Richard Herman / Studio Journal

Free Play

2012-01-30T16:51:00.000-08:00

Free Play #1 2012.

This painting was a joy to do. Starting with a warm chalky white base, the canvas was divided into rectangles and a small coloured square was painted. Then then once that was set, another square was painted, with colour adjusted "just so". On it went ....point and counter point. Fun. This canvas is now at Art Interiors in Toronto, where gallerists Lisa and Shira saw it as intended right away. A painting like this is without any "meaning", it is really paint for paint's sake. And painting like this takes a mental burden from the landscape painting, so that it too is reinvigorated. Painting in two very different styles is not uncommon, but it is a new experience for me. A very good turn.

Snow Squall in the Beaver Valley, Ontario.

2012-01-18T11:47:00.000-08:00

oil on canvas 60inches by 40inches. 2012. Loft Gallery, Clarksberg Ontario

Small Studio Ballet

2012-01-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it is great to paint a big canvas, and I would like to go very big sometime, perhaps 8ftx8ft. Unfortunately my studio is very small. Yesterday after turning around and knocking a can of turps onto a newly finished painting (spent the day re-painting), I thought about moving, but then realized how attached I am to this place.

It is in an old office space above a major thoroughfare, with oak trim, and a transom that opens with a brass pole . The landlord puts nameplates on all the doors... "Richard Herman Studio" . It might as well say "Sam Spade, Private Investigator"... very quaint. The landlord has also been very good to this longtime tenant, and has allowed the sacrifice of the old threadbare carpeting to layers of paint. When the single large window is opened, Yonge street roars directly below. Also below is the old Capitol theater, now an events venue, and in the evenings Bar Mitzvahs or Wedding parties can can be heard in the halls. Work in this small space has to be choreographed. Large canvases are carefully moved, and the tools and supplies of the craft have to be efficiently organized. It gets messy quickly. Once I had a big warehouse space downtown, but those old building have all been turned into condos, and this studio is close to home and family. The walk home takes 15 minutes. I enjoy working in the evening when the other offices are empty, while listening to history books on cd. Currently listening is "America in the time of Lincoln", fascinating. This little studio is too small, but it is just fine.

A Leap of Faith in 2012

2011-12-29T07:17:00.000-08:00

#1 2012 60inx60in

Creatively 2011 has been a strong year. It has also been an turning point in my attitude toward the craft element of art making. In a series of large landscapes the detailed working of the canvas was taken to its full extent as far as visual veracity goes, and something artistic has been settled for me. Now it's time to step back from that intense involvement in technique, and get a fresh perspective. So I am jumping into something completely different. The point here is not to abandon the landscape, but to develop an alternative studio experience that uses a different part of the mind....

Right now I'm working on non-representational paintings. It would not be accurate to describe them as "abstract" because they are not abstractions of things represented. They are large canvases that are an exercise in colour relationship, division of space, line, and simplicity. The painting itself is the thing, not just a means of evoking something else. The physical presences of canvas, its scale, colour, and form, are the only point. It is very "pure" in that I am being mindful of any affectation or decorative tendency, and keeping only those elements that are essential to the integrity of the painting. Pull one element away and the composition collapses, add one too much and the composition also collapses. I am enjoying this very much and will post the work when complete. By doing something completely different it has shaken up my landscape work, and a series of winter landscapes just started feels and looks fresher because of it.

Ten Little Trees

2011-12-01T17:42:00.000-08:00

Once a year I paint miniature panels (no bigger than 8in x10in) for Art Interiors in Toronto

The magic hour.

2011-10-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

This week the rhythm of inspiration throughout a workday has really been distinct. Starting in the morning a canvas will not suggest much, and applying paint is awkward.. With some pushing the marks made will start to suggest something more, and there will be a spark. Once the canvas comes alive I need to step back and rest. Through the afternoon momentum builds. Yet, for some reason that big spark with energy and vision for the whole painting does not kick in until 10pm. From 10pm until 1am it can be pure magic, the kind of magic that makes it all worthwhile. I'm not sure why this is so. It might have something to do with the quieting of the street outside, or the basic silence of the night. This is not a convenient rhythm, but it is what I find myself working with.

A Mountain High

2011-10-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

When flying into Calgary this week, I caught a first glimpse of the prairies as the aircraft banked. There was that space, that incredible golden light, and that undulating line of the prairies. I don't know why, really can't explain it, but a happiness, a sense of joyful space and light filled me. I have never lived on the prairies, and have no specific family roots here, but something always feels good.

During months spent painting the canvases for the show here, it felt a few times that this might not come together, so it is really good to see how well the installation looks. It clicks. There is also a very positive straightforward attitude at the gallery that is a pleasure to work with.

Right now I'm taking a break and am sitting with some chocolate cake and a coffee, in a cafe in Canmore Alberta, seeing the late afternoon sun rake the snow capped mountains directly above.

This is a nice moment, a good day. It will cycle through as sure as night follows day, I know that. But still, a high like this is just fine.

Early Morning with Quiet Road. Sept 2011

2011-10-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

Sculpting Clouds

2011-09-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

"Big cloud filled sky" 76 in x 48 in

Different paintings can take me to different places while in process. This is a sunny painting that naturally determined its own resolution from the beginning. It lead to a very fresh, open, and joyful state of mind.

A long view in Southern Alberta

2011-08-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

This canvas has been on and off the easel for a while. It was finished two weeks ago, but sat there unhappy. So it has been reworked one last time. At 60in x 60in inches it is hard to photograph and is one of those paintings that is diminished in reproduction.

Need a break. Time to get the canoe out and leave the city.

