Carol Mahtab

Carol Mahtab (1935-2012), artist and environmental activist, lived in Digby Neck, Nova Scotia.
This post shows some images from her sketchbook, part of an exhibition of her work entitled still and moving that showed at the ARTsPLACE gallery in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2015.

Visitors were allowed to handle and photograph the sketchbooks, and these images were taken by my friend, Penny Berens.

"Carol's contemplative abstract works reflect her interest in Japanese Zen Buddhism, poetry, nature, and the foggy seascapes of her home in Sandy Cove"  says Janet Larkman, artist and curator of that exhibition.

"Her works appear simple, as if little is 'happening'. Yet when one gets still enough to be really present with them, there is an almost ominous quality, the content being so big it can never be fully known. "

I've kept these photos of Carol Mahtab's sketches for three years, and post them here so that they are easier for me to find.  (Perhaps you will like to see them as well.)

See more work by Carol Mahtab at this link.

"Because she was modest and never self-promoted, her work is not widely known.  Fortunately, she left behind a vast inventory of paintings created over her 60-year career.   Janet Larkman

Penny Berens' Daily Scratchings

 This post is about Penny Berens of Nova Scotia Canada and her amazing Daily Scratchings.

"The section above starts with the woodpecker stitched on October 2nd, 2012 and then the next day, a depiction of a trip up the Annapolis Valley to see the eye doctor.  For the 4th, I did that line of looped stitches, representing a day spent with the group of stitchers and hookers called 'Loose Threads'.  For October 5th I was thinking of things in the negative!  And the next section was for Thanksgiving weekend.  I was thinking of how days wrap themselves around one another.  Cotton threads stitched on damask."  Penny Berens

"In this image, the journal starts on Monday the 12 November 2012, when I stitched a flight of Canada geese that made me think of hieroglyphs. Then on Tuesday the 13th I watched a Murder of crows pestering an eagle on my morning walk.  They surrounded him in a tree and made a huge hullabaloo.  This was followed by a day of rain.  Cotton thread on hand dyed cotton."  Penny Berens
In Daily Scratchings, Penny Berens recorded the seasonal changes that she experienced while walking in the rural area near Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.   In the above image, Penny's work is shown installed in exhibition in the Yarmouth adjunct of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. 

Using hand stitched representational drawings and rows of abstract marks she documented the day that she had lived through.  

 

Penny’s visual and tactile witnessing of natural phenomena became a journal that holds four years of time. 

 On my most recent visit with Penny, she kindly brought out her journal and we went through the pages.  These photographs are from that time last October.

 

 Above, Penny's work as it appeared in the Inverness Art Centre on Cape Breton Island in Oct 2015.

Penny's love of the natural world and her close observation of it is communicated with joy, love and hours of time. After four years (2012 - 2015) of dedication, she stopped working on this journal.  

"On December 31, 2015 I completed the last stitched entry in my 'Daily Scratchings' journal.  I noticed towards the end of that four year project that my entries had become more and more exploratory rather than recording the small daily events in my rural life,  therefore the time had come to make a change.  Creating larger pieces of work through daily practice still fascinates me however, as well as setting myself small challenges."  Penny Berens

Visit Penny's blog to find out what happens next for this prolific artist.

tangle wood

 

This week I have been in Penny Berens' country.  

 

Penny and the rusty pups.  Bay of Fundy.

Three of us are visiting her. Val, Margi and Moi.
Supported and connected
by nature and friendship.