As the second day of September rolls in after a cool morning, I go to the Gallery Pod to open up for visitors between 11-4 again today. There is an ease to early September where I have chatted with a handful of people in the line up for the bakery this morning who all offered congratulations on the new gallery space. I came home and trimmed up some branches so I can see the entrance to the Gallery Pod from inside the house. Yesterday, the extension cord was placed in a conduit pipe and buried in the trench that had been dug the day before. So everything is looking sparkling and organized. I then came in and ordered two raised cedar planters for the yard. Each will have a locally made olla watering pot that I have already purchased. I liked how the first one has worked in a big clay pot this summer so I decided to see if we can at least grow some salad greens this fall or next year. The big fir trees blocking out the sunshine are the main challenge but we shall see.
In the meantime, an art collector and gallery visitor yesterday brought the most lovely local arrangement of mostly sunflowers for the Gallery Pod. Are they not just the most lovely addition?
Then a little later, another art collector suggested that I come by and see their sunflowers for inspiration. They offered to pick some for me but I knew I wasn’t going get a chance to paint them right at the moment with the opening days for the Gallery Pod that also includes the home studio and our house. So I just went over and gathered a few images to enjoy in the evening light and left the flowers to create seeds for the birds. They certainly were lovely though. They feel as big, bright and cheerful as the sun itself!
I love how much variety there is in sunflowers.
They seems to have a magic all their own as they tower over my head in the early September sky.
Speaking of September, this painting of East Point was inspired from this time of year. It is now on hold as of yesterday and a final decision will be made early next week. In the meantime it is still on the Gallery Pod wall to enjoy.
Another art collector, who is also a friend, will arrive tomorrow night to stay in a local Airbnb for a few days for a much deserved vacation. We have plans to go out for dinner and listen to live music as part of a fundraising event. I expect we might also get a morning hike or two in as well. And maybe even dinner at our house.
Over time, I have noticed that there is a lovely fluidness between serious fans and those who collect my paintings and friendship. Sometimes the art viewing and collecting comes first and sometimes the friendship comes first. I suppose it makes sense that it would be so since the paintings are so deeply personal and a significant way that I express myself in the world. Still, it is something that I am incredibly grateful for and never take for granted.
It is a Friday of counting blessing and being grateful for the pure richness in our ordinary everyday.
What is filling you with gratitude at the moment?
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The first days of September have rumbled past Mayne Island in thunder, lighting, rain and sun. Unsettled weather I believe they call it. As many of you know, I usually focus on the sun and let the rest slide off like rivers of water on our tin roof and escapes along the bedrock to the valley floor. But today not so much. There is nothing specific that has cast a shadow on my optimism but rather a clutter of small bits, hanging at about head-height, making it hard for the light to get through.
As I mentioned today over on Kathy Drue’s Lake Superior Spirit blog post “the sun’s egg yolk eye in late summer” this is my favourite time of year. There isn’t much time to read though. Even so, I am working my way through I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simons and several art books on the life and work of the American Abstract ExpressionistRichard Diebenkorn. This and having recently finished watching the T.V. series Mad Men on Netflix. Hence, I have spent much of the summer in the North American time of my childhood learning about events, art and music that was not really part of my rural experience at all. It seems most of this didn’t reach me until the late 70s.
Of course, I have painted as usual these past months. Late summer is the time when my love affair with still life painting comes into full blossom.
(GOLDEN PLUMS AN APPLE AND GREEN VASE – 12 x 16 inch oil on canvas released today HERE)
But the midday light is starting to become rich and warm again so I shall be back to my camera expeditions along the sea.
(Cattle Point with iPad is a photography sketch from Tuesday for future painting reference.)
This then is the beginning of the bitter, savory and sweet times of brilliant tangerine, lemon and rose flickering colours in front of the brooding and impending darkness of winter.
(SLICE WITH A TEAR 36 x 60 inch oil on canvas yet to be released but soon I promise)
(EVENING AND THE ARBUTUS TREE 36 x 60 inch oil on canvas available HERE)
So we could blame this darkness of spirit on Leonard Cohen for light is only as visible as the shadows allow. Therefore, in order to live in the light one must know the shadows.
