Don't Worry

 

I've been spending quite a bit of time on this picture of red horses.  For some reason,  I feel that I need to finish it before going on to my real work but why did I even start it? Did I think it wouldn't take much time?  Wrong.

Did I think it would be something nice to hang as Christmas decor?  That's a good idea, but it was not the original intent.
It came out of me learning Janet Bolton's methods and seeing a photo of Swedish folk art.
This piece is a break from my abstract work.  A change.
A change is as good as a rest they say.

Maybe it is my don't worry cloth.
Maybe the horses are Ned and I, far away from anyone.  On a hill, with sun  and snow.
In our mid 60's lucky to have each other as life companions, on a timeline.
Too soon we will need to be changed, pushed, listened to.

Making it gives me space away from real life.
Making it gives me time away from real art.

This little thing gives me a place to not worry.

my visit with Roxy and the others

splitscreenspace summer d'ete'  oil on canvas by Charles Gagnon 1977

 maman, cast bronze by Louise Bourgeois 1999

one hundred foot line, steel  by Roxy Paine 2010

balling, oil on canvas by Joyce Wieland, 1961

I went to Ottawa on Saturday to visit the National Gallery.  Slowly looking at great visual art is a magical kind of healing and nourishment..

Gerald Ferguson - his dot painting from 1974
Greg Curnoe - the hurdle for art lovers that he made from kitchen knives and knitting needles
Jack Bush - one of his Flag Series
Paterson Ewen - a painting of the night sky that I was unfamiliar with
Betty Goodwin of course -the room full of  her bed drawings and related sculpture
Ronald Bloore - I'd forgotten how much I liked his work
The rest are in the Builder's exhibition - 2nd biennial of new aquistions. Ottawa citizen review here.
David Ross Harper - a life sized realistic race horse with a beautifully embroidered crest on its flank
David Merritt - his drawing that looked like grass or hay from a distance - but once you were closer it was popular song titles .  I also heard him speak "I like that drawing can convey duration of time"
Jon Pylypchuk - his worried animalistic figures
Sarah Anne Johnson - the feelings that she tried to show by altering her photographs, she spoke "I strive to make work about me and my thoughts"
Susan Dobson spoke and I loved to hear her intelligence
Chris Cran spoke "what if my hand has its own intelligence?"
Elisapee Ishulutaq - her twenty foot long oil stick drawing about her home place and the video of her on her knees making it.

nourishment

 I am exploring the idea that the act of creating is self nourishment.   Perhaps even more than it is self expression.

This bundle of cedar branches was wrapped months ago, but now is re-shaped,  wrapped again, this time with wool yarn.

Wrapping...it's like chanting.