Landscape Poetry

Here is the long awaited series that I have been working on for the last couple months. I have entitled this series Landscape Poetry because to me they vaguely resemble landscapes, but do not literally describe a location, much is left up to the imagination of the viewer. They are oil paintings because at the time I satrted them I really wanted to work with paint. I did not want to leave out totally the other elements of found objects and repetition that I had been working with. These elements are incorporated into this series of work in a much looser, more organic way than some of my previous work. This first piece has small, square mirrors embedded in it with some of the bare wood grain showing in the upper white area.

 Landscape Poetry in White

16" x 20"

This second one uses black glass pieces mixed with the oil paint. Many of the mixed media elements that I include in paintings have been salvaged and collected as I go about life. These pieces were collected from an accident scene (I was cleaning up) that had involved a police ghost SUV. 

 Landscape Poetry in Black

16" x 20"

This piece with the yellow glass is the most recent one to be completed. For this painting I specifically wanted yellow accents and really wanted them to be glass. In my travels I had not come across anything that would work, so I brainstromed and ended up buying a perfectly good yellow lightbulb to smash. I must say that it was fun and made a most satisfying 'pop' when I bashed it with the hammer.

Landscape Poetry in Yellow

16" x 20"

These are just the current pieces in the series, I am having fun with them, so I think I will continue with this theme for awhile longer. It may take awhile, because at the moment I have plans for at least two more! Only problem is that I am in the middle of trying to pack and get all these wedding decorations done.

August Art Night

Sigh, last nights art night did not go as expected at all. There were a grand total of three of us, including myself and my fiance. So really, only one person showed up. People seem interested and eager to participate, so perhaps it was just that it is summer and the middle of August and nobody is around. Come to think of it, it has been very quiet at work and around town lately, I suppose everyone is going away for their last summer holiday before school starts in September.
It was rather nice to have the time set aside for art, and I did start a new painting. Didn't manage to finish it, but I made a very good start. And, no, I didn't get distracted from wedding prep stuff: this is for the wedding too! It will be a 2 stage finished painting, stage 1 will be my part and stage 2 will be our guests part.
Photos of some of my other recent pieces are coming soon.

Inspiration-William Close and the Earth Harp

This past Friday I saw the work of William Close as he played his Earth Harp that he designed! The words that came to mind were: Profound Beauty. Something struck me deeply as I watched him play, it wasn't just the music, it was so much more. The instruments themselves were beautiful, the lighting was beautiful and the videography shots were beautiful. It was the combined elements that created the experience that said to me, we cherish beauty in every aspect of what we do. I think that is what made it so profound. Each of his instruments that he designs and builds is a musical sculpture, not simply a functional instrument. When he spoke about the Earth Harp, he said that because it anchors into the architecture of the space it is being played in, the building becomes part of the instrument and the audience is actually sitting in it.
To see his work, check out his website http://williamandtheearthharp.com/

Current project

Here is just a taste of what I have been working on lately. For our wedding, instead of doing simple pennant banners I decided it would be cool to string trees up. Trees continued our theme, it would look cool. Well, then I calculated how many trees I would need to run a few banners around the room, approx 250! The thought of hand-cutting that many was daunting, so using one of my favourite phrases of "there's got to be a better way" and I found one! I contracted a family member (what else are they for?) to cut them out on the scroll saw for me. These are just the start of the many trees that will be sprouting in the near future.

Ontario Highlights

I should share some of the highlights from my trip to Ontario not long ago. Besides meeting lots of people I visited some of the iconic sights, Niagara Falls (impressive), Niagara-On-the-Lake (quaint and lovely), the CN Tower (tall), and the Royal Ontario Museum (too much to see).

 Niagara Falls

 

At a park in Niagara Falls 

 

view from the restaurant in Niagara Falls

 Glass floor in the CN Tower many, many feet up

A very memorable spot too

 One of the many B&B's in Niagara-On-The-Lake

Catch Up

Hmm, oops it's been awhile since I have written anything. Somehow life has just plain gotten busy! Creativity is still happening amongst all the business, but in different ways. There has been brainstorming about dresses, accesories and decorations. Currently, the decorations have been taking up the most time and energy. I haven't totally forgotten about my paintbrushes! I have picked it up to do some experinmenting for our guest board painting, as well as applying the roller to many yards of paper to turn it just the right colour before cutting a multitude of trees out. Somewhere in the last couple weeks we had a another Arts Night. This one was a very casual open night for men and women to come and bring their current projjects with them to work on. It was nice to have an excuse to get the paints out and just play around, even if I did use the time to play with wedding stuff. Alright, so there is a quick update of what my artist endeavors have covered in the last while, hopefully the next update will be much more timely.