Paintings – The joy of colour, the flow of form; a beautiful way to share inner visions
The Philosophy Behind My Paintings
When asked what sort of art I do, I say “I explore and share Wonder and Whimsy.” My paintings are pure reflections of this philosophy. They begin when something in worlds either physical or conceptual catch me up and make me wonder. My own secret sauce tends to be a whimsical blending of outlook and approach to my creative mark making. The act of making art is so interesting to me. It is a real manifestation of the essence of my inner visions—those fleeting, intangible moments of inspiration. It can be a slog, trying to rationalize some spontaneous byways I get caught up in while making a painting. It is usually a very pleasant series of satisfying interlocked surprises and discoveries. Through acrylics, I seek out the colours and forms that bring these visions into focus and fill them with their own life.
The Creative Process
My process is not quick or formulaic; rather, it is rooted in exploration and discovery. The journey of creation is just as meaningful as the finished piece. It is through this evolving process that I find what is really there to share. I embrace the time it takes, allowing the art to unfold naturally without rushing.
Art as a Gift
In many ways, these paintings are the Universe’s gift to me. The time I have to create them feels like a blessing, and the final pieces themselves are my considered and intentional offering in return for the inspiration that fuels their creation. The act of sharing these works with others completes the circle of creativity. It connects my creative time and thought with others. Someone who spends time with my work and seeing the connections in the work begin to unfold for them, is bringing the life I put into my paintings back up to where it moves and breathes for them – lifting the painting from a simple artifact to a living experience.
Fish ; I wanted the simplest of things – 3 fish on a background of coloured dots and dabs. I wanted to explore archetypes, and how they help organize the concepts that are our windows on the world. I wanted energy and potency and a weaving together of depths and planes and plenums. I wanted to see everything at the same time, seeing as if all were X-ray imaged and you can look through the water to the sky, through the earth to the ocean. I painted transparency inhabited by energy and colour and iconic spirit. I painted colour and life and all the depths and surfaces. I painted 3 fish on a background of assorted dots and dabs.
Reflections ; I was reflecting one day. You know, thinking about animals, and elements, and flow, and interaction . . .
And then I thought of the word “reflecting” itself, with it’s different meanings. We think, we reflect. We act and react with and upon each other – which is reflecting each other. Water and air both reflect light in different ways. Animals living in these elements act in ways that reflect their similarities as well as the differences between them.
I take pleasure in words. I also enjoy taking ideas and wrapping them into shapes and colour in dynamic and interesting ways. Hence “Reflections”.
Killarney Dream 2 ; This is the 2nd exploration of my Killarney Stream. Looking for shapes to fit all the dreams I can find for Gods Country as seen around the Northern Georgian Bay Area. Painting as though Time were transparent as Water, and the Earth and Sky shift from Epoch to Epoch.
Killarney Dream 1 ; This is the first exploration of my Killarney Stream. Hoping to show the dance where the Spirit remains no matter what the sky and water and land and trees do as they shift from place to place as Deep Time breathes in and out. The approach was inspired by a visit to Killarney, in the North East Georgian Bay Area.
Moments of Forever ; There are moments that seem eternal when we dwell in them. There are moments that live large in our memories long after they have passed. Moments are firmly rooted, for all they are the essence of ephemeral. Moments are forever.
A Regarding ; Life is the Universes lens. Life begets incredible new energies. Life requires awareness, and this awareness generates a sharing, life with life. That energy seeds an extraordinary Dimensional Blooming. Living has given the Universe emotion, music, visual art and dance, mathematics and countless other upwellings from the unique spaces of creation and imagination. An Inukshuk means a purposeful hand has touched a place. Here the Inukshuk is the Universes window through, and into, a Dimensional Blooming. The Universe regards spaces potent and alive with life. The spaces of A Regarding.
Moving Colour *sold
Asymmetric Diptych The Heart ; The Heart centres everything, draws it in and energises it and pushes it forth, brilliant with the flow of life.
Asymmetric Diptych; The Heart : The Going *sold
Asymmetric Diptych : The Going ; The going forth, the flow that touches the universe and then curves back on itself, life’s purpose.
The Round ; The flow of love in a family is the root of connection.
Surfacing ; “Surfacing” is an exploration of what a surface is. In this piece I engaged myself in a wordless conversation about scale, and at what scale does a surface become contained. There is an extraordinary and powerful range in the concept of surfaces. A surface moves from the infinite enfoldment of Deep Space down through to the macro universe of almost Mandelbrot regressions held in a grain of sand.