(RHYTHM OF THE SEA EDITH POINT 20 x 40 inch oil on canvas will also be released soon)
Who better to guide such a journey than Leonard Cohen. Undeniably, Cohen offers a well-worn path into the grey and the bleak. But that is not it – not really.
Could it be the daily browsing and musing over the paintings of Richard Diebenkorn who, even with his brighter moments, leaves me with a mysterious sense of lose? A lose that is likely unintended on his part from what I have read?
So no, it is not these abstract expressions of Diebenkorn with their occasional years of figurative and representational works. But possibly the blues has something do with the hope and optimism that was dashed when a world became driven by materialism such as is so cleverly shared in the series Mad Men. Today, Diebenkorn’s paintings can be viewed on the imagined glossy magazine pages of the previous advertizing thrones of Madison Avenue while our noses are currently pressed up against the calving glaciers of impending climate change and Cohen brings us to our knees during a more resent poised rendering of his song “Hallelujah.”
Not a comfortable or perky image if I do say so. Possibly at this point, there is only one direction left for this artist to go and that is up. Yet, I stay awhile. Such hard fought drilling into the underbelly of darkness should not be wasted. Last evening we watch the 2010 Chilean film “Old Cats”written and directed by Sebastián Silva and Pedro Peirano. This film is an endevour to bring us full force into the mess of living at the ends of our life, and possibly the universe as we know it, with its unraveling unfinished and often unresolvable finality which must be accepted as it is – a work-in-progress.
At this very moment as I write, my honest answer is – I haven’t a clue. Are you surprised? The woman, the painter, the photographer and the writer who always seems to have some plan or other hasn’t a clue? True.
Once in a long while you see, I realize that most of what I am doing will matter not within hours, days or weeks of having done it. Yet, I persist in my delusions that it does matter and it is important. Why, we might ask, do I do this? Because to meet the reality face-on that it is all for no reason at all makes it hard to get up and then do what I am compelled to do. Therefore, in my normal altered state, I must believe what I do does matter and it is important – if only to me.
Also, thank you to everyone who commented, shared and voted on my three landscape paintings in the Arabella Competition for the People’s Choice Award. Due to a late change in the contest rules, these paintings have been eliminated from the possibility of being selected for this award. The change in the rules allow for only paintings selected for the semi-finals to be considered for the People’s Choice Award. My three paintings were not among the Canadian landscape paintings selected for the semi-finals. Disheartened, I remember those who have come before me and who have failed on numerous occasions to capture acceptance for their work. The list is long and I know I am in good company. However, this disappointing competition result does not lessen my humble gratitude for those who do collect and appreciate my work. Thank you all again for your unrelenting encouragement and support. I am reminded…
(my youngest grandson on the beach at New Castle Island)
I wish all the Canadian Landscape artists whose paintings are moving forward in this competition all the best and much success.
Because of all this, with these unraveling, unfinished and unresolvable marks on the canvas of my life, I shall continue to work on what will always be – a work-in-progress.
Spare no pigment on the palette and pass the brushes please.
How about a long walk? We haven’t been on one together for awhile. It is a warm afternoon and getting close to dinner time so it should be peaceful out on the point. Doesn’t that sound like a great idea?
Then there is this particular arbutus tree! I don’t know how many times I have tried to get it just right in a photograph. Maybe this time. What do you think?
Well that is it for the sunny west side of our late afternoon September walk. Time to cross over to the dark side. Can you hear the surf through the trees? It won’t take long.
The air is still humid and warm with hardly a whisper of relief off the water. The sky is clear. Yet the sea is dark and hugs the shadows along the shore.
Time to head for home. We have been over an hour and a half. It is a good thing we brought our water bottles.
———–
As long fingers of fog are blown into our open windows this morning, I shiver and begin closing out the cool dampness. Then I remembered the sea from our walk on the weekend.
Remember that the late afternoon was warm and humid with hardly a wisp of breeze off the water? Yet, the sea frothed and boiled as it slammed up against the sandstone shore? Now we know why. Fall is here.
Sprout question: What signs of fall are blowing in your direction?
Creative Potager 