Janice Mason Steeves

There is a way we have of viewing the world that is unique to each of us. We see through our own lenses. Several people have commented lately on how similar my photos are to my paintings. Which influences the other?  I think of some photos I took at the Baer Art Center artist residency in Iceland this past July. I was sitting on a grassy hill right on the edge of the fiord. My camera somehow ended up in the grass beside me and I happened to take a photo while it rested there. When I saw what I'd taken, I took about 80 more shots! The colours in the grasses were violet, pink, lavender, yellow and green. It was dizzying. I felt like I had opened a door into a wonderland, where the blades of grass were huge and indistinct. But most interestingly, they were transparent, overlapping each other. Recently, I taught a Cold Wax and Oil painting workshop in Anchorage, Alaska. At the end of the workshop, a friend and I took a Glacier Cruise on Prince William ...

Newgrange  48x42" oil/cold wax on panel ©2011 Janice Mason Steeves “ It is not enough if you are busy. The question is, ‘what are you busy about?’ ” ~Henry David Thoreau How can one person do it all?  I have taken classes on getting organized.  I set schedules and goals.  I have no TV.  But I feel that I'm constantly playing catch-up in my life: finding enough studio time, trying to catch-up on my art inventory, organizing my art classes, writing grant proposals, meeting art exhibition deadlines, donating to art auctions, writing blog posts, aiming to keep up on facebook, as well as walking my puppy, exercising, housecleaning and family life.  And occasionally meditating.  I was brought abruptly to my senses last night though when a dear old friend called to chat. We talk now and again but not regularly.  We've known each other since our now grown children were in Grade One. In the spring, she told me she was having very serious ...

My current exhibition, "Evening on the Lake of Dreams" opened at Galerie D'Avignon in Montreal on May 2 and will run until May 23, 2009. One of the most interesting things that happened to me during the course of my work on this series, was that the title of the exhibition came to me in a flash at 4:00 am one morning. I was in that state somewhere between waking and dreaming and hoped I would remember the title when I woke up later on. As I lived with the title for a couple of days, the idea for a myth came to me and I began work on a story that the title suggested in my mind. This story is posted on my website, www.janicemasonsteeves.com . As I continued to paint, the story wove it's way into the paintings, which became more dreamlike as the series progressed. "Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. " -Henry David Thoreau