Janice Mason Steeves

I have been away from painting for most of the past month.  I taught three cold wax and oil workshops and had two exhibitions, one in Edmonton at Bugera Matheson Gallery and another in Guelph that runs until the end of the month at Renann Isaacs Contemporary Art .  I guess that's why I haven't had much time in my studio. Sometimes I need to ease my way back into my studio work by playing.  I wrote about Maintaining the Spirit of Play in a post almost exactly two years ago.  I guess the same issues  continue to circle around and around. A major component of play is  surrender.   I call it the Art of Surrender because it's difficult to explain and often difficult to accomplish.  You know when you've achieved it because you can feel it.  It's a huge relief.  Surrender literally means to stop fighting.  To stop fighting with yourself and the natural flow of life.  It's not about inaction, ...

I'm having fun experimenting with making cold wax and oil monotypes on paper and had some interesting results today.  Although my work has become very non-objective this summer, these monotypes seemed to work well with an image. I was teaching this technique in my workshop and have decided to experiment further with it.                                 ©2010 Janice Mason Steeves "The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves." Carl Jung