Jumping into a Cold Lake

2011-08-02T06:07:00.000-07:00

This morning is one of those times when the easel is intimidating. There is a big, 60in x60in canvas that is almost finished, and it has amazing potential. It could be finished by tonight, but it will require a leap and some luck to make that last spark of magic happen. In a way painting a picture is like "throwing a pot" on a potter's wheel. There is no guarantee of success, and a stable level of energy has to be sustained throughout the session, so as not to drop the thread of inspiration.. It is possible to paint myself into a corner and be left with a canvas that can't be resolved.

The interesting thing is, there is a moment of crisis like this toward the end of any painting that works really well. Because it means giving up certainty. It is that "standing on one leg then the other" moment before jumping in a cold lake. It can be so hard to just jump, but once in the water it is bright and alive. This canvas is at that point.... So I'm intimidated as I sit in the nearby coffee shop eating an egg sandwich and drinking an ice coffee. Half thinking of ways to avoid it. ""Maybe it is time to get a hair cut?"... "I should book that van for Saturday".. "It would be nice to write in the studio journal"..... "The dog needs her nails clipped".... " It's such a beautiful day... such a beautiful summer day". Ok then ...Jump

Ambiguity and the Eye

2011-08-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

Projecting imagination onto the canvas makes use of a suggestive ambiguity. . Leonardo Da Vinci described how when he looked at a pattern of mould on a wall, and let the eye relax, he could see within the random contours and tonal variations, an entire battle of men on horses, down to the smallest detail. This is basically a highly developed version of a child seeing a face in a cloud, and it is the basic way forward when painting from memory and imagination.

Beginning with loose playful underpainting, a base image takes shape with the same suggestive qualities as that random pattern of mould. The only difference is that it points, generally, in the direction desired. Later, once dry, by sweeping and scanning over that base, things are seen, picked out, and further defined with another layer of paint. Then, when this layer is dry, the process is repeated. On and on it develops in this way, feedback on feedback suggesting its own emergence. This is all based on the same simple principle as seeing a face in a cloud

Looking Northwest (bright patch of snow)

2011-07-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

I'm currently shepherding along 10 large canvases for the two fall shows. This one was a both joy and a struggle.

Not... quite..... there

2011-05-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

This 6ft x 4ft canvas has been on and off the easel for several weeks. It is the Ontario spring, with green and cool rain. For some reason it has not yet suggested its own resolution. At the same time it has not gone off the rails enough to be dropped. Slowly it seems to be taking shape, and might just need one new element, something out of the blue..... Not quite there yet.

Just Sitting

2011-05-14T04:46:00.000-07:00

For twenty years now I have practised meditation (sometimes intensely, sometimes half-heartedly), within both the Zen and Theravadin traditions of Buddhism. It was only after long struggle that the discipline of "just sitting" (shikantaza) yielded to truly just sitting...... bowing yielded to just bowing....... walking yielded to just walking. Bodhidharma, the grand old master of Zen, is said to have been asked by a Chinese Emperor.... "What is the heart of the matter?" His response was.... "Nothing Holy, Great space."

"Nothing Holy, Great Space" means being on the spot, wide awake, without spinning anything. Both questions and answers are resolved at their original root. It is the simplest and most difficult thing to "do". From the perspective of just sitting, the story of "my life" is a self-enclosed dream of compulsion, endlessly holding this against that, endlessly reaching. Of course there will be this and that anyway, it is the stuff of daily life, but it is not an absolute. I don't think I would still be sane if all I ever knew was endless reaching, and I'm grateful to those who taught me the simple sanity of "just sitting".

Waiting for Play

2011-04-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the coffee shop across the way from the studio. A new 6ftx4ft canvas has been drawn up, and is clamped on the easel at just the right height and angle. It is a Saturday and I am working until 5:30, which gives me about 6 hours of painting time. It is a good day in terms of energy, with the mind not too distracted by the always pressing activity of all that is not painting. The work being done today is monochrome under-painting. This involves the spontaneous free-play of wet-on-wet brush action, using warm grays and whites. Without colour to factor in, there is only light, shadow, and depth to evoke, which is very intuitive and fun. Once I get going it will roll through the afternoon..... once I get going. This cannot be pushed, or forced. Play has to rise on its own from within.... I can invite it, and set the conditions for it to flow, but that's all.

..... a stroll back to work.

A Joyful Day

2011-04-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

Busy spring bird chatter
filled my sleeping mind.
In that special moment of waking but not rousing,
body lying tensionless and heavy,
thoughts and feelings not yet stirred.......

.....Bird chatter... an distant plane .....a breeze across the cedar .

.....and today there was convection in the afternoon sky. The leaden winter clouds bloomed upward in the warm sunshine.

Palette Key

2011-03-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

The most challenging aspect of painting is colour mixing. When I was first learning the craft it was intimidating. Taking primary colours, and by combining keying them to anything seen or imagined, is a skill that has taken years get a natural feel for. I would aim and miss time and again, never quite hitting it, and settling for a different painting than the one dreamed of. Theory is no good here, colour wheels and so forth. Intellectual colour mixing has to give way to a spontaneous intuition.

The key discovery and understanding needed to open up colour intuition is that all colour is relative, all colour only exists in context. Without context colour does not exist. There was an experiment I did to while exploring this. I took a patch of bright red material and pinned it to a cork board wall, then stood back, taking in the the whole scene. In this context the patch of material glowed red against the brown wall and nearby blue chair. Next I stood close and carefully cupping my hands. shielding all visual stimuli but the red patch. Then, through concentration, I blocked all imagining in the minds eye. With this, the patch of red cloth was absolutely alone, the sole stimuli. At that instant of aloneness the bright redness vanished into neutral, and the cloth was colourless.

