The Language of Art

I am heading out to western Canada on Friday to teach a series of workshops. Over the course of the past two months while I've had my arm in a cast, I spent a great deal of time thinking about, developing and revising my workshops.

In the Winnipeg workshop, that will take place on April 23, 24 and 25, I'm going to include a section on critique. I feel strongly that as artists it is crucial to learn the language of art, just as we learn the fundamentals of writing in school. The fundamentals of art are not taught in most art schools, certainly not in the art school I went to at the time I went there. So how can we analyze our own work or the work of others if we don't have a language? I'm aiming to teach a language. How often are we in someone's studio, in front of their work, and at a complete loss for words. We get a 'feeling' for the piece. We might decide if we like it or not. But most often it's a nonverbal sort of gut response. One of the only places we might have a critique is in art school, or perhaps in an art workshop. In this instance, the teacher becomes the expert and gives their opinion of our work. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of my friends had a teacher tell her that her workshop painting was "hotel art". How helpful was that to this artist? Not likely very helpful. What did she learn from this? Not to take a class with that teacher probably. Could she find a way to improve her work with this sort of critique? Not likely. Was it discouraging? Very. That's not to say that all teachers critique in this way. I guess I am opposed to the set up that one person is the knowledgeable one and the other is more or less at their mercy.

I'll be teaching a section about the language of critique in the Winnipeg workshop, how to accept critique, what words to use, how to look at your own work, what to look for in the work of others. I'll be sure to write a blog post about it, and maybe have a few of the students comment too.

On August 25 and 26 I will be teaching a workshop in my studio called Learning About Critique, where I will go further into the language of Critique--how to see our own work and the work of others. I hope that the critique class will meet afterwards to continue their critique/support group with the skills they learn here, or form their own small group.

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...

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 resultin...

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 ...

Janice Mason Steeves

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