Welcome June. Ahhh, the month of love, weddings, engagements, gardens and, of course, Painting outside! The list of Plein Air options around the area is opening up and there are so many wonderful places to just get outside and be creative, regardless of your medium.
As I write to you today I will paint for you a picture of what this artist’s morning is like. I am sitting here in my Country kitchen, gazing out at the beautiful, great, Northumberland Strait. Hummingbirds (we call them our North Shore Airforce) are involved in their greedy territorial battles over the feeders.
Oops! My paper sticks to a dollop of strawberry jam, dropped amongst toast crumbs. My cold coffee cup sits next to last night’s empty bottle of Shiraz… In the sink last evening’s dinner plates chill sadly in cold water awaiting the company of the breakfast dishes and a bath of warm sudsy water. They will be sad to know they will all wait in vain and will be cold again by lunch.
You see, the great outdoors called to Lucy and I early this morning. (Lucy is my slightly full figured Chocolate Lab.) We just had to take a walk through the damp meadow, now abundant with the scent of wildflowers and sweet summer grasses down to the shoreline. We had to find sticks and throw them way out into the quiet waves for Lucy to fetch and then roll ecstatically in the sand.
My walk today made me think on life, and how, really and truly, even amongst all the turmoil and crazy, there’s so much to
celebrate…if we look….if we are observant.
celebrate…if we look….if we are observant. It also made me think how each of us chooses to see things and interpret them in our own ways. Like the heart and soul of an Artist. Regardless of medium, we do it our own way — and isn’t that what makes the Art world go round!
I have had challenges in Painting: workshops where we are expected to “follow rules”. I also have a tough time with critics and with critiques of Art work. But this is just me. I say “thank heavens for individual freedom to create the way we see things — the way we feel with our heart and then go forward fearlessly into the act of making it happen”. I am thrilled each time I step into Art Hollis and see something new and interesting on an Artist’s wall space or shelf. I believe there’s an intimacy there — an invisible message that goes from the Artist’s heart and soul out to the viewer.
And bless the Viewer who can accept that message — understand that even in Art we must celebrate “the difference”.
Enjoy!
See you at the Gallery,
Cris