With this experiential colour sense, came the intuition of how what appears on the palette is not what appears on the canvas, and that just as a strong colour can be neutralized by the absence of relationship, an almost neutral grey can become an intense colour on the canvas, depending entirely on context.

A bright blue on the canvas can, on the pallete, be mud grey. It is a magical thing.

First painting for fall show in Calgary

2011-03-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

"Low sun on open ground" 60in.x 48in

Japanese Waves

2011-03-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

Having fallen asleep in front of the TV the other night, I woke up to the live feed on BBC from a helicopter, of a tsunami sweeping across an agricultural plain, consuming villages and sweeping cars off roads. It looked unreal and hard to relate to. It is difficult to see the people when the physics are on such a scale, even though reason says lives are being washed away.

There is no compensation for people subject to this kind of capricious fate, but Hokusai's image of the "great wave" came to mind in a hopeful thought. The people of the island have lived with the Harbour Wave for centuries, it is part of their culture and identity. They can recognize this face of nature. It may be an awful force, but it is not an alien one. If such an event were to happen here (eastern Canada), there would be the shock of the alien, as well the shock of loss. Maybe Japan can hold this within its culture, better than any other country.

A Clunker

2011-03-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

Every so often, not rarely, but not frequently either, I lay an egg in the studio. It is a funny thing.

Yesterday I came in with a clear idea, a clear inspiration, for a painting with a deep field of stepped back light, seen through a screen of trees. But when I picked up the brush, I could not make any magic happen. The paint was a dull paste that could never be light. The canvas was a flat surface that could never fall away into a world of light. I was all thumbs.

Still I persisted until the painting was finished. It is not a bad painting as far as things go, but it is a painting devoid of light touch, spontaneity. It is laboured.

Why does this happen? Why does the spark leave mind and hand? All I know it that it must happen now and then. Things cycle around.

An Early Painting Revisited.

2011-02-13T12:10:00.000-08:00

This painting was made around 1990, before my focus on landscape, when I was experimenting with figures. The owner of the canvas recently contacted me to say she was referring to it in a piece she is writing about her creative process as a Bel Canto singer. It has been a wonderful opportunity to revisit and document this painting. Much of the early work was scattered to the winds without being properly photographed. It was a pleasure to see this painting living in this creative home, and a reminder that a painting has its own path.

"Bodhisattva" 48in x 48in

"Seven Trees" @ 48in. x 60in.

2011-02-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

Art Interiors, Toronto

First Mountain/Prairie painting.

2011-02-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

I am working on my first big canvas for Calgary @ 5ft x4ft. I don't think I've been so turned on by a subject in years. As a result the skills are at peak, and the paint is flowing with both control and spontaneity.
The monochrome underpainting was completed in one marathon session, down to the smallest detail. The sense of space has already taken hold. Sometimes a painting is like pushing a boulder up a hill and down the other side. The blank canvas gives nothing back until enough has been given for it take on its own reality, and start suggesting its own unfolding. This canvas has that already, and I hope it sets the tone for the whole show.

The only drawback is the cost in energy. I have to get into a high key before jumping into the work. Lots of coffee, and pacing, and talking to myself. I'm pretty fried by the end of the day. Anyway, another two weeks and it will be done.

Beaver Valley, Ontario

2011-02-01T18:46:00.000-08:00

Looking north across the valley. Oil on canvas 36in x 60in

Loft Gallery, Clarksburg Ont.

75% waiting, looking, and cleaning brushes

2011-01-30T22:00:00.000-08:00

Just made an assessment of how time in the studio breaks down. Around 75% of the time in the studio is spent looking at the canvas, sorting supplies, cleaning a shelve, or brushes, or reading glasses, organizing books, going for brisk walks, coming back, looking, pacing. This is not procrastination, it is a kind of dance, and a kind of waiting. There has to be a 100% desire to paint, anything less is forced and not joyful, and the painting will show that. So there has to be this prepping and waiting. Sometimes it won't be until late evening after a long day of this, but once that desire comes time flies and it's 4am before I step back from the easel. Sometimes there will only be 3 hours of actual painting in a day, but those three hours are sustained and fruitful. Sometimes, especially when a painting is in the final the stage of painting itself, there can be 10 or 12 straight hours of work.

Great Space: Calgary, September 2011

2011-01-25T12:41:00.000-08:00

This place is the giant heart of Canada’s landscape. Where prairie meets mountain, space and light are defined on a vast scale. As someone who comes west from the east, it is the goal of an almost mythic journey. The road begins in urban centres than can feel very self-enclosed. Following the north shore of the lakes to Thunder Bay, it then passes through the endless tangle of northern Ontario bush, before opening suddenly to the exhilarating freedom of the prairies. An emotional and spiritual weight falls away with the ancient rock shield. The open land begins as a sharp plane that gives up everything to the play of the sky, then it slowly starts to rise and roll toward the west. The light gradually changes as well, taking on the warmer tones of the ground cover. The boundary with the Rockies hangs on the horizon before it is seen. Strangely, it is the boundary seen from distance that is so powerful for me. The mountains when touched, though beautiful, do not have that ambiguity of a distant vision that evokes so much promise and yearning. Going beyond the boundary and on into British Columbia the mountains can begin to close in, leaving a short arc for the sun between the shadows. In a way this echos the loss of light in the eastern bush. Open space does not appear again until the coastal forest gives way to the Pacific, but even there the ocean looms up and seems to press against the big dark trees. This is why the zone of prairie/mountain transition is a unique and fleeting experience in our national landscape. It is the great edge, the great space.

