"I Am in The Surrender Business"

In his book, Free Play, Stephen Nachmanovitch, an improvising musician, wrote, "I am not in the music business, I am not in the creativity business; I am in the surrender business. Improvisation is acceptance, in a single breath, of both transience and eternity. Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude toward not-knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh".

Last weekend, I taught a cold wax and oil painting workshop in my studio with eight artists, some of whom were very advanced. I always teach the elements of design in my workshops-a good refresher for those who have studied them and an intro for those who have not. One artist who is an accomplished figurative painter, had great difficulty dividing the painting surface into shapes. I tried in various ways to help her understand what I was after, drawing some pictures for her, showing her the work of other artists, and explaining in various ways. Yet she didn't understand what I meant. On Sunday at about 1pm (the class was to end at 3pm), she asked me if she could pretend she was painting the figure in order to divide up the space. Yes, I told her, do what you need to do. It was like a lightbulb came on in her head and she was on FIRE. In the space of 2 hours, she worked on 5 paintings with all the energy she had stored up over the weekend. Based on a context she could relate to, she now understood what I meant and within 2 hours, had 5 exciting paintings on the go! She surrendered to what she needed to do and I surrendered to how she needed to do it.

In my work this week, I felt a reluctance to get into the studio even though I had recently completed two more paintings in my Fragile series that I really love including the painting above. I kept finding all manner of other things I had to do first. Finally, remembering the fun that my student had had last week in my workshop, I pulled out my large palette knife and began to work on small panels with a free abandon, creating thick textures and strong shapes. As I have done so often, and seem to forget just as often, I was surrendering to play.

I think that my large ephemeral paintings from my Fragile series, might need the balance of the small and more earthy, immediate, wild and free paintings. Or at least, I need the balance of ephemeral and earthy. That surrender to play, has brought me back to the studio again. I had been trying to make things happen in my work, rather than surrendering to what I needed to do at the moment. I had the idea that I should be continuing the Fragile series, even though my heart needed a short break from it. I was fighting that, until I surrendered to play, disappearing into my work and letting go of expectations. Surrender opens us into a whole new forms of creativity and takes us back again into our other work, with new eyes.

"If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it." Toni Morrison

Meet the Owners of a Scottish Castle

Anne Tristine Nguyen, Ali Orr Ewing, their children, Ava, Atticus and their dog, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dunskey Estate, Portpatrick, Scotland Anne Tristine Nguyen and her husband, Alistair Orr Ewing are the owners of Dunskey Estate near Portpatrick, Scotland where I will teach a painting workshop in September. Dunskey is a splendid Edwardian castle on 2000 acres of ocean-front land with miles of walking trails. As well as daily workshop sessions in the studio on the top floor of the castle, our small group of artists will enjoy breathtaking hikes, superb accommodation and fabulous meals. Not having met owners of a castle before, I asked Anne if I could interview her to hear a little of their background story and that of the castle. Can you tell me a little of your personal story and that of your husband, Alistair Orr Ewing? Anne emigrated to America when she was ten years old, but it was at an art gallery in Saigon, her birthplace, where she met Al

The Importance of Silence in Art

Gathering Light 60x60" Oil on canvas © 2014 Janice Mason Steeves Michael David Rosenberg, the musician known as Passenger, sings, "See all I need is a whisper in a world that only shouts." In the workshops I teach, I find that one of the most common problems with paintings is that they shout. Most have too much going on: too many small shapes, too much texture, extremes of colour, too many lines, too much, too much. One thing I say most often as I walk around the classroom working with students individually, is 'make bigger shapes'. But not only bigger shapes. Quiet shapes. Where can your eye go and rest in the painting? That isn't a consideration in much of contemporary painting or much of contemporary life. Ours is a noisy world both visually and auditorily. Ours is a world that shouts. People are afraid of silence. I wrote a blog post 3 years ago about planning a retreat in my own home, where I shut off the computer and the phon

Lessons that Stone Walls Teach

Dry stone wall in the Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland I've just returned from teaching a Workshop in Wild Places class in the Burren in County Clare, Ireland. Writing this post, I'm reminded of another post I wrote after visiting Inishmaan, the middle of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland several years ago. Stone walls crisscrossed the island in tight webs like a fisherman's net. I wrote then that the web of stone walls made me think of the idea of putting limitations on our painting as a way of exploring more deeply and how walls give limits against the limitless. You can read that article here. As our group hiked in the Burren with our guide, Marie McGauran we learned that the walls are stronger because of the holes in them. The wind can pass through. The oldest stone walls, estimated to be 3500 years old are at Skara Brae, a Neolithic site in Orkney. Most walls were built in the 18th and 19th century, marking areas of private ownership and resulting in poverty

Janice Mason Steeves

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