Ask yourself: Why am I alive?

Meares Island 1000 year old tree with our group

We all know that everything in this world is interconnected. At least we know it in our heads. But each time I teach one of my Workshops in Wild Places week-long painting classes, I more clearly understand the interconnection between the land, our paintings, our lives, our bodies, our emotions, and our spirit. In teaching about connecting with the land to create abstract paintings, I realize how the land opens us up, how art opens us up, but only if we are willing. Leaning against a 1000-year old tree on Meares Island near Tofino, BC two weeks ago, I was suddenly overcome with emotion. I had such gratitude for this ancient tree–that I was able to experience it, consider what its seen in 1000 years, stand inside the hollow part of its trunk, and sit on its huge roots as I leaned on it, feeling its big calm energy.

Under Mother Tree-photo by Julie Brogan

In my Workshops in Wild Places, we do various exercises to connect with the land––walking meditations, sitting meditations, gratitude meditations, writing, and other reflective activities. While connecting with the earth, we also connect with ourselves and to deepen that relationship, I invite artists to ask themselves and the land profound questions.

Seaweed on Cox Bay

Cox Bay Beach, Tofino, BC

While I originally envisioned the workshops as creating paintings that are reflective of a deep relationship with the land, I had not given enough importance to the artists’ relationship with themselves as well as with the rest of their lives. In this last workshop, as one person struggled with inner conflict, I was reminded that of course, everything is interconnected. The earth is not separate from our lives, our bodies, our spirit, and us. We know that in our dealings with climate change. In the same way, painting is not separate from us or from the world we inhabit. Everything’s connected.

Lone tree-Cox Bay

ME: Why am I alive?

OLD WOMAN: Because everything else is.

ME: No. I mean the purpose.

OLD WOMAN: That is the purpose. To learn about your relatives.

ME: My family?

OLD WOMAN: Yes. The moon, stars, rocks, trees, plants, water, insects, birds, mammals. Your whole family. Learn about that relationship. How you’re moving through time and space together. That’s why you’re alive.

From Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations by Richard Wagamese

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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