"Energy is Eternal Delight"

2010-12-08T05:22:00.000-08:00

The idea that Life has an Ultimate Meaning does not hold . This has meaning relative to that, and this has purpose in the context of that, but this and that together have no external reference......no context in which to take measure. Life at once cannot be contained in meaning. This is not the same as saying life is meaningless, because to say "meaningless" is to assign negative meaning. It is more accurate to say that it is inherently free of either meaning, or absence of meaning.

An Ultimate Cosmic Purpose, no matter how gloriously concieved, is a nightmare scenario where everything is bound, subordinated, and ultimately reduced to that purpose alone. It is the absolutizing of relative and contingent purpose, the fraction consuming the whole.

Poetically speaking, all I can see is endless free-play. This free-play has pattern and rhythm that in human experience has a basic feeling tone of ever-rising, or Joy. There is superabundance. As William Blake said "Energy is eternal delight".

There is within given relationships, such as "me and my world", deeply valued meanings, but if these meanings becomes absolutized and fixed, the unconditioned joy giving rise to the whole picture goes into eclipse. The world in eclipse is an endless reaching for lost Joy, one compensation after another.

November blew in today.

2010-11-17T19:24:00.000-08:00

On the way to pick up my son from school today I came across a large weeping willow. It was the only tree around that still had its leaves, and it was being whipped around like a wild head of hair in the first big November wind.. The sky behind it was a steel blue haze that brightened toward the cold circle of the sun. The sun was veiled enough to be looked at directly. Sweeping across were black ragged streamers of low cloud, moving very fast. It all had that November feeling, after the leaves, before the snow, just on the cusp.

Warm October Landscape

2010-10-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

This canvas of a view toward Creemore Ontario came from a sense of the season turning. Once the image had developed enough to start suggesting for itself, the painting process flowed smoothly.

I think that shows.

Looking East and West in Alberta

2010-10-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

Today I'm in Calgary preparing the ground for my first show here in 2011. This means getting a feel for the gallery space here in town, then just wandering for a few days around the foothills. I want to drop what I already associate with this transition from prairie to mountain, along with personal narrative, and come to know it again for the first time. These few days will be the seeds for the show.

While flying here it was a treat to have the back of the airplane empty. It was possible to look east and west without obstruction as we approached from the south east. These photos I took are stirring some ideas, and I may include two 6ftx6ft canvases based on this kind aerial perspective.

Whatever the final shape of the paintings, it will be a challenge and a joy to paint them.

Heading into Fall 2010

2010-09-10T07:06:00.000-07:00

Fall of 2010 feels much more socially and economically settled than fall of 2009. The fear and holding-on of last year has given way to a kind of sober stability. This is good for making art, where thinking about business is the last thing you want to do. Right now the main focus are larger canvases and taking time next month to sketch in the foothills of Southern Alberta for a show in Calgary next fall. There is also a new gallery in rural Ontario called Loft Gallery. It is located in the Beaver Valley, and run by some fine straightforward people.

There has been a change in how I work that is inexorable, a change in energy. I can no longer go like a demon and paint a quantity of canvases. Now I have to take each one carefully, painting, standing back, painting, going for a walk, looking, painting. Each painting means more.

I am also "sitting" more, doing more formal meditation practice, and hope to go on retreat in early December at the Rhode Island Zen center. My background is in both Theravadin and Zen practice so it will be a familiar routine to practice with this school of Soen (a Korean fusion of Soto/Rinzai). Our kid is old enough now that my partner and I can get back to the regular retreats, and regular quiet time on the cushion. Maybe.

Meeting the viewer half way.

2010-04-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned over the years is that the painting must meet the viewer half way. The painting suggests the form being represented, but this suggestion can be too much or too little. If too much information is suggested, the viewing eye has no role to play. These images can be "realistic" yet somehow lifeless. Photo-realism falls prey to this deadness at times. At the other extreme the painting can be so impressionistic that the viewing eye has to really work to fill out the image being suggested. I have stood in front of paintings that required letting my eyes fall out of focus just to catch what the painting is pitching. There is a middle point where the painting suggests just enough, with a perfect economy of means, to meet the eye exactly half way. This way the eye fills out the image perfectly with its own life. The painting then appears to really be alive because it is the viewers own life that is being experienced. This middle point is something I've hit upon a couple of times, but have mostly missed. Now it seems possible, and working toward this goal is the next horizon in figuring out how to paint.

Two Panels

2010-03-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

These two 12x36 panels are now on display at Gibson Fine Art In Calgary Alberta.

Panel painting is a very different experience than canvas paining. Whereas canvas is about energy and gesture, controlled accident, and the building up of layers, panel painting is about delicate precision, like a jeweler. The goal is a is deep tranparent glow.

BIG

2010-03-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have just finished this 60"x60" canvas and loved doing it. The technique was loose and painterly, with one textured layer built over another, all gesture and spontaneity. My studio is like a closet, so painting something this size is a little like feeling my way around an elephant. Seeing it installed and lit in the gallery is the only way to know if it really came together. The next canvas will be 72"x72".

Panel Painting

2009-12-31T06:55:00.000-08:00

In the last couple of months I've been painting again on wood panel. Something about this surface, and the feeling of the panel as an object, makes for a different kind of painting. This approach goes back to the alter-panels of early Flemish art . A number of larger panels were prepared before breaking for the holidays. On Monday it will be time to begin them. One of the interesting qualities of panel painting is that a dimension (say 2ftx4ft) that feels small in canvas, feels very large in panel, because of the difference in technique.

