Janice Mason Steeves

The blank panel I barely painted all of 2020. I could feel the anxiety and fear of Covid in the air all around us as well as the violence and the political unrest. The uncertainty. The confusion. Some artists were able to block it all out and paint prolifically. I could barely get into my studio. I felt so stuck. I tried making myself....."just  go into the studio for an hour ..........just clean it up..........paint small..........play".  All the advice I give my students. Nothing worked. I found creativity though through teaching workshops. In 2020, I translated my Workshops in Wild Places travel workshops into Stays Home workshops and taught them on Zoom. In those workshops, I suggested nature connection exercises to artists from all over North America and as far away as Australia. It occurred to me that one small contribution I could make to honour the earth is to teach nature-based painting workshops, where artists connect with nature where they live; the backyard or a n...

Writing at the kitchen window at my residency in Sweden. Photo: Rebecca Crowell I've been back from my artist residency in Southern Lapland for nearly three weeks now. Almost all of my creative time there, and since I've come back home, has been spent working on a book. The idea for this book came to me in a dream about three years ago, when I was on another artist residency, and it's been sitting there at the back of my mind for all this time. It's a book dedicated to all those artists, who have come to art later in life, as I did. While I was in Sweden, I sent out a questionnaire to a number of artists. The scope of the project grew as those artists suggested others. I've received incredibly touching stories from people, telling me how important it is that they finally have the time to focus on their art. It's as though they are getting in touch now with part of their soul that they'd longed to connect with. They've come to art later in ...