Contact the Japan Foundation to reserve a seat as space is limited.
416-966-1600, 106

http://www.jftor.org/whatson/rsvp.php

Here is the video from that performance:

FAMILY DAY STORYTELLING
Monday February 18th 1pm-3pm
Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas Street East
Artscape Lounge

Look forward to seeing you there!
Once Upon A Time-RPNI

Friend/fellow Beach Studio Tour Artist Helen Billett and myself were given a shop at 1803 Danforth for the month of December and we transformed the very blank space (like a blank canvas) into a colourful explosion of art!!  Here are some of my favourite pictures of our time at Pop goes the Easel (including:  a great painting and vision board workshop, holiday drop in crafts, my annual Holiday Open Studio and an afternoon of Storytelling, Music and Crafts)

Thank you Danforth East (DECA) for having us!  We hope to come back again!

I recently had the great honour of painting a memorial canvas for the late Jack Layton.  I was asked to paint something around the many signatures and words of thanks on a large canvas and came up with the image of the blossoming tree… a symbol of all the seeds of compassion, hope and understanding that this great leader has planted.  Here is the article from our local paper.

MemoryCanvas_SEP20

HOME, LOVE, BELONG

STEP ONE:

I dab globs of yellow, red and crimson on palette.  Put music on. Put blindfold on.  Stop, breath deeply and begin.  I dip hands in cool wet paint and begin to execute the objective of step one:  just cover the canvas with paint.   I don’t know what colours I am smearing, what mess I am making but I am a pre-schooler riding purely on joy.  Dancing, wiping, dipping, spreading, turning… this step feels like flying.  It always feels like flying before you think, before you become attached to painting something “good”.

STEP TWO:

Once canvas is dry, layer on cool colours.  Variety is the spice of life.  I drag paint randomly across canvas. I dip sponge, dip brush in blue, make picket fence lines, dab lid of mason jar in Payne’s grey, make circles, skip them like a sonnet around the canvas.  Fly all over with green, dab white, make snow.  Dip pen cap in blue. Infinite and endless, I stamp circles on top of red or along canvas that lay unmarked, untampered.  Step two is where impulse was hiding.   It said make circles with brush, grab skewer, etch out a house, write the words home, it said etch love, etch belong.  There is pure, raw power in spontaneity, in being fully present to impulse.  If a soul can go every direction in the universe at once, it does so in stage two.

STEP THREE:

I don’t usually paint with black and white.  Instructions:  paint with black and white.   Skinny lines, thin brush, fat sponge, dab, drip, spray, splay, paint, run white right up to black.  Squint eyes, see contrast.  I see mess.  I see a mess of colour and pattern and a noise that I may not recover from.

STEP FOUR:

Add translucent paint… smear fluid acrylics on canvas with thumb, see how magenta changes the white, deepens the black.  Spray water, let it drip.  Wipe off, deepen, add turquoise, watch as depth is created like magic on the canvas.

Dip finger tips in red run them down the canvas like rain on a window.  Try not to be restricted by idea.  Try not to let the mind come in and think this painting through.  This is where the difficult battle begins.  The war between presence and foresight, between head and heart.  I want to hold on to the circles of words.  I want to protect home, don’t paint over love, hold onto belong…

STEP FIVE:

Put in images.  I have a vision of lanterns.  I draw them in with houses over complete mess of ugly colours yelling at me on the canvas.  “You shouldn’t have been so wild” it says, “you should have mapped it out” head chides.  I remind myself to trust.  So much of painting is trusting.  Just keep going, be present with every emotion but just keep going.

STEP SIX:

Work with what’s working.  I am stuck now for at least three days.  A jumbled mess on canvas, the glory days of step one and two are gone and I have backed myself into a painting I cannot seem to climb out of.  I stare at lanterns, at houses, at circles for days, painfully stuck, unable to figure out what to do next.  Until I finally get angry.  Being stuck and doing nothing is more painful than moving forward in ANY direction, so finally I just get mad.  I grab fistfuls of teal, handfuls of white and Payne’s grey and I cover everything that I don’t like.  Painting moves.  I move out of fear, finally unstuck (sigh).

STEP SEVEN:

Shape.  I highlight things I like.  Take careful steps as I navigate out of the ugly teenage stage to shape this awkward painting into hopefully a beautiful man or powerful woman.  I accentuate snowy raindrops.  I turn the yogurt container circles into lanterns, fill houses in with texture, leave under-laying dabs and drips to reveal the underbelly or understory or under-struggle of the painting.  I sculpt, I hone, I bring areas I like to life.  I squint, I choose a colour scheme, I outline lanterns and I listen step by step scanning the painting until I like it all.  Until it stops telling me what to do.  Until everything just sits quietly, breathing softly in the corner.

The mark of a good painting is the journey we take in painting it.  The mark of a good life is the journey we take in living it.

for the charming treasure hunt that is the beach studio tour…  Grab a friend, grab a map,  grab a latte and wander through the Beach neighbourhood to view, collect and be inspired by the beautiful artwork of local Beach Artists…  let us welcome you into our heARTS!

Press Pound to Skip by Nathalie Vachon

There are crocuses in my back yard, a clump of purple that keeps grabbing my attention, stopping me in my tracks.  There are flowers that shouldn’t bloom yet; the one I bought two years ago whose name I have forgotten is already showing pink buds.  There are leaves that need raking.  There are thoughts in my head that need to be put to rest.

There are worries; a basement of filing cabinets with sterile walls and florescent bulbs that hum in the background of my life.

There are shoulders that have a hard time falling, releasing, resolving.  There are messages on the answering machine that I have not answered.  Press 1 to listen.  Press 7 to erase.  Press pound to skip.  I skip over so much and there are emotions piling up.  Seems I can’t feel them fully, can’t face them straight on so I press pound to skip…

Father’s death, press pound.  Catch a glimpse of him, remember his drafting table, hear the ice cubes clinking around in his glass, try not to swallow the words he said or the fears that took him down.

Uncle’s death.  I don’t even remember that he has died sometimes.  I just think he is back in Quebec where I last saw him.  Try not to trip over the fragility of life.  Press 9 to save his smile in my memory.

My mother called the other day.  Her test results came back, the cancer is clear.  I don’t call her back.  I just press pound, skip past.  And her words echo back when I do the dishes or pull the covers up, arrange duvet and pillows in the morning.

I am so slow to process this life, all the words said.  There are a million memories in my heart.  So many words clinging off this pulsing organ.  How can one feel it all?  How can one let in each word, each harsh look or even each smile?  How can we process this fragility, this fleeting flicker of being?

All I seem to be able to do these days… is press pound.