As Robert Genn observed, “In the art game, we do our own cooking.”  I doubt that he was referring to the mixing of pigments, the weaving of linen canvas or the creation of our own brushes.  In that sense, we don’t.  We shop.  In fact, most of us habitually stock up for a large variety of artistic.  In my case, while there are lots of tubes of oil paints and shapes of canvases and long oil brushes, cunning house hunts will turn up several full watercolour kits, sketching sets with three grades of paper, acrylic paraphernalia, coloured pencils in all shades, and assorted calligraphic nibs, inks, and paper, the theory being that, in the case of the End of the World, I can at least putter indefinitely.  Jon and Theodore and I will run out of food long before the art supplies fail.  It’s important to clarify one’s priorities. 

Still, he was right in thinking that we make something new and complete from the tabula rasa of a blank flat canvas.  Because this is work as well as pleasure, I periodically seek brief respites in which Christmas gifts figure prominently.   I have been buried in reading over the break, the favourite being Becoming by Michelle Obama.  The world was very lucky to have those two exceptional people in the White House for eight years.  The Canadian art book from my brother also saw much page-turning and a certain amount of couch tussling with Jon (who also likes to keep two or three on the go at any time).  But I like to think that in the back of my mind I was also incubating a painting or two.  T.S.Eliot certainly thought that art - whether poetry or painting - needed a period of dormancy or gestation.   At least I hope to hell that something’s back there.  I made the mistake of  totalling up the number of shows for which I need “something” (ranging from one to a whole lot of paintings) in 2019.  When the number surpassed a dozen shows I mercifully lost consciousness.

If there is an impetus to facing the music and getting down to it, Kahil Gibran’s definition is right on:  “Work is love made visible.”  The glaze oil process is certainly Work with a capital.  “Stephen’s Oslo” remains a cautionary tale when I am tempted to combine something that big with that much detail:  by Day Ten, I wasn’t even getting dressed in the morning.  Jon, upon returning home from work and finding me painting on a step ladder while still dressed in my jammies, made the mistake of asking if I knew what time it was.  I made the mistake of admitting that I had no idea.  The writer Peg Bracken, who was an avid reader,  always had chopped onions and a knob of butter in the pan so that when she heard the car in the driveway, she could drop her book and flip the burner on;  if her timing was right, her husband would enter with an appreciative “Something smells good!”  She probably left her apron on all day.  I guess I could keep a caftan in the studio.

I dare say that a complex twelve-square-foot canvas needing a minimum of twelve layers is somewhat more gruelling than reading in the living room.  Every so often, Jon asks if I might like to paint another marine scene and I shudder, but while I might not be keen on doing it again, I do remember that its creation was an act of love — of the complex beauty of sky and water,  of the calligraphy of masts and lines, of the sunset glow swathing all.   In fact, everything I paint is an homage to my love of it.

So my New Year’s Resolution is to keep walking towards love, while remembering that work is an inseparable component.   May your 2019 be full of joy and fulfilment.  Just remember to prep the onions and keep that caftan handy.

Remember the old philosophical question, “What sound does a falling tree make in the forest if there is no-one to hear it?”   I now have the answer:  it probably goes “WHOOOOOMPH.   DAMN!!!!!”

Occasionally I have admitted to a fall or two:
— off a ladder while I was holding a full gallon of paint (Garage 1: Z 0)
— from a low hanging branch which beaned me (who was wearing a baseball cap)
— from a flat-back rake which attacked me in the garage after I stepped on the tines
— from….well, you get the idea.

But never had I executed the Perfect Pratfall, that straight-spine dead-drop.

Until last week.  The three of us were walking in the forest along a level black road with no traffic.  All was well until I stepped onto a small patch of ice disguised as a skiff of snow and my feet skiied forward while my head inscribed a backwards arc.    I went down like a felled tree, straight as a board, limbs fluttering helplessly and landed on my trunk (note extended metaphor).   In that last split second before my head cracked onto the pavement, I wondered if Protestants can be given last rites.  It also struck me that, if I had any marbles, they had probably fallen out and rolled away.

Somewhat reassured that I could still remember my name, I had two immediate questions:  What works?  What DOESN’T work?  Deciding to check sooner rather than later because Theodore was about to wash my face, I sat up, stood up and, like a Canadian Lazarus, walked.  Luddites with Google, we checked out “signs of concussion”  as soon as we got back to the car.  To our amazement I had none of the eleven so we decided against the ER and went home instead.  Home is always the desirable destination in such situations.

Days Two and Three were more eventful.  I had to support my head with both hands to lift it out of bed because my neck muscles had turned me in to the Soft Tissue Police.    I am ever so grateful not to have a cold (Gesundheit-Shriek!!  Cough-Double-up-Scream!!).  My glass is definitely half-full.  The old body is outdoing itself in replastering and repainting.   I yelped only once yesterday. 

​Having satisfied the claims of European philosophy and dramatic training, I am now content to rest on my laurels.  I have also decided, as a way of honouring the perfected pratfall (No more practice, yippee!!!), to hang this self-portrait on its side in future.  It just seems right.

