric I used this same painting as a source image. It meant really enlarging parts of the composition. When I received the prints back, details from the foreground had blossomed into a clear elemental image, a lovely fairy hidden in plain sight. She became yet another reminder to be present, to be aware and observant in our daily travels because we just might find some hidden magic along the way.

Here is the link to go back to the podcast to take in the meditation if you haven’t already. Wisdom at the Crossroads, The Podcast is also available wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for 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

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

Sometimes a piece begins with some colour blocked areas.

I paint with a printmakers mindset and one colour at a time on my brush.

I always paint the edges of my canvases so the image does not always require a frame.

I am grateful to be a full time practicing artist, to be able to engage in creative explorations that can very often dissolve time. No day is the same. I have flexibility in my day; I am my own boss, even though my boss can sometimes be a very hard task master.

I believe creativity is as much about routine as it is about talent. Nobody just gets up in the morning and creates a masterpiece. There is preliminary work involved and this work is fueled by passion. I have had a studio since 2001, I am at the studio every weekday and have trained myself to work around the school day. My children are in university now but my body clock still kicks in for a change of focus at ten to three.  

In my work I aim to challenge myself to uncover a little of the unexpected as I strive to resolve any given composition and this is where play comes into my working philosophy. Creating anything is like training for a marathon; the hard yards make the end result look easy. Enjoying the journey as our process evolves is the key. Just as no day is the same, similarly not every studio day produces stellar results and I have to give myself permission to accept my failures as sometimes a mistake can lead me in a new and exciting direction.

As Artists we each have a predisposition to a particular palette, mine favors clear colours; “brilliant blue” by Liquitex and Golden’s “pyrrole red” among them.

 In the beginning however, I was a blender. Everything blended down to shades of burnt umber, raw sienna and red and yellow ochre. With the addition of black and white I created shades and tints. This palette was useful for my earliest photorealistic beginnings. I have learned however, to see colour as a mechanism  to define the same changes in value.

In Art School I double majored in painting and printmaking. For printmaking we learned to think in layers of solid colour. While I loved printmaking, the toxic oil based inks involved in the process did not agree with me so while I discontinued the practice I did salvage some conceptual approaches from the discipline that I use to this day as a painter. To simulate the layering in painting I began to under-paint in acrylics and overdraw in chalk pastel, thus holding one colour at a time in my hand. Together these ideas developed into my present work which is primarily in acrylic. Acrylic is a forgiving medium. It is quick to dry and could always adjust to my need for flexibility regardless of whether I had a few minutes, an hour or a whole day to work.

I am a creature of habit and like many artists I am drawn to particular tools. I like a flat square bristle brush in it various sizes for larger areas and a thin flippy brush for drawing in paint.

Any drawing is done in paint with very wet paint and a soft thin floppy brush.

Composition is definitely a focus of all of my work. Composition is about relationships, how one area of an artwork relates to another. I like to think of my compositions as “Communities of Colour”, where colours pair up, form groups and compete with, react to and/or assist each other.

The aim of which is to move the viewers eye around the surface from one compositional point of departure to another. 

I employ some basic compositional devices in my practice which I find important but not an exacting science: The golden mean for example is a system of defining proportions that I casually refer to as an estimation or guideline when thinking about a work in its beginning stages, as a piece is developing, and through to its completion. My more recent work has more of an intuitive feel with less formal planning but still these compositional guides come into play as a composition evolves.

For simplicity sake I often employ the rule of thirds where these horizontal and vertical (imaginary) divisions provide the basic structure of an image. These “rules” are used as a reference point during the evolution of an image. 

Energy can sometimes be exaggerated in a painting by tweaking or distorting these guidelines. Being “a little off” can be a good thing.

A diagonal path from one compositional point of departure to another can also help the “energizing” process. 

Working in layers the underpainting stage is the most fun. It is free of intention and so carries no expectation for an intended outcome. This is usually done in complimentary colours. As the composition evolves the residue of marks applied during the layering process can become a powerful tool in moving the viewer’s eye around the surface. 

