Janice Mason Steeves

The work at Gallery Stratford awaiting installation I'm enjoying a small pause in my work cycle.  My studio is bare and quiet. My solo exhibition called Gathering Light , will open at the beautiful and spacious Gallery Stratford in Stratford, Ontario  on January 25th.  It runs until April 7th.  Over the Christmas holidays I was busy with the details of preparing the work to be sent off: sanding edges, attaching hanging hooks, documenting, cataloguing and wrapping the work.  Twenty-seven paintings were sent off on Monday. Gathering Light 25 (1455)  60x60"  Oil on Canvas ©2014 Janice Mason Steeves I've worked for months on this exhibition, flowing on a stream of high energy that carried me along and at times exhausted me.  It's exciting this business of art.  We put ourselves in the path of the Gods so they will carry us along.  And if we do this consistently we find a deep in...

Gathering Light 13   60x60"  oil on canvas © 2014 Janice Mason Steeves I struggled with a painting I was working on the other day.   It’s a large one, 60x60”.  I kept getting unwanted lines. Nothing was blending or flowing.  I am always aware of how the painting is going, what it’s saying to me as I work on it and I try to follow that.  What I didn’t realize is that I was  trying to control the painting more than I  knew.  As I  struggled, I talked to myself a little.  I told myself that I could always add  another layer on it tomorrow. That’s normally the way I work, layer upon layer, gradually building up the surface day by day, in thin transparent layers. I worked this one over and over,  back and forth, trying to blend it, going in different directions, adding more paint. I tried to stay in a calm meditative place but after several hours of this, I needed a break.  I stepped back, ...