Weightless Effort

2009-12-23T20:12:00.000-08:00

Painting takes place within a basic space of undivided awareness.

This awareness does not require effort, but is a natural state of rest. Work is required to divide it, to block out some things in order to focus on others. There is a saying that "a thief can only see a saints pockets". This describes how awareness gets divided. It is not necessary to oppose this dividing, only to recognize it. When the dividing itself is an object of knowing, undivided awareness is restored.

This is how the day goes when painting, always waking up and restoring undivided awareness, staying present with the painting

Low tide passing

2009-11-27T05:31:00.000-08:00

2009 has been a year of low physical energy and an uncertain sense of direction in the studio. Perhaps it has mirrored the economic spirit of the times. The simple joy of looking and painting has taken a back seat, and when that happens the work, which is joy based, suffers. Yesterday for the first time in a while I sat in the studio, looked around and felt content. .....and with that the paint flowed again.

There are a couple of large scale canvases to finish, then it will be midsized panels for a while. painting on panel is a different experience than painting on canvas, and the result is very different.....

looking forward.

Agnes Bugera Installation Oct. 09

2009-10-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

Fall Exhibition 2009

2009-08-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

Opening up

2009-07-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

One of the motivating factors for artist can be a need for recognition or acclaim. It isn't embarrassing to acknowledge this, what young painter hasn't dreamed of glory. This was one impulse that made me strive for the kind of mastery I admired in others. But life is so relentless in it's lessons that you can't help getting a little bit wise, even if you are stubborn. In the face of real people dealing with real adversity, and the real needs of loved ones , how can self absorbed dreams be sustained? In the last few years these traces have faded out completely and it has been a release. No longer identified with being an “Artist” in the melodramatic sense, life has settled out into a more open place. The painting is now done for love of the craft and as a really worthy livelihood. At first this was a challenge because a degree of motivation actually disappeared, and it took a little while to figure out what was going on.

The coming and going of skills

2009-07-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

Over the last six months I have been able to observe that skills can come and go. This is not just about the loss concentration, but the loss of previously established abilities. For instance I have painted clouds for many years and can depict many formations nature can produce. Sometimes however this ability goes away, and its impossible to see how a cloud looks. When this occurs the ability to pull forms out of the ambiguity of the painted surface isn't there. The resulting image looks self-conscious and awkward because it is painted from a formula instead of a living vision.
I have included here two images that were painted two weeks apart. Both depict "cumulus nimbus congestus", the big cauliflower shaped clouds common in the summer. The example on the top was painted during a low ebb in skill, and it was a struggle from start to finish. The image on the bottom was painted when skills were high, and it was a joyful, effortless experience. The difference is remarkable. I do not understand this ebbing and flowing of skills, but am learning to work with it by knowing when to put things aside and wait for the vision to cycle around again.

New Painting May 2009

2009-05-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

In this simple composition the focus is on a play of subtle atmospheric tones.

This painting is on exhibit at Gibson Fine Art in Calgary.

January 2009

2008-12-22T05:38:00.000-08:00

The first painting of 2009 is a commission based on this photo I took of "Mount Nemo" which is a section of the Niagara escarpment. Working from a photo is a different kind of challenge than working from memory and imagination. Changing the perspective, proportions or location of individual features to meet formal goals is not easy when a certain amount of fidelity to a photograph required. So the creativity lays elsewhere.......in selection, emphasis, and the tuning of contrast, colour etc.

Winter storm at year's end, 2008

2008-12-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

The first big storm of the season is blowing in. This, together with the absence of sun before the solstice is creating an atmosphere of perpetual twilight over the city. It's just before Christmas and work is getting put aside. The year is winding down, the studio feels quiet. It is not a time for energetic painting. My sketches for January are taped to the wall, and the canvases have been primed.

2008 has been a challenging year, as the energy both given and received from two shows has given way to sober thoughts on art and the art business. As I become more able to paint with the skill that I have aspired to, I can see more clearly than ever that there are a lot of painters working today who are just as committed and skilled, if not more so. It would be wise to appreciate and respect their work, and also to acknowledge the good fortune of making a living.

2009 from the perspective of December 2008 is looking daunting. We are apparently entering an economic bottleneck that could change our way of life. If so, the values of adaptability and letting-go will prove essential.

....... live simply, paint pictures.

New Painting December 08

2008-12-16T10:05:00.000-08:00

This painting is of the first morning blanket of snow in 2008. The light of the approaching dawn is reflected off the fields. The cool tones of the snow and warmer tones of the open section of sky strengthen each other, making the blues and violets of the winter shadows more intense. The clouds are true winter clouds, meaning they are free of any convection, any internal dynamic. They are long and low.

Calm and Clear (statement fall 08)

2008-09-21T17:01:00.000-07:00

In these paintings, I am trying to convey how the earth and sky appear when they are not being pushed into the background of daily life. So often when we look at a landscape we see a setting for our stories. When I become aware of this and choose instead to look with a simple eye, the landscape comes forward, and there is a sense of it's various elements coming together as a single gesture. I believe that this perception of harmony is not just in the eye of the beholder. There is an objective component that includes our own biology and that we recognize as beauty. A work of art that is tuned to this harmony is alive, and has an intrinsic value that needs no interpretation.

New Painting Summer 08

2008-09-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

This painting is based on forms and colours on display during the summer storms of 2008. The distant clouds (immersed in a pink glow) are framed with the cooler tones of closer clouds. The land recedes from warm yellows towards cooler greens and blues. This enhances the three dimensional effect as it dips and rises through different zones of light.