Sometimes I like the under-painting so much the work never progresses beyond that point. .And of course sometimes it is abandoned to become something else on another day. Turning an abandoned piece on its head on my paint wall has been known to inspire some interesting changes.

My paint wall is equipped with studs that allow me to hang and remove multiple panels easily. Painting a diptych or triptych offers the added challenge of multiple compositions which also adds to the problem solving fun.

That fine, “flippy” brush comes into play to transfer my thoughts to a panel or canvas, my theory being, if I am working in paint, I should work only in paint from the outset. More recently the drawing aspect of my painting practice has come into play as a composition progresses to accentuate or clarify something.

Colour and its relationships will always be a part of my work regardless of media. When equal amounts of colours opposite on the colour wheel, or complimentary colours, are placed together the eye is content. The eye reads the proportions as balanced. When the same colours are used in disproportionate amounts their reaction reads like a vibration as the eye attempts to adapt by visually balancing the two. I like to refer to this as a “Popper”. In my compositions there are some places where the viewer’s eye can rest and others where the eye is pushed around. A “Popper “is definitely a pushy little devise I love to play with. 

The end product is an evolution through layers of process.

The absence of black is another characteristic of my work. I make a dark shade by adding compliments together. I find this version of a dark keeps the work active and vibrant. I also wash my brush frequently to keep my colours clear and prevent them from greying down.
Landscape has informed a lot of choices over the years. I am inspired wherever I am and search out potential subjects without realizing I am actually doing it.

I was known as the drive by shooter for many years by my family as I sat in the passenger seat on our frequent cross country road trips to sporting events with our athletic children. These reference images usually gathered in groups, were used to inspire a starting point for a piece or series. There was never the intention to recreate what I had photographed but to collage the essence of this with the curve of that as a project developed. 

Lately I have abandoned visual notes altogether and trust my painterly instincts to work intuitively. As my practice has grown and evolved my brushwork has gotten looser. I feel like I am off my game when my panels are tight but this is usually reflective of having had a break from routine that requires some more diligent practice to get the creative juices flowing again.

My studio remains my sanctuary and though my artistic practice includes textiles and more and more writing, I will always be a painter at heart, constantly expecting the unexpected, mindful of negative space and always at play at work in my studio.

“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”.

Wisdom at the Crossroads is the result of my personal journey through change. The crossroads in the title refers to the literal intersection where I was T boned by a Ford F-150 truck that destroyed my new car. Wisdom is what I discovered along the healing journey that followed.

I was that multi tasking mum, juggling too many things at once, not stopping to smell the roses and continually adding commitment after commitment to my already too heavy to do list. Until, the last day of the school year in 2009 when my life changed.

The collision that occurred has become a demarcation point from which we distinguish the time before and all that came after.
“The accident”, upended my reality, yet the calamity of that day instigated changes that brought new people, lessons and joy into my life. It continues to remind me, from darkness comes the light, and I am so very grateful.

( From the Intro...)
“As I walked away from the crumpled wreckage of my vehicle I was elated and very grateful as I declared, “I must have an angel on my shoulder”. I was thankful I had not yet picked up my daughters who minutes later would have sat at the point of impact. In shock I was unaware I stood at the precipice of a new beginning but as the healing journey evolved, I realized I had been given a gift: time and space to reflect and gather a new perspective”.

That new beginning has led me to a literal new chapter in my life where I can now call myself an author.

How did this begin?
The journey from action to stillness led me to new processes that helped me to stop and listen to the voice of my soul and find a way forward through change. I felt if this work could help me, maybe someone else could benefit from it too?

The words mindfulness and meditation are current buzzwords however, ten years ago when I first began this project, they were definitely outlier terms.
At first I didn’t know quite what to do with the meditative process I was developing or the wisdom I was gathering during these activities.
I needed a structure to ground my thoughts, using the alphabet seemed logical, because it is something to which we can all relate.
I thought of “Wisdom at the Crossroads” as a picture book for adults and yoga for the mind.
Paintings from my studio practice supplied the illustrations, with my new work in meditation and intuitive development providing the intellectual exercises.

( From the intro...)
“Reading it reminds me to be present in my own presence. I feel more grounded when I follow my own advice, less reactive, more peaceful and better able to manage the circumstances of my journey as it unfolds.”