I have a tendency to grouse in December. Blame it on the lower light levels and dark Novembers.  But luckily I read something recently which made me rethink that posture.

Life being life, I have time to follow only two blogs.  One is Maria Popova’s BrainPickings, as you know, and the other is “Raptitude,” (which comes from Winnipeg, it turns out.  Of course.)  Although David Cain posts infrequently,  I know now to drop everything else and stop to read his long and wise reflections when one arrives.

Last week, his post on “How to Enjoy Life” was aimed squarely at me and my lousy attitude about the multitude of small jobs which proliferate in December.  He made the point that if we could make the habit of “taking even mild pleasure in such tasks,”  it would be life-changing because, as they say, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”  I have been giving it a crack and I think he’s right.   Given the option, it is surely better to build the intention to enjoy the unglamorous moments instead of being anxious to get them over with so as to get to the “enjoyable parts.”

Do consider subscribing to raptitude.com;  it’s free, well written and thought-provoking,  and you will receive an email whenever a new piece is posted.   Its subtitle is “getting better at being human.”  Yeah, Team Homo sapien sapiens.

To ice the cake, I managed last week to carve out six hours to do this grisaille of one of my favourite scenes.  I find value-study underpainting aesthetically appealing (like old sepia-tone photographs), and often am tempted to leave them alone and avoid the ugly duckling stage which follows.  The only thing pushing me forward through all of the other layers of a glaze oil painting is a desire to see that canoe claim its glorious turquoise hull.  We will see which urge wins.

​Most of our canoes (5 plus a kayak) have flotation devices.  These are simply big tough air-bags which are designed to discourage the vessels from sinking like stones.  This is particularly important when we are tripping on less-traveled rivers.  While Jon becomes more and more completely relaxed, I am feverishly visualizing the stages that a body (mine) will go through after I drown.  So the bags are a great comfort to me and are, besides, brightly coloured (so the search and rescue helicopter can locate my body).  On a sunny day they are cozy to curl up to.  Jewell even snoozed on them, although she had a tendency to toboggan off them in the rapids.  Flotation:  all good.

It is two weeks before Christmas and I caught myself thinking about this as we walked along today.  The flotation devices I was passing were somewhat more frivolous in intent:  most of them were Santas, complete with interior lights and bouncing with seasonal excitement.  For several years I have been planning an entrepreneurial coup inspired by these hot-air gentlemen.  Now if I tell you, you must promise not to steal my thunder or hot air.......

To appreciate the brilliance of this concept you have to think like a pre-Christmas woman.  I know you can do this.  Now review the lists you are working from:  
Christmas gift thinking/finding/hauling/wrapping/carding/delivering;  
Christmas cards writing/sending/reading;  
Special people meeting/phoning/emailing/entertaining;  
Christmas decorations unboxing/untangling/arranging/dangling;  
Christmas food deciding/shopping/hauling/storing/baking/cooking/table-setting/serving/cleaning up.  
And, of course, there is the
Christmas house cleaning/paring/ dusting/polishing.  Anyway, that's the short-list.

So here's my idea:

an inflatable wife/mother/sister/daughter/professional!  But unlike Santa, she will fully inflate only in the mornings, and will gradually lose air throughout each day.  After Christmas morning, she simply remains collapsed on the grass.  Isn't that a money-maker?

What do you think?  
​

Oh gosh, it’s that time of year again.  I don’t know what possesses me to believe year after year that December will be a quiet month.  IT ISN’T.   So once again, I find myself with too much to do and nothing accomplished as a painter.

For one thing, yet again I have ruined a bunch of brushes because I thought that they would be in use again the next day and I just plunked them into some baby  oil.  Not good enough when two weeks turn to three.   It gets to a point that I am afraid to inspect them (like that geriatric lettuce melting down at the back of the fridge).   But my teeny studio is single-use:  if I’m not painting, I’m not there, so the faint distress cries of the brushes as they form a permanent solid curve go unheard.

On the plus side, I suppose, the kitchen is well lived-in, though not really in a good way.    I hold Dr. Michael  Greger responsible for this.  While his meta-analysis of medical research is first-rate, his recipes lack a certain je ne sais quoi.  Actually I do sais quoi:  flavour, texture, and colour.  I just got over the so-called “fritatta” which substituted  ground flax and nutritional yeast for eggs, when the black-bean “burgers” checked  in.  Please.    

His desserts are actually edible, on the other hand.  The fake brownies were pretty good (more black beans) but chocolate can be counted on to save the day, and I like the “Ice cream” which substitutes bananas for cream.   But still…better to keep my culinary guard up.  I wince at the thought of what’s still to come.  This might be a good month for you to refuse invitations to our house, though Christmas week should be safe.

It puts me in mind of poor Tiresias, who had the temerity to fall in love with Eos, the goddess of dawn.  The Olympians punished him with eternal life and I'm pretty sure I can guess the diet.  With any luck I won't live forever.  Here and now is just fine -- if I am busy, it is with tasks worth doing in a home I love.  So here are my modest goal for the next week:   clean the brushes; reshape the brushes;  use the brushes;  clean and shape the brushes. Might even post my Monday blog next Monday.