Vulnerability in Life and Art

I am reading the wonderful book, Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. She writes of vulnerability. She describes it as the experience of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure that we face every day. Vulnerability isn't weakness, she says, but "it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage."

I think of the work I am currently doing and how different it is from the work of the past year. This past year, I worked on a series I called Silence. There is an urgent importance I feel, in finding quiet space in our lives and in our work. It's vital as well to create quiet spaces in our paintings, where we allow breath to enter. This felt like a series I could work on for years.

In April, after not painting for a month because of the demands of exhibitions and workshops, I began to work in the studio by playing on small paper panels. I painted quickly and freely, using quirky mark-making and line and bright combinations of colours. The excitement for this work has continued and it seems to be turning into a series of paintings. It surprises me the quick shift in direction and I've been trying to understand the reason behind this shift. It came to me in the past few days, in the ah ha moment where we remember how our lives and our work and the world are interconnected.

One night this past January, my good friend Susan and I went to a movie. One week later she began having dizzy spells. Within the month she was in the hospital diagnosed with a brain tumour. She has remained in hospital since. Susan can't walk or even get out of bed without assistance. Her speech seems to be improving although it's sometimes very difficult to understand her. She doesn't seem to be bothered too much by this, and still tries her best to communicate, even leaving messages on my phone from time to time. As she fights for her life, she holds to her goal of becoming well enough to attend her daughter's wedding in August.

I realize that my new work is about joy and gratitude. Joy and gratitude are what Susan's illness is reminding me to focus on every day. Gratitude for her friendship and her courage. I am grateful that I am healthy, that I can walk and I can paint.

The art critic that sits on my shoulder tells me that contemporary art should not be about joy and gratitude. It requires a much more weighty construct.

I brush the critic off my shoulder. Susan's vulnerability is physical. Mine is emotional-it's something that artist's have to deal with on a daily basis: do we put ourselves out there in an open, honest, truthful way? Or do we hide that light, hoping the critic will like us more that way.

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...

Am I Too Old to Change? Embracing Life

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels I'm in the process, at last, of working on the book that came to me in a dream seven years ago. It has circled my head all these years, demanding I get at it. It's called: We're Not Done Yet: Coming to Art Later in Life . It has actually hung in the air a couple of feet behind my head, attached by a string like a helium balloon, like a cartoon cloud, waiting for me to get to it. Some of you will know of it because I posted a request on Facebook in 2019 asking for artists who have come to art later in life to reply to me if they'd like to answer a questionnaire. I received 168 responses plus earlier interviews I did before the put out the questionnaire. There was some overlap, and some didn't respond after they'd offered to. All in all, I received 128 responses. By a huge majority it was women who responded to my questionnaire. By the time we get into our 60's we bring a rich life experience to our work: m...

Janice Mason Steeves

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