What is the Deep Blue Yonder? Is it both the deep blue sky, and the deep blue sea? How richly can those blue depths be brought to the surface, or reach ever deeper till blue becomes an enormous pressure, a force beyond pure weight?
The ebb and flow within my canvas, the depths within depths, the dance of colours – these are where stories begin to speak as I work through my creative process. Stories are what connect people. Stories form the sinews and bones of culture. And the beauty of art is that it becomes the place, the space, where unspoken stories may find their voices.
Through One Another ; Dancers in the Pattern. Dancers not always touching. An intentional mutual awareness is their touching. Sharing the dance, energizing the in between spaces. Spaces which are not really spaces but a kind of touching that contains them both. That becomes more than them both, a complex exchanging of within and without that births the Extraordinary. Sharing the dance gives us a chance to become one another, and birthing the Extraordinary in doing so. The Web of Life is a brilliant vibration of all these myriads of moments constantly becoming so much more. So very much more.
Chrysalis ; Caring, sheltering, nurturing, and energizing. The crucible of change that is life.
Chrysalis Grove ; Watchers of the Grove stand on the Ithsmus, watching the Chrysalis as Sky Dragons wheel above. A whale regards a mermaid. It is all connected.
: The inner world is one with all worlds. We are gateways opened to some small part of the beautiful whole we are able to appreciate.
Dreams of Flight
Moon Time ; The Moon is spilling its invisible essence. Essense that spirals through time and space and through the very core of the Earth. For Moon and Earth had once joined long ago, long before they became separately what they are today. The Moon’s essence is a core engine of the surging force lifting the ocean’s waters. Earth Air Fire Water spiral each in their turn, spun up from the waters. The Tree Dancer exalts the Crane.
Transition Weave ; The eternal moment weaves itself out of the strands of the universe. Gaia is sharing a gentle homage to Marilyn Monroe’s skirt.
Sky Dancers ; I wanted to take the Tree Dancer concept and try to translate it into paint. I wanted to sweep the sky into the earth, the surface into the depths, the ephemeral into the eternal. I wanted to play with the paint. Stir in a taste of our Canadian North where the tree line merges into the tundra. Mix the 4 basic elements together using a Tree Dancer as a conduit or pathway. The sky and the earth, water and life (as fire), the depths and planes that define these things . . .
I am always trying to make it all work together. To show interrelationships and create a conversation, or at least open up room for stories to be told.
Joining Rhythm ; The flow of life, of time, of energy – a capture
The Mystery ;
It actually was a mystery, the way this piece came to be and just what it means. Specifically, I was going about my day and a vision popped in to my head. The intensity of that vision caught me up, and I spent a good amount of time trying to express it on canvas. Creating art like this, the process, is a form of meditation for me.
The closest I can come to figuring the importance of the vision is my belief that it is about the mystery of life.
Yin Yang *sold
Thinking Place ; There are places of power. We can sometimes sense a potency whether or not we understand where that feeling comes from. Thinking Place is a combination of several things, but in part it is expressing an idea that a thinking place can in part be a place that (in some mysterious way) actually thinks itself.
Dreams of Flight II
Reflections II ; I was reflecting one day. You know, thinking about animals, and elements, and flow, and interaction . . .
And then I thought of the word “reflecting” itself, with it’s different meanings. We think, we reflect. We act and react with and upon each other – which is reflecting each other. Water and air both reflect light in different ways. Animals living in these elements act in ways that reflect their similarities as well as the differences between them.
I take pleasure in words. I also enjoy taking ideas and wrapping them into shapes and colour in dynamic and interesting ways. Hence “Reflections”.
Myth Becomes Dream ; I was thinking about time gone by, holding in my mind the world of what may have been. Many, many thousands of years ago there were vast lands that now lie beneath the oceans of our world. Before the collapse of the glaciers and the rise of the waters people had a long time to knit themselves into the Drowned Lands that we now only can visit in dreams or visions.
These ancient long-lost people had stories. The stories, when their homes disappeared beneath the waves, became myths. And these myths, as the ages pass, have also disappeared. Storytellers die away and their words are no longer spoken. New people, new lands, new stories, each in turn slipping into that deep and faraway place we now sometimes connect into and say we are dreaming.
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