Development of Technique

2008-09-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

When I began painting I had a good aptitude and a strong sense of purpose, but little technical knowledge. By studying original oils in galleries, a certain amount of technique could be understood, but in the end it has been a long process of trial and error. My approach has been conservative in terms of composition in order to focus on developing skill at rendering texture and light. The process goes something like this…. With each canvas I experiment with a new effect. At first this effect is self conscious and requires a lot of effort, but as it is practiced and refined in subsequent paintings, it begins to flow with some grace. At a certain point it becomes intuition and is superseded by the next conscious effort. In this way a full range of skills accumulates over time. This long process is reaching the point where I am confident in exploring a range of different visual languages and subjects. The painting. "The Niagara Escarpment at Georgian Bay” was a turning point in that it opened up a new direction in composition. I am spending more time now sketching from nature and imagination in order to expand on this.

The series of images below shows a gradual progress over time ......

Fall Show 07

2008-09-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

This painting (flowers bloom 36x60) was painted for a show at a Toronto gallery in October 07. There was concern on my part, and no doubt on the gallery's part, about the subject matter, because it is a departure from my main focus of landscape. There are many stylistic, cultural (and commercial) pitfalls to something like this. My main concern was that "spiritual" art has fallen on hard times in the post-modern era, being relegated to a fringe of new-age kitch. The reasons for this are probably many, but the fact that post-modernism has been the prevailing force in the arts over the last thirty years is important. This stream of thinking tends to reduce transcendent realities to constructs of language, and this can have a kind of flattening effect on perception. Many painters seem to be embarrassed with spirituality unless it is addressed indirectly or with irony. Instead of avoiding this I decided to wade through the centre of it. The show drew inspiration from many sources ranging from pre-raphaelite figure work, to local landscape, and even the graphics of my favourite computer program. It also involved some delicate 2 dimensional pattern work. The painting below (titled "finding Brueghel") was based on the composition of Brueghel's incredible "tower of babel" here it has re-imagined as a natural landform.

It turns out these fears were not well founded. It may have alienate some people (one guy really hated it) but generally the response was very good, especially from casual gallery goers. It was also satisfying to see these paintings being taken home, proving that this kind of work can find a place in the current market. For the time being I am just focusing on further developing the "straight" landscape, but at some point I will turn again to this kind of figurative work. A sketch book is already filling up.

A Stream of Creative Accidents

2008-08-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

The art of painting is a combination of accident and intention. It's helpful to start with a vision of where I want to go, but if this vision becomes too fixed, it binds the process. An unselfconscious brush stroke can create a wonderful new effect that redirects the energy of the whole painting. Being open to this is key. If I put a dozen coins on a table, and try to arrange them in a composition that looks “right” it can be an endless task. I can spend an hour placing these coins in various patterns and non-patterns and not find this elusive goal. But if I just drop them all on the table... the resulting composition will alway look perfect. There is something “just so” about this kind of non-intentional aesthetic. Finding the balance between this and the control of a learned technique is very subtle, but I believe it is at the heart of a successful painting. There is a kind of rhythm. Hold.. let go… hold… let go... hold... let go.

Winter Painting

2008-08-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

On a January morning, the clouds are pulling back from cold clear air out of the west. This is a view looking west from a hilltop outside of Alliston, Ontario. This painting (large 60x30 version painted in 06) was painted for an exhibition called "The Promised Land" at the Agnes Bugera Gallery in Edmonton. If you click to enlarge, you can see the dry Queen Annes Lace sticking up through the snow. For some reason this detail is my favourite part of this painting.

A Blind Alley

2008-08-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

When a large landscape is started it presents as a set of problems in several dimensions, a flat composition, a 3D spatial puzzle, light, colour, and the problem of realizing a consistent level of naturalism. The process consists of adjusting all these elements in an effort to bring the whole into perfect balance. In my experience this effort involves creating new more subtle imbalances with each one that is resolved. Once these new imbalances are resolved, they in turn create even more subtle imbalances. It carries on like this as I feel my way toward complete balance, approaching it, but never reaching it. I think if it ever did reach a complete balance, the result would be a dead painting.

The place I prefer to be in is a place of trust where my sight does not extend beyond the next set of problems. This can be tricky as there is no guarantee of the final result. Sometimes it leads into a blind alley. This painting is such a case. It became apparent that I couldn't finish this without "shoe-horning" the elements together. After a three weeks of work it was sanded down and painted over. As every artists knows this is the most deflating experience. But, the amazing thing is, after a couple of days of sulking and making myself a nuisance to my partner, that big blank canvas starts to get exciting again.

Small Blue Landscape

2008-08-09T06:16:00.000-07:00

This little 18x36 landscape is one of my favourites. I had worked with simple compositions like this for a long time but this one really came together.

Niagara Escarpment at Georgian Bay

2008-08-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

This image was painted in late summer 2007 and exhibited in a show called The New Sublime at Art Interiors in Toronto. The process of painting this was exhilarating because of the size (8ft wide) and the challenge of creating this kind of lighting effect. The setting is east of the Niagara Escarpment, just south of Georgian Bay, looking north-west toward the setting sun. This view is from memory. Knowing the region as well I do, it has become easy to float above it in my imagination. The result is the combination of an unreal perspective on a real place.
The other challenge was looking to 19th century luminism for inspiration without becoming anachronistic. I admire American artists like Church and Bierstadt, but the sentimentality that came naturally to them grates my modern sensibility. The goal here was to create an impersonal, elemental emotion rather than a sentimental one. In this image there are no figures, no story of any kind.
The experience of painting this canvas brought my skills to a place I've been reaching toward for a long time, and the sense of possibility that comes with this brings back the excitement of first picking up the brush.

