Northland

This is one of my favorite paintings from Tom Thompson, it is currently at the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal.

The setting is a scene of a forest surrounding a lake, it depicts a virgin forest with no human imprint. Maybe that is why a birch tree is lying amidst the standing forest on the edge of a bed of rocks, knocked down by the force of nature. Through the forest beyond the lake we see the continuity of the forest around it.

The predominance of red, orange and ochre tones used for the leafage covering the rocks and parts of the trees sets the tone of an autumn scenery. There are no symbols or anything suggesting anything else than what it is, a representation of a forest at a specific point in time.

The artist has used both warm and cool colors just like fall, cool and colorful. The mixture of red and orange tones of the autumn leafage that are spread across the bedrock in the forefront guides us into the painting. Inviting us to go deep into the bright birch forest, the artist is using a mixture of beige and pink colors for the trees, making them stand out by their lightness in contrast with the predominant red, orange and ochre tones against the dark blue lake. By using this same mixture of pinkish beige Thompson leads us around the dark lake forcing us to fallow its shore line in a circular movement, there is a faint repetition of the red and orange tones on the far shore of the forest. The intensity of the colors and his choice of palette are reminiscent of the Fauvist period.

There is a great balancing act in the composition and his usage of colors. He reintroduces the blue of the lake in the forefront to enhance the rocks or maybe it could be thought to be the shadows of unseen trees.

The open composition allows for our imagination to see beyond the canvas, you can picture the lake and the forest extending on for a distance on either side of the canvas, or imagine the forest behind you casting shadows on the forefront, you know there is more to the place.

The harshness of the light suggest that the artist chose a direct pointed light source that would explain why the trees are so sharp and seem to reflect the light. Thompson is successful in creating an effective contrast effect with his usage of the dark and intense hues. This effect is even more apparent as you back away from the painting, the trees appear to be white and as you get closer your eyes detect the subtleness of the light pink against the darker shades.

Thompson was born around Claremont, Ontario on August 5^, 1877. Although he started to draw and paint at an early age, he only took to painting seriously in the year 1912. His first trips to the Algonquin Park inspired him and he produced hundreds of small sketches of the region. Many of Thompson’s major paintings began as sketches before expanding into large oil paintings.

His paintings are an acquired taste, as you revisit his work and really pay attention to the details and the color choices, you really get a sense of the artist's passion and you can't help but feel it. Writing about a painting forces us to go beyond the imagery, it helps us notice the subtleness and the technicality used by the artist, questioning certain brush strokes, looking for a clue as to the initial approach. It is bringing us closer to the process while trying to unmasked its secrets.

I would suggest you try this exercise and see if it will change the way you initially looked at a particular painting.

Patience and painting

I don't usually put this much effort in to a painting, but for some reason this particular one is a never ending process. Each time I go for a walk in the woods I notice something more, this year the forest has undergone some major transformation in its landscape. It is chaotic, disorderly. No one has tempered with it, broken trees and branches are all over its leave carpet, the wind has done a lot of damage to the weak and fragile trees.

Consequently I am learning about patience through my brushes, I am learning focus in order to achieve a texture or a specific result. The act of painting lets me be in the moment, the focus lets me forget about the mundane stuff and the whole teaches me patience.

An ongoing project, I can't count the time I have spent over this canvas subtracting or adding shapes and colors. Will it be what I hope it can be once it is finish? I don't know if I can bring out its full potential but I won't stop trying.

I have other pieces on the go, but none inspire me like this one. I am drawn to the forest, I get lost in it. The abundance brought forth by nature, the continual renewal of life every spring is a strong motivator. Even with the destruction left by the force of winds gives it charm and creates a new tableau. Every time something is moved or broken it opens a door for a new beginning, moss, mushrooms, and insects will take over and create a new image with the broken or dead. Patience, for everything transforms, everything changes, we just have to wait for it.

On an other note, while going trough a book on Impressionists I fell into a Renoir painting called "Trees in the forest of Fontainebleau" that was done in 1860. The simplicity of it gives it power, yet the light is divine. Renoir was able to give it life, or should I say a soul, this is what I would like to achieve in my paintings.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is more than just an other commercial holiday, yes I know it is a great business day for the flower industries, restaurants, and any other businesses catering to women. But, most of all it is one of those special days where your family gathers together to remember and create special moments.

I have been blessed with three great kids that are now on a journey of starting their own families. This year we have a new addition to our family, baby Brooke was born last March and soon, around November, there will be an other addition.

