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Showing posts with the label John O'Donohue

Inspiration from the land-Artist Residency, Iceland

In an earlier blog post , I wrote about breathing in the spirit of place. Some places however, resonate with us while others do not, for whatever reason. I remember travelling once by sail boat to the Queen Charlotte Islands (now called Haida Gwaii), off the west coast of Canada. We anchored at the abandoned Haida villages along the way and took a dingy into shore to walk the land. I had brought along painting supplies, fully intending to sit and paint along the way. I found that I couldn't. Perhaps it was the energy of the land that had a long and sad history. I never did any work from that trip. I resonate with Iceland––the space and the solitude here on this remote horse farm and artist residency in Northern Iceland. “We enter solitude, in which also we lose loneliness… True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation." Wendell Berry  In the painting workshop I taught here two weeks ago, I had a goal of trying...

The Gift of Being Seen

John O'Donohue  the Irish poet and philosopher, once wrote, “One of the deepest longings of the human soul is to be seen.”        It is truly a gift.  Last Sunday, Gallery Stratford curator Aidan Ware, introduced my exhibition, Gathering Light with these words:  "The work is not only beautiful aesthetically, it expresses a longing we all feel-perhaps particularly at this time of year-as we search for light and meaning and hope.  Mark Rothko once said, 'A painting is not about an experience. It is an experience.' And I cannot think of a better statement to describe Janice's work. You have to experience it. Meditate with it. Be quiet with it. Let it transcend its form and become a spiritual experience. I believe that art can act as a kind of spiritual salve. It can heal as much as it can provoke us towards and past boundaries. It can offer us space for contemplation, elevation, communion. For gathering light." My exhibiti...