CPAWS DRAW

At the end of July, I (with 14 other artists) participated in CPAWS DRAW, an annual art residency “in support of the ongoing protection of the Dumoine River”. CPAWS is Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, a charity dedicated to the protection of public land, freshwater and ocean; DRAW is the acronym for Dumoine River Art for Wilderness; the art retreat is organized by the Ottawa Valley Chapter of CPAWS.
We camped at Lac Pennisault at the ZEC Rapide-des-Joachims in Quebec which is about two and a half hours north of Ottawa. It was an inspiring week of exploring, noticing, and learning. CPAWS-OV has been working with others “to identify and create ecological corridors on both sides of the Ottawa River”. During the week, I worked on sketches and developed ideas that I plan to develop in the studio. Each artist will be donating a work for a CPAWS-OV fundraising exhibition in 2023.

New Studio!

Very excited to have moved into a studio at Enriched Bread Artists, Ottawa.

From Gatineau Park hike: intrigued by textures and colours of lichens and mosses.

My new location

I moved to Ottawa in 2021, and now May 2022, am finally re-starting my blog. I live near the Ottawa and Rideau rivers. My studio is currently on Loretta Avenue North; July 1st, I move to a studio at Enriched Bread Artists. The studio is across the river and across the canal from where I live, about an hour and half walk or about an 30 minute bike ride or 40 minute transit ride.

Residency in Iceland

I arrived 2 days ago for a two-month residency at SIM (The Association of Icelandic Artists) in Reykjavik and started work by walking, observing colour, light, and texture while I formulate my ideas. It is beautiful! and something about the air and sky makes it seem easier to see further and clearer. 

thaw, freeze, stillness, wind, quiet

blues, whites, silvers, ochres, yellows

Tarkovsky's film Solaris

I recently viewed the film Solaris by Tarkovsky (from 1972). A view of the ocean from above figures reoccurs in the film; the ocean is a character which tampers with the memories and consciousness of the humans in the film. Below are two images from the film: the first of the ocean and the second, the final image of the ocean in which an island appears. Very potent images. 

Upcoming Exhibition

images and scale

Started collecting images for new work by taking some photos in the garden. Always amazing how scale and isolating details makes things appear differently. Pleasurable process of noticing and gathering images to initiate new work.

suture/sutra

 

I have been reading the book The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit. Stories within stories. In the book she talks about "Strands a few inches long twine together into a thread or yarn that can go forever, like words become stories." p. 131 From there to fairly tale heroines who spin, then to spinsters, then to needle, to suture: "The English and Latin word for suture has the same root as Sanskrit sutra or Pali sutta. They both have to do with sewing. The sutras, the most sacred texts of Buddhism, were named for the fact that they were originally sewn. The flat blades of palm leaves were strung together by two lines of thread that tied together the stiff, narrow pages like accordion blinds. The books were copied by hand over and over again in that climate of decay. Thus leaf become book, and knowledge was held together and transmitted in a thread, a line, a lineage.",  
p 132

Troubling Paintings

I like how the strokes of paint offer so many possibilities in terms of meaning. The marks of paint and brush become a tangled garden, a forest, dense and impenetrable.