Janice Mason Steeves

Pathways 2  11x15"  Mixed Media on paper  © 2018 Janice Mason Steeves There is a timing for things. It isn’t a mistake or a sign of weakness when a person comes to art later in life. The time hasn’t been right for them to arrive any earlier. Like late-blooming plants, they’ve weathered the heat, the winds and the fierce summer storms and now, the autumn is their time. In nature most plants and trees bloom in the spring and summer. But some are only ready to flower in the late fall or winter. In Southern Ontario where I live, some fall and winter-blooming plants include Chrysanthemums, Burning Bush, Amaryllis, Christmas Cactus and species of Witch Hazel. The magnificent Saguaro Cactus, which grows in the Sonoran Desert between Arizona and Mexico, can live for 150-200 years but only blooms after 35 years. And the Madagascar Palm Tree blooms with hundreds of tiny flowers only once in 100 years.  Like the Saguaro Cactus, I bloomed late too, attending art school ...

In this artist residency at Ricklundgarden in Southern Lapland, I've been writing a lot and painting and the days pass in a dreamy state of creativity. It's a disorienting place for the quiet and the beauty and the endless daylight. The sun rises shortly after 3am but it's never really dark so my body is unsure what time it is. It can't form a rhythm. And in that disorientation, I feel I'm moving as though in slow motion through another world where there is no time. I paint, I write and I sit dreamily watching the clouds slowly glide across the rounded snow-covered mountains beyond the lake outside my window. This is such a silent place. Even though I live in the countryside in Ontario, this is a more silent silence. I am moving into it. Yesterday morning the sky was grey with heavy low rain clouds. I was painting in my studio when all of a sudden, a loud booming, rumbling sound came from the sky. I ran outside to see what it was. I couldn't see any...

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...