Janice Mason Steeves

The group show, Modern Works/New Artists opened on Friday June 19th at Agnes Bugera Gallery in Edmonton, Alberta .   I couldn't be at the opening but Edmonton friends took this photo for me.  Here's a closeup shot of the painting in the window.           Night Garden 15 42x48" Oil/wax on panel   ©2010 Janice Mason Steeves  I am embedding a Rumi poem in many of the pieces.  One of the poems I love is entitled, “Bend, Tend, Disappear“ from the book The Illuminated Rumi , translated by Coleman Barks.   "This is how you change when you go to the orchard where the heart opens: You become fragrance and the light that burning oil gives off."  

Kamaria ©2010 Janice Mason Steeves oil/wax on panel My exhibition, Night Garden , opened at Wallace Galleries in Calgary, Alberta on Saturday, April 24. The show runs until May 8th. I flew out to Calgary for the opening. This very beautiful gallery with its floor to ceiling glass wall is located in downtown Calgary at 500-5th Avenue S.W. All of the paintings in the exhibition can be viewed on the Wallace Galleries website or my website . The day was beautiful and balmy in the morning but just after the show opened at 2pm, the weather turned. It began to rain. Shortly afterward the temperature dropped and it started to snow! Big, fat wet snowflakes. A couple of days later, Calgary was hit with 40cm of snow. I was grateful that it didn't happen during my opening. I have lots of family in western Canada and almost all of them came to Calgary for the opening- from Edmonton, Vernon, Salmon Arm, Red Deer and Winnipeg . And old friends came...

Carrizo © 2010 Janice Mason Steeves I think one of the things I love best about painting is play. I love constantly trying out new techniques and materials and using them to push my work into new and unexpected directions. Robert Genn in one of his recent newsletters, suggested a project encouraging play. He encourages an artist to: "Line up a hundred or so small inexpensive panels, papers or canvases and have them ready to go. Give yourself a more limited palette--perhaps half your normal range. Put all reference material and prior works out of sight. If this is not possible, work in a new environment such as a hotel room or friend's cottage. In preparation for starting the program, bring yourself to a mentally uncluttered, dream-like state. Now, over a relatively short period of time, fill the first support with a limited number of strokes. Get your subject matter from the deep well of your memory. Don't finish, move on...