Janice Mason Steeves

Fragile (1370)  30x30"  Oil/cold wax on panel © 2013 Janice Mason Steeves   In the film, "With My Back to the World",  the artist Agnes Martin talks about how the ideas for her paintings come to her in a flash of inspiration.  In fact, she painted directly from those visions, carefully working out the mathematical division of space.  When she finished a painting, she would simply wait until the next 'inspiration' came to her and didn't paint until it did. Once she had to wait 7 months, she said. My own ideas seem to come to me in  various ways.  Sometimes, like Agnes, I get a picture in my head of a painting.  I never can paint the exact image because I see it only vaguely. It's rather like an idea for a painting or an idea for a series of paintings.  I find that ideas keep coming the more I work.  So many artists and musicians have said that.  Twyla Tharp said that in her book, "The Creative Habit", as did the...

Doris McCarthy            When I was in Can Serrat in Spain, I learned that my old friend, Doris McCarthy died on November 25th at the age of 100.  She was an icon in the Canadian art world, honoured and loved for her constant, dedicated focus on painting the landscape of this country that she loved so much.   In 2005, in honour of her 95th birthday,  Toronto's acclaimed Amadeus Choir, paid tribute  Doris McCarthy in a special multi-media concert - "Amadeus and the Artist - A Portrait of Doris McCarthy" - on October 22 at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in Toronto. The program featured the world première performance by the Amadeus Choir and the Bach Children's Chorus of 'Salutation of the Dawn ' by Canadian composer Eleanor Daley, commissioned by the Amadeus Choir. Along with three of her friends, I was invited to give a speech about my travels with her.  Here's the speech I gave that day. ...