Janice Mason Steeves

                        I miss travelling! I’ve always loved to travel especially to wild and remote places  but living on an artist’s unsteady salary, I’ve learned to find inexpensive ways to travel. Several years ago, I discovered  artist residencies, which provide accommodation and small studio spaces. These are available to artists all over the world, some of which are free depending on acceptance of your application, others cost a small amount. I prefer ones that are remote but provide accommodation to a small group of artists rather than just one person. The interaction with artists from other countries is a stimulating, enlightening and enriching experience.                  St. John's Newfoundland 2019 After I’d been teaching painting classes for several years in various parts of Canada, the US, as well as in Sweden and Iceland, I had the idea to combine m...

I love to travel to wilderness locations such as the ones I described in my previous  blog post , where one can be overwhelmed by the size of the landscape and feel for a time, completely alone, lost in the vastness. It's partly to do with the silence in such landscapes, where you can almost hear your heartbeat. Northern Sweden Northern Sweden I consider the idea of visiting remote places an aid to helping artists develop a more mindful response to the land, and as well, to find a visual vocabulary to express that connection. Mindfulness is the key. Not only being mindful of your own body, feelings and thoughts, but becoming mindfully aware of nature. And then, finding ways to creatively express that connection. I find it so easy when I go for a walk to forget about where I am and think about my problems, or worries or get lost in daydreams. Iona, Scotland Iona, Scotland Iceland Iceland There are many ways of developing a sense of place. One way t...

Iceland Works 1 10x10" oil stick/sand/acrylic on paper ©2016 Janice Mason Steeves Iceland Works 2 10x10"  oil stick/sand/acrylic on paper © 2016 Janice Mason Steeves I have written before about Robert Macfarlane, the author of The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot. In walking some of the ancient pathways in England and Scotland, he came to consider the idea  " that cognition is site-specific, or motion-sensitive; that we think differently in different landscapes." And therefore more radically, that "certain thoughts might be possible only in certain places...." W hen I travel to artist residencies in different countries, I think of that quotation. And in my workshops that are located in beautiful, natural surroundings, I give that quotation to the students to consider as they sit outdoors for a short meditation each day. At the Baer Art Centre residency I attended recently in Iceland, I did a series of small paintings influenced by the land...

Writing at the kitchen window at my residency in Sweden. Photo: Rebecca Crowell I've been back from my artist residency in Southern Lapland for nearly three weeks now. Almost all of my creative time there, and since I've come back home, has been spent working on a book. The idea for this book came to me in a dream about three years ago, when I was on another artist residency, and it's been sitting there at the back of my mind for all this time. It's a book dedicated to all those artists, who have come to art later in life, as I did. While I was in Sweden, I sent out a questionnaire to a number of artists. The scope of the project grew as those artists suggested others. I've received incredibly touching stories from people, telling me how important it is that they finally have the time to focus on their art. It's as though they are getting in touch now with part of their soul that they'd longed to connect with. They've come to art later in ...

 Rebecca Crowell and I have just finished our month-long residency in Southern Lapland. We leave tomorrow. As a sort of wrap-up, we wrote a co-blog post about our experiences here.  I'll include a few other photos here, but click on the link below if you'd like to read our stories. http://www.crowellandmasonsteeves.blogspot.ca/2015/06/notes-from-lappland.html At Stekenjokk.  The light was gorgeous. At Stekenjokk, the highest place on the Wilderness Road that leads into Norway. The road is only open in early June because of all the snow. Look at how high the snow still is in this section of the road.

Kultsjon Lake, Lapland, Sweden  Here at Ricklundgarden in the little village of Saxnas Sweden in Southern Lapland, Rebecca Crowell and I have just finished teaching a 7-day painting workshop. It was an incredibly memorable week for us all, from a campfire in the Sami kåta to a hike in the snowy, dreamy, treeless landscape of Stekenjokk near the border with Norway, to working in the studio here at Ricklundgarden.     Ricklundgarden studio Kåta Stekenjokk, Sweden We saw late late sunsets that lasted long into the night, and early morning sunrises only a few hours later in this land so close to the Arctic Circle. As a way of connecting to this powerful landscape, and as a time for contemplation and reflection, I asked the artists in the workshop to each find a quiet place to sit outdoors--a sit spot--where they would spend 15 minutes each day.  They were to return to the same spot each day at different times of day.  As part of that p...

      I am currently at Ricklundgarden , an artist residency in Southern Lapland, Sweden where I am co-teaching a painting workshop with Rebecca Crowell . This is the view out my studio window: Kultsjon Lake with snow-covered mountains behind it.  It was a journey to get here--a long flight from Toronto, a layover in Munich, overnight in Stockholm, a 90 min flight up to Vilhelmina and an hour long bus ride to the tiny village of Saxnas. We are only one hour south of the Arctic Circle here, so the days right now are about 18 hours long.  But it is twilight until long past midnight.   There are five artists in the workshop, three from Canada and two from Sweden who are working together in the bright studio of the main building. I'm ensconced in the cozy Annex next door to the main building where I have a beautiful studio overlooking the lake and the mountains beyond. Paradise.  There is much more snow here than we expected to find. There...