The Residency Residents

Erica Scourti at Can Serrat

There are only two other artists here now. The rest have finished their residencies. Can Serrat will close for December. Things are winding down here. But I still have eleven days left and will continue to absorb this area of Cataluña, Montserrat, El Bruc and Barcelona. I´m loving spending time with the other artists and learning about their work. Erica Scourti is an exceptionally creative artist/filmmaker from London, England who works mainly with digital media, and is interested in language/word-based video art. She has recently done a residency at I-Park in Connecticut.

Natalie McQuade at the Museu Nacional d Art de Catalunya

Natalie McQuade is a brilliant multi-media artist from Melbourne, Australia. She incorporates sculpture, sound, installation and printmaking into her work ...among other things. At Can Serrat, among other projects, she is making several pinhole cameras out of found Spanish cigar boxes.

These are two very creative, very exciting young artists and I so much enjoyed sitting with them while they discussed their work. I´d recommend spending some time visiting their websites.

Otto Castillo, Karine Argile, Jessica Hirst, Marcel Sala
Karine and Marcel run Can Serrat

Jessica Hirst and her partner Otto Castillo have just finished their residency here. Jessica is a multi-media artist. Her current work involves considering logos on the clothing we wear. She has created a personal logo and is collecting used or found clothing and applying her Palmer Fishman logo to these items. They are at once hilarious, and yet worthy of consideration. Her blog has photos of her newly introduced line of Palmer Fishman clothing.

Abde Samad Chakour

Abde Samad Chour, from Casa Blanca, Morrocco, works here at the residency.

There are also six cats here at Can Serrat. I´ve only been able to capture three of them. I´m not crazy about cats so this is a test for me to have six cats wandering in and out of bedrooms, dining room, shower....everywhere.........

Bully Boy who bullies the other cats

Moushou the brother of Noor

Noor the friendly one

There are also two resident ghosts at Can Serrat, whom I have not been able to photograph. I guess it is not surprising that there are at least a couple of ghosts here, considering that the building is perhaps 350 years old. One reportedly is a woman who died here in childbirth. The other is a man who hanged himself after gambling away this building which was his home and farm. The male ghost resides in the blue room on te Norwegian student side of the building and has been known to throw objects around the room. On the Can Serrat side we have the quieter, sadder woman who supposedly drifts from room to room. Makes me alittle sleepless I must say.

It all makes for an exciting, eclectic mix of characters and personalities, animals and ghosts.

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 s...

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 ...

Liminal Time

The word liminal comes from the Latin, limen meaning threshold. an in-between place, a place of transition, a time of waiting and not knowing. Dawn and dusk are considered liminal places. Crepuscular animals, like foxes and coyotes are most active at this time of day, a time that is considered a magical time in Celtic spirituality and to Indigenous people which is perhaps the origin of their designation as tricksters. As I write this, the northern hemisphere has just passed the vernal equinox, where day and night are of equal length.We are in a liminal space between winter and spring right now, unsure if we will have one more storm or snowfall before spring finally settles in. We're also in a liminal place as we live through this pandemic with the anxiety and discomfort of not knowing. A time of great transition for the entire world, wondering what we've learned from this and what lessons we'll carry forward. Author and Fr...

Janice Mason Steeves

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