Janice Mason Steeves

The blank panel I barely painted all of 2020. I could feel the anxiety and fear of Covid in the air all around us as well as the violence and the political unrest. The uncertainty. The confusion. Some artists were able to block it all out and paint prolifically. I could barely get into my studio. I felt so stuck. I tried making myself....."just  go into the studio for an hour ..........just clean it up..........paint small..........play".  All the advice I give my students. Nothing worked. I found creativity though through teaching workshops. In 2020, I translated my Workshops in Wild Places travel workshops into Stays Home workshops and taught them on Zoom. In those workshops, I suggested nature connection exercises to artists from all over North America and as far away as Australia. It occurred to me that one small contribution I could make to honour the earth is to teach nature-based painting workshops, where artists connect with nature where they live; the backyard or a n...

 My daughter, Jen Mason , has recently completed her PhD and in an article she's writing, she discusses how self-expression is an important topic in school and in life. We're taught how to write persuasively, how to speak convincingly and how to argue effectively. Mainly, it's loudest one that gets the attention. How much time do we spend learning how to listen? She goes on to say, "Listening is an internal process and like expression, it is a skill that needs to be developed." Who listens? In my Workshops in Wild Places workshops and in my Stays Home zoom workshops, I try to address not only self-expression through painting, but also how to listen. We're taught self-expression in painting: how to find your personal voice.Because my current workshops are about creating an intimate relationship with Nature and using this relationship as a point of reference for creativity, it's important to learn to listen to nature, not only her sounds, but also to open yo...

Meares Island  1000 year old tree with our group We all know that everything in this world is interconnected. At least we know it in our heads. But each time I teach one of my Workshops in Wild Places week-long painting classes, I more clearly understand the interconnection between the land, our paintings, our lives, our bodies, our emotions, and our spirit. In teaching about connecting with the land to create abstract paintings, I realize how the land opens us up, how art opens us up, but only if we are willing. Leaning against a 1000-year old tree on Meares Island near Tofino, BC two weeks ago, I was suddenly overcome with emotion. I had such gratitude for this ancient tree–that I was able to experience it, consider what its seen in 1000 years, stand inside the hollow part of its trunk, and sit on its huge roots as I leaned on it, feeling its big calm energy. Under Mother Tree-photo by Julie Brogan In my Workshops in Wild Places, we do various exerc...

Iceworks 55  oil/cold wax on panel 12x23" © 2018 Janice Mason Steeves I taught a cold wax painting workshop in abstraction this past week at St. Lawrence College in Brockville, Ontario. I've never had so many beginners in one class before. Two had never ever painted. One hadn't painted in 4 years. Three made art using other media. Only two painted regularly in landscape and abstraction. What a challenge! In our morning discussions, I gradually came to understand that the main challenge each artist had to face, was their vulnerability. Of course this is the case in every class. I suppose I was more clearly made aware of it though in this workshop.  As an artist, you come up against yourself all the time. There's no way to hide who we really are.  " I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straitening shyness that assail one." John Steinbeck I've written many time...

My son was married two weeks ago. It was a joyful, beautiful wedding. He's 42. It's taken him a long time to find the love of his life. But he waited. And they found each other. And the week before that, I attended the 50th wedding anniversary of old friends. A heart-touching celebration. I think of commitment when I think of these two events so closely connected in time. Only I think of my commitment to being an artist. I've been pulled out of my studio this past 7 months because I've been healing from two knee replacement surgeries. It's difficult enough to get back into the studio after a vacation or a brief illness but after a 7 month hiatus, only working off and on, I find it agonizingly difficult to get back to work. It's a push-me, pull-you situation. I want to get in there and yet, when I do, I don't know what to do. Creative ideas start to spring forth the more you work. And they quickly dry up when you're not making work. ...

John King at the Buhler Gallery in Winnipeg In the deep cold of winter in the past week before the spring thaw, I was privileged to have some heart-warming conversations with several artists about their work.  These were soul-searching conversations about  what our lives are about.  In Winnipeg, I visited my friend John King’s current exhibition called Calligraphic Influences at the Buhler Gallery in St. Boniface, Manitoba. He spoke about his work in a very reflective and passionate way, explaining how that series of work came to be, and how he came to understand what it was about. His paintings, while very joyful and playful, revealed some of John’s deep concerns about life, fragility and vulnerability. Art teaches us about who we are. That same day, a group of seven of us met for lunch at the home of Jane Gateson .  The group meets for lunch and discussions now and again, and have dubbed themselves The Qwesters (the questing westerners). I get to atte...

Sean Scully Exhibition Cut Ground Kerlin Gallery Dublin On my last day in Ireland, October 6th, my friend Mary and I went to see Sean Scully's show at Kerlin Gallery , in Dublin.  It was just opening that day and I was hoping to see it before I left Ireland. I spent some time in the gallery and just as I decided to leave, to my surprise and delight, there was Sean Scully coming up the stairs.  He was to be interviewed for Irish television by the Irish painter, Sinead Ni Mhaonaigh.  Scully is a very tall and imposing figure, balding, with a fringe of short grey hair and a stubbily grey beard, looking every bit his sixty-six years until he begins to speak.  Then his entire demeanour changes and a fire comes into his eyes. I was really privileged to be able to listen to the entire interview as I stood in the gallery.  Scully and Sinead roamed around the enormous white space as the videographer moved the huge rolling camera in and out and aro...