When the painting gives back

2008-07-31T17:50:00.000-07:00

There is a point in the process of painting when enough visual information is on the canvas that it starts to give back. Before this happens painting can be like trying to get a heavy object moving from a dead stop. The image exists as a flickering possibility in my minds eye, and this is the only source of energy and guidance.

Once the painting crosses a certain threshold the source of further support and energy becomes the canvas itself. As the painting progresses the canvas takes over more and more until it basically determines itself . What begins as a lonely experience, ends as an exhilarating dialogue.

Floating World

2008-07-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

The pictures of Hiroshige have always inspired me. They have a lightness about them. I’m not sure if ukiyo-e (floating world) refers to this sense of lightness. I have read that it refers a sensual subculture that emerged during his time. For me though "floating world" refers to the sense of weightlessness I get from Hiroshige. There is this simple joy of being and doing in everyday life. When I look at this image of people scurrying across a footbridge in the rain, I see a self sustained, self accomplished reality with no external things to fear or hope for.

A Row of Trees

2008-07-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

North of Toronto, on the south side of the Hockley Valley, this row of trees can be seen lining an unused drive. I was on one of my drive-abouts where I take off into the countryside before dawn without a destination. On this morning, just before the sun was about to rise I saw these trees with illuminated mist filling the shallow behind them....

The scene told no story. It did not remind me of anything, and it wasn't symbolic of anything in particular. It was one of those moments where time, along with ones own storyline stops, and there is just a sense of presence. It is a quality that is hard to describe and impossible to grasp. It has something to do with the inherent value of simply being, rather than reaching or becoming. My hope in painting this was that the canvas would somehow convey this quality. It was painted in the studio from a sketch, and filled in with memory.

Intensity of Appreciation

2008-07-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

Inspiration can be defined as the unexpected appearance of a novel idea, or vision. It can also be defined as a state of receptivity that allows for the flow of insight. But there is another factor that I think is more basic to all this. It is a special intensity of aesthetic appreciation that involves a welling-up of energy. This energy brightens and expands the whole outlook...

This spring I had a bad flu and was at one point feeling very weak. While in this state I was presented with a beautiful fresh tulip of vivid yellow. I saw that it was beautiful and felt uplifted, but from my place of exhaustion it may as well have been an old coffee cup, because the energy for appreciation just wasn't there. If I was in a healthy state, with a healthy level of energy, the beauty of that tulip would have certainly taken on a greater charge. If however I was in the heightened state of inspiration, the experience would be of a whole different order. The tulip would take on a burning intensity, a kind of resonant perfection that lights up every faculty and activates skills that are otherwise not available. There would also be an overwhelming sense of potential, and of the energy to realize that potential. I believe this is the artistic equivalent to what athletes call the "zone". It is the place were real magic can happen and where a painting can be given the spark of life.

Not painting.

2008-07-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

There are times when getting started on a blank canvas is impossible. Today I was trying to start an 8ft by 4ft painting. This is intimidating at the best of times and requires a running start. I know what kind of picture I'm aiming for... the spirit of the thing, as well as the basic composition and flow. I even managed to get it drawn onto the warm grey gesso. But it could go no further. All the right brush strokes, the right effects, the leaps of faith that have to come together to make a painting that people will connect with. All this crowded in, piled on and felt like too much, like the energy was just not there. When the energy is not there, the studio gets invaded by life worries, business matters, or even just the noise of the street outside. The studio goes from being a sanctuary full of possibilities to a cold and empty place in the shadow of the outside world.......

Painting from Memory

2008-07-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

I visited New Zealand in 2002 to retreat at a monastery near Wellington. My time there consisted of getting up early, having breakfast with the nuns, monks, and some fellow lay people, then sitting very still on a platform overlooking the mountains. This platform was attached to a little shelter called a "kuti" where I slept. For three weeks life was this simple routine. Some years later I decided to paint what I saw sitting on this platform. The painting that resulted is entirely from memory, so it is hard to tease apart the subject from the object, but it feels like I remember.

Natural Beauty

2008-07-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

Within its depth I saw ingathered, and bound by love in one volume, all the scattered leaves of the Universe - Dante's Paradiso

The Fibonacci Sequence was once thought to encode the objective truth of beauty, but now for most people it is just a curiosity. The idea of any objective basis to beauty has been rejected in favour of seeing it as a subjective cultural bias. I think this reduction, at least in the absolute sense, is not true. What strikes me as harmonious and beautiful has an objective as well as a subjective component. It isn't merely in the eye of the beholder, or the beholders culture. There is also an organic fact to harmony, even the backhanded harmony of dissonance. I think this is why people never “get’ an aesthetic denying work of art on its own terms.

First Paintings

2008-07-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

This Tulip Diptych (12x72 each) and Crucifixion (12x24) were among my first efforts at the age of sixteen. The tulips had a simple clear quality but the Crucifixion was more typical of those years, expressing fear and anxiety with surreal imagery.

Old Land

2008-07-21T04:59:00.001-07:00

I was talking with some friends recently who have lived in Amsterdam for a number of years. When discussing art and the art scene there, the thing that strikes me is how persistent the history is, and how all-pervasive the human story . To live with so much history is very different from the Canadian experience. The basic fact of this country is still the land, where history is measured in geological time. The quartzite hills of the La Cloche range in Killarney are a formation so ancient that all the intervening human activities, from the rise of the First Nations to the birth and growth of modern cities seems very recent. When I am in Toronto, seeing it expand with cultures from all over the world, it feels like a powerful centre of gravity. But when standing on that endless shield of Precambrian rock, in an environment that is indifferent to this process, Toronto looks as temporary as a cloud. This is why I think a core Canadian art is still work that engages the reality of the land in some way. To completely forget it, is to live in a bubble.

