Janice Mason Steeves

Last week I visited my artist friend, Rebecca Crowell  in New Mexico. Rebecca and her husband Don Ticknor have bought a property  north of Santa Fe, which Don is renovating and restoring.  Rebecca and I will be teaching a painting workshop in northern Spain in September and we needed time together to work on it. We spent part of each morning throwing ideas back and forth about the format of the workshop and came up with some creative plans. I realize that so many ideas I have come from books I've read about art and the creative process or TED talks or the podcast ON Being with Krista Tippett or simply talking to people. For example, in my workshops that take place in beautiful landscapes,  I often have my students choose a 'sit spot' outdoors, where they sit every day for 15 or 20 minutes to simply observe. This idea came from an outdoor workshop my daughter took with Jon Young, author, wildlife tracker and naturalist, who developed the daily sit spot p...

 Singing the Essence 46    29.5 x 39.5" ©2015 Janice Mason Steeves Sometimes there is another presence at work when we make art. Elizabeth Gilbert in her book, Big Magic , calls it "eudaimonia", a word coined by the  Greeks meaning an external daemon of creativity. All artists feel this at one time or another. Call it the muse, or an angel or a spirit guide or flow. It doesn't happen for me all the time. But that creative presence has definitely visited me. I remember early on in my painting career when I made a painting that was far above my ability at the time. Of course, I painted it, but there was a sense that I couldn't have. I remember the first time it happened. The painting painted itself very quickly and confidently and when I stood back, I was shocked. Something magical had happened! At first my ego puffed up and took full credit. Only trouble was, I couldn't repeat that feat. It took another year or so for me to bring my paintings up to tha...