I went through many fits and starts with this project and may even have taken the quote from “P” a little too far?
Italics or bold?
“Be patient with yourself as you progress along this path.”

Yet each time coming back to it, I continued the refining and editing process with a fresh perspective that made it simpler and smaller but somehow not less.

It wasn’t until our family faced another crossroads that I realized nothing is guaranteed in life, especially tomorrow. Finally I resolved to allow myself to be vulnerable, and get this project to publication.

I should read my words more often, like the quote from “J”...
“Move beyond fear, become weightless with joy.”

Crossing that threshold felt significant. Seeing the Friesen’s truck back up my driveway was exhilarating, I may even have cried, and there was definitely expensive champagne involved. “You only have one opportunity to celebrate your first day as an author”, exclaimed my husband and I melted into his support.

Holding this little book in my hands, as one of my girlfriends so kindly said, felt weightier than it’s small stature.

“Wisdom at the Crossroads” is by no means an instructional manual. By reading it through you get the gist of my meditative process but it is more intended as encouragement or inspiration for the reader to develop independently with the knowledge that we are never alone.
It can be read sequentially or simply opened to a random page for the daily inspiration of words or image.

In this world of ours change is really our only constant and with that comes the need for transformation.
“ Change is uncomfortable and often brings about some form of struggle. There are some adjustments to be made, but once the dust settles we become aware that struggle has brought us to a new awareness and the disruption to our status quo has occurred for a reason.”

All of our journeys are unique. Sometimes a personal crisis can feel overwhelming while in reality it is a normal series of reactions to serious, abnormal , life events. On big emotional days it might be nice to simply read a quote to be reminded it is ok to just be.

After a long winter for example...
“Rest your face in the sun,
Feel the soothing balm,
Of light in your surface.”

Making time for ourselves on a regular basis is challenging. It can be difficult to put ourselves at the top of that to do list, even for a short time. When I do, I start with the breath, to quote “U”...

“To breathe is the foundation of human existence and so I start there. In and out, in and out, it is an involuntary circle. To direct the breath however, that is another story.”
And where the reference to yoga for the mind evolved.

This book emerged out of a difficult time for me. In the emotional seasons we all grow through we are destined to experience range. No life is all good or all bad, we definitely live by degree.

My hope is that this project offers a little comfort to those undergoing changes in circumstances, large or small, positive or negative, and in time to realize as I did , that adversity can actually be a gift that sets us on a new new and wondrous path.

“Encourage your soul’s expansion,
Into its fullest expression,
Its brightest light,
And its most beautiful song.”

Publishing “Wisdom at the Crossroads” has been THE goal for so long that I imagined myself as a contented princess with a pea happily ensconced atop the pile of boxes containing my publication and relishing in a goal achieved.

I tentatively gave copies to my
inner circle, those who had supported me during the writing process. I was honoured by the responses I was receiving and the requests I was getting for more copies.

At the official launch at McNally Robinson Booksellers on the coldest day of a WInnipeg winter, ( Australia Day 2019), I was awed by the support I received from near and far that filled the room.

The night before I had dreamed an image of my husband and I sitting in an empty bookstore where we looked at our watches to see if it was time for us to go home.
Instead a line snaked through the store and attendees presented multiple copies for signing. Sisters gifted sisters, girlfriends gave them to girlfriends. I generally discourage clients from purchasing a painting as a gift as art is so subjective and I would hate for someone, unprepared for the vibrancy of my colour, to be forced to live with my art. This little book however, just might be the exception to that general rule.

I am humbled by the generous support I have received so far, inspired to learn what image or quote or statement resonated with a particular friend, old or new.

I am inspired by the connections I have made through my art and grateful for the encouragement I have received as my personal journey evolves.

I hope the universe does not wallop you upside the head in quite the same way, but I do hope you might be inspired by my story to find new and creative ways to navigate the winds of change as they present themselves in your own life. May you find the joy that awaits you, just around that next corner or over that current hurdle.

And possibly be as surprised as I was to be sharing table space, even for a short while , on the best seller list locally with Michelle Obama.