Eclipse

2008-07-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

I have found that the state of being inspired is a spacious one. It is spacious in terms of an open receptivity, and in a physical sense of ease. The boundary between me and my environment softens or even dissolves completely. This doesn't mean that everything loses its delineation, but that these delineations are contained within something open and trusting. If any fear or anger arises, this openness shuts down. In the case of intense fear or anger I notice my body tensing, contracting, and my thoughts moving in tight circles around the object of concern. It's an appalling place to be. I believe this experience of closure is the source of many symbolic representations of hell. In traditional religious art from various cultures both east and west, people are often shown either frozen and immobile with fear, or trapped in a claustrophobic furnace of rage. When I enter the studio the first thing that I'm made aware of is the presence of fear or anger. If they are present nothing will get painted that day.

A Place to Walk

2008-07-10T13:00:00.000-07:00

The Bruce Trail runs along the limestone cliffs of the Niagara Ecarpment, through forests, and among moss covered boulders. It is fragile. Being close to my home, it is the source of much of my landscape imagery.

Art and Pathology

2008-07-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

There is a term in Buddhist psychology that is used to describe pathological states that look like healthy ones. They are called "near enemies" because they can be closely embraced as virtues. The example that is often used is equanimity and indifference, these two states can certainly look alike, but they are as different as night and day. The virtue of Equanimity involves an inner balance that is not dependent on external conditions, like the person in the lifeboat who keeps a cool head when everyone else wants to throw each other overboard. The pathology of Indifference on the other hand is a self absorbed state of not caring.

Looking at the qualities that are commonly attributed to the artistic temperament there are many such "near enemies". For example what is the difference between prolonged, single minded focus, and a having problem with perseveration? Or feeling intense, energizing inspiration and being manic? What is the difference between aspiring to something big and being grandiose? Is it inherently narcissistic to put on a show..... a solo show? It looks pretty obvious in the performing arts.

Maybe it's impossible to tease these things apart, and unnecessary. Where would computer science be without Aspergers? But I think it is helpful to try, because the romantic idea of the suffering artist is tenacious and probably based on this kind of confusion. It may give licence to a lot off unnecessary suffering by turning it into a kind of affirmation. I guess the question is; what does a single-minded interest look like when it's not perseveration? What does intense inspiration feel like when its not a manic episode?

Isolation and Intimacy

2008-07-03T07:43:00.000-07:00

Studio life is an isolated life. It can be hard to know where you belong in the scheme of things. As you loose yourself in the work you can drift into strange places. In most workplaces there is continuous feedback from co-workers or from your employer. But in the studio it may be weeks or months between professional contact. It is strange and comforting to know these intimate paintings will have a life of their own when they leave.

Cumulonimbus Incus

2008-07-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

As a child I spent a lot of time alone, wandering along the windbreaks that edged the big cornfields of my rural home. The spring was an exciting time because the leaden skies of winter gave way to the convective blooms of summer. Storms could be seen growing from far off. The puffs of cumulus would grow like slow motion explosions, tensing at some invisible barrier in the sky, then bursting through and up and out. If the upper reaches of the cloud were not sheared off by upper level winds it would mature into a cumulonimbus incus. Sometimes the whole thing would slowly rotate and a section of the base would drop down and curl. I knew the architecture of the sky and would follow it across the open country, watching for the storm to reach down and touch the ground. I wanted it to, and at the same time I was afraid that it just might.

Agnes Bugera Gallery, Edmonton www.agnesbugeragallery.com

New painting June 08

2008-07-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

In this composition the cooler tones frame the gold and green mid-section. This gold/green area is both the source of light and the object illuminated. This light has been given a fluid consistency so that the trees seem immersed in it.

Balancing life and painting

2007-07-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

In order to bring a canvas to its full expression, I need to be so completely absorbed in the process that conscious volition is suspended. This suspension is not possible if there are any preoccupations or worries about family, business, or the state of the world in general. There are many different ways of putting aside everything in order to focus on work. There are artificial means like drugs or alcohol. I have tried that and although there were short term positives, I could see that life would quickly be thrown out of balance if I persisted. There is also just trying to make everything right with all of one's affairs before setting down to work, tying all the loose ends. I have never had everything "right" with life for more that two seconds that I can remember, so this does not work for me either.

Another approach that does work for me is what one Zen teacher (Charlotte Joko Beck) calls "A Bigger Container". With this practice I bring a clear awareness to the mass and movement of my whole body. This awareness needs to be maintained in a continuous and unbroken way that requires considerable effort at first, but eventually the effort itself becomes an object of awareness and dissolves into a sense of awareness being the bright clear space in which my body and environment unfolds. When this open state is stable (it takes a lot of practice), all my various thoughts and emotions continue to flow without obstruction according to their own dynamic. They are fully felt, and experienced (this is not dissociation), but are somehow free. Then instead of needing to shut out my relationship with the world, its energy becomes part the painting process within this open space.
This sounds pretty abstract but its very simple in practice. Of course this is not always possible to open up like that, some very heavy handed triggers have a way of just shutting me down. Bit by bit however even the most existential worries can be allowed to be.

Fall show 2006

2006-08-01T04:43:00.000-07:00