Janice Mason Steeves

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...

Fragile 18    29x29"  oil/cold wax on panel   ©2014 Janice Mason Steeves Sitting in my somewhat beaten-up but oh-so-comfortable studio chair the other day, considering a painting I was working on, I began to think of earlier work I had done that had some similarity to this new work.  I pulled out an old slide album from 1992.  I documented my paintings with slides in those days.  In 1992 I made my first foray into abstraction, spurred on by a trip to Baffin Island in Canada's arctic. I had the good fortune that year to travel with the well-known Canadian landscape painter, Doris McCarthy.  We travelled to Pond Inlet in the month of January when the sun had not yet returned to the arctic.  The thermometer in the window of our church/home remained at a steady -40C (which is the same as -40F)....maybe it was frozen at that temperature.  The wind chill took it to a place that was beyond reckoning.  Doris was 82 years old then a...

Fragile (1370)  30x30"  Oil/cold wax on panel © 2013 Janice Mason Steeves   In the film, "With My Back to the World",  the artist Agnes Martin talks about how the ideas for her paintings come to her in a flash of inspiration.  In fact, she painted directly from those visions, carefully working out the mathematical division of space.  When she finished a painting, she would simply wait until the next 'inspiration' came to her and didn't paint until it did. Once she had to wait 7 months, she said. My own ideas seem to come to me in  various ways.  Sometimes, like Agnes, I get a picture in my head of a painting.  I never can paint the exact image because I see it only vaguely. It's rather like an idea for a painting or an idea for a series of paintings.  I find that ideas keep coming the more I work.  So many artists and musicians have said that.  Twyla Tharp said that in her book, "The Creative Habit", as did the...

I taught a Cold Wax and Oil Painting workshop this past weekend with a group of women who were likely all over sixty years of age.  By the time we get into our 60's we bring  a rich life experience to our work: most have been married once or maybe 4 times, have grown children and now grandchildren,  had long and successful careers in business or education or medicine, cared for ailing parents when they were dying.  They bring the wealth of years of learning and life to their art and to this workshop. One thing about getting older I find is that there is a clear awareness that time is limited.  I could tell myself when I was 50 that I was only half way through my life.  But not now! Barbara, one of the women in the workshop, worried that at this age, she was too old to change her subject matter in her painting.  My own feeling is, why not spend that time doing exactly what I want to do?  Why not change? Let my work lead me to new worlds, new wa...

Fantasy Iceberg #40   1989  by Doris McCarthy Today I was reading Robert Genn ’s newsletter, where a young woman from Brazil wrote to him saying that she was having difficulty getting back to painting after the death of her grandfather.   Robert said how important it was for her to get back to work, it’s what her grandfather would have wanted. He said, “His passing is your gift; it is his breath you continue to breathe, and the brilliance that was within him is now passed on to you. It is a legacy not to be passed up".  Robert mentioned how, "We the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Artists need to be aware of the continuum. Mentioning the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Artists, made me think of the funeral service held yesterday for the young Sgt. Ryan Russell , a member of the Toronto Police Force , who was killed last week in the line of duty. Twelve thousand members of police forces, RCMP and military came to Toronto from across Canada to attend his funer...

Doris McCarthy In 2001, Doris McCarthy was invited to give the Convocation Address at the University of Toronto's graduation ceremonies, where she received an honourary Doctorate of Law degree. A good friend of Doris's and mine, the portrait artist, Judy Finch attended the ceremony and sent me a copy of Doris's speech.  I love Doris's simple, wise advice. I remember her being interviewed on CBC radio one summer when she was 89.  She said, with her characteristic enthusiasm, "Every decade is better than the last.  I can't wait to be 90!" "Mr. President, Mr. Chancellor, Members of the Faculty, happy Graduates and all your proud parents and friends who have come to celebrate this landmark occasion, welcome, and thank you for the opportunity I have been given to tell you something that neither your professors nor your parents have had a chance to learn, but that I know because I am old, older than any of them. This is the wonderful secret I...

Doris McCarthy            When I was in Can Serrat in Spain, I learned that my old friend, Doris McCarthy died on November 25th at the age of 100.  She was an icon in the Canadian art world, honoured and loved for her constant, dedicated focus on painting the landscape of this country that she loved so much.   In 2005, in honour of her 95th birthday,  Toronto's acclaimed Amadeus Choir, paid tribute  Doris McCarthy in a special multi-media concert - "Amadeus and the Artist - A Portrait of Doris McCarthy" - on October 22 at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in Toronto. The program featured the world première performance by the Amadeus Choir and the Bach Children's Chorus of 'Salutation of the Dawn ' by Canadian composer Eleanor Daley, commissioned by the Amadeus Choir. Along with three of her friends, I was invited to give a speech about my travels with her.  Here's the speech I gave that day. ...