Janice Mason Steeves

Toronto Workshop 2012 There were many thoughtful comments to the last blog post on the Art of Critique: A Conversation   with my friend Rebecca Crowell.    Several people wondered about the importance of putting words on paintings and if doing so might distract from insights that cannot be captured with words.  One friend wrote today to ask me if there were guidelines to exploring painting in an non-verbal way.  These are great questions. Non-verbal communication is what painting is all about. I fully understand about the difficulty of putting words onto a painting, and the way that they limit.  It must be like translating poetry from one language to another.  Something is lost in the translation. Here are a few non-verbal guidelines I've developed when looking at my own work.  I wouldn't necessarily use all of these when I look at someone else's work.  They are just places where I begin. -First, I feel the piece. How does it make me feel?  Calm?  Happy?  Jo

Rebecca Crowell and I at the Uragh Stone Circle in County Cork, Ireland 2012 My friend Rebecca Crowell and I have decided to explore the idea of co-blogging: a back and forth conversation about a chosen topic that we conduct via email, and then publish on both blogs. This idea grew out of the habit that Rebecca and I have of sending each other long, frequent emails, which we do mainly because we are good friends with much in common. But in bouncing ideas back and forth, we've also had some enriching and stimulating discussions about our painting processes, teaching, art business and the ups and downs of our art lives. Because this is a new idea for both of us, we are interested to see how our readers respond, and this will help us decide whether to continue co-blogging now and then. Please feel free to comment!  We decided to begin with the topic of Critique, a subject we've both delved into in the past in our individual writing and teach

Silence 30 50x50"  oil/cold wax on panel © 2013 Janice Mason Steeves When I return from a journey,  I let the experience wash through me, not knowing what effect it will have on my work. I just begin to work, and after I have a few paintings under my belt,  I stand back to see what's happening.  Then I realize that it could be a colour I saw that influenced me or the lines on the standing stones, or even something someone said to me. I always find that I am slow to really settle into a trip, especially when it requires that I paint.  For me, painting is about place; my relationship with the place I am in.  In his new book: The Old Ways, A Journey on Foot , Robert MacFarlane says that "the two questions we should ask of any strong landscape are these: firstly, what do I know when I am in this place that I can know nowhere else?  And then, vainly, what does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself?" I painted in the beautiful artist resid

Silence Red 6 24x24" oil/cold wax on panel ©2012 Janice Mason Steeves This is the time of the year that we should take stock isn't it?  Look back and see what we've done this year.  What we've accomplished.  Are the art sales up?  Or down?  What are we doing right?  Or wrong? More than this, I try to look back and see if my work has changed and grown.  And if I have.  I look back to see what I've learned and if it was what I thought I was going to learn. I always try to write New Year's Resolutions.  Some years I create detailed sections like they tell you in the books on Success:  Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Artistic, Financial.  I divide them down into bite-sized pieces that would be almost impossible not to accomplish. It takes a lot of time and thought.  I carefully file this list in my pink filing cabinet.  By the end of January, I can't remember which section I've filed it under and in fact, I've forgotten what any o