Today was a reunion of mothers, grand-mothers and mothers to be, we celebrated together what it was and is like to carry a child within, to give birth, to watch his or her first step, to dream all that is possible and to love like you could never imagine you could. Yes today was a special day, one of those days when you feel proud, a day to be happy, grateful to be alive. This is a day when you make time for the people you love. Yes, I know, we shouldn't wait for a specific day to do that, however our fast paste living swallows us up and turns us into robots, sleep, eat, work, eat and back to sleep. We had to invent a bunch of holidays to remind us that we are alive and that we have families and friends we love but hardly spend time with. I wish we had invented more special days.

A great day, yes it was!

Painting in progress

Ok, it has been a while, but here I am again playing with paint and brushes. This time I decided to tackle a forest, my forest, the one in my backyard where I go and walk for hours with my dogs Charlie and Fanny.

I took an old canvas 40" X 40" and covered it with the base colors to cover the old image. From there I sketched some trees and made the composition with oil pastels and oil paint.

I was on a roll, I kept adding colors and trees and ground leaves, but I sort had a mix of a summer autumn scenery. So I redid the top part by covering it with more skies and branches, I want to go towards softer tree tops and more texture.

This is where I am at, a bit stuck.




I've worked out the bottom and somehow I have to blend it with the top...More to come.

Midnight thoughts

It's 1:40 and I can't sleep, I ate chocolate and had some wine, and lets not forget the brownies! I am sensitive to chocolate, caffeine and alcohol, somehow these substances seem to activate my thought process, and the more I think the more awake I get. Usually, I stay in bed hoping I will dose off, and this can go on for hours. However, tonight I decided to share my thoughts on aging.

Some kids are eager to turn eighteen, I wasn't one of them. It actually scared me, it meant that I had to become responsible and enter the adult world. The only cool aspect was that I could drink without worrying about being carded. Then the twenties have come and gone, I fell in love, got married, had kids and got a divorce. A few relationships later and I am in my forties. Still I think I can do it all, and yes, the forties is the best sex phase of your adult life and you do hope it will last forever. However, it doesn't.

You cross over the fifty yard line, and you feel these little changes happening, sometimes they are so subtle that you forget about them, but they are persistent and manifest themselves in the form of aches and pains that get to scream louder as the years pass by. So you start wondering if it is your diet, must of had too much sugar, or maybe the food was too greasy...should of taken my calcium and glucosamine!

You start reviewing your life and sometimes you don't like what you see, some say we should not have regrets, I don't know why they say that because I regret a lot of things, sure everything I did up until now has shaped who I am today, but still I regret not knowing who I truly was. And, because of that identity crisis I regret some of the crazy choices I made. However, I do have a bag full of stories. Maybe my stories are a bit crazier then some, a bit weird and unusual, sometimes even funny but, I can't say they are worth the "no regret" saying.

My biggest regret is not asking more questions about my family's history or maybe I should say my family's stories. Now I would like to know how my aunt Nora met uncle Jedeon, and why I never new she was an alcoholic until my uncle got sick and died. Why she felt she had to lie to him every time she bought a new piece of clothing, she would say "That old dress, it's been in my closet for years, don't you remember it, I wore it to so and so's wedding" or "I borrowed it from my sister", she had an open account at the New York Fashion store and she sold fishing worms to pay it, she would take off to the fields with her shovel and bucket and turn cow dungs over to rake the harvest. I can still see her in her black skirt with her sun hat and her rain boots digging for those wiggly worms...what a sight! I wonder why no one took a picture of her that way.

I wish I had asked more questions about my great-grandmother, about how it was for my grand-mother to be a single mom in the nineteen thirties. I did ask a lot of questions, however, they were not the questions I would of ask today, and back then adults did not answer all.

I wish I had taken more interest in my mother's family and visited them more than once a year, I wish they had taken more interest in me.

I wish they hadn't been so wrapped up in their secrets and shared their real emotions, their fears, their anger and their love. I feel that most of my life I was missing pieces of information that would have explain their behaviors, I am sure this would have calmed some of my anxieties. Instead, I wondered what was wrong with me.

They all died, my mom, my dad, both my grandmothers, my grandfather, my great uncles and great aunts and my aunt...and most of them died with their secrets.

So what does it all have to do with aging? Well I guess it is about knowing you won't live forever and wondering if you did anything that anyone will remember after your dead. It's about going through an identity crisis at fifty five because you still don't know what you want to do with the rest of your life.

It is about watching older people waiting their turn to die while they lose one more friend or family member in the waiting process. It is about choice, choosing to age miserably or gracefully. It's about knowing that the clock always goes forward and that somehow you have to eat more vegetables and less sugary stuff. It is about relationships, about loving and being love, about listening and sharing your stories. It is about being afraid of illnesses, about fear of needing help, fear of dependency.

While I was growing up I thought my grandmother was the strongest women on the planet, then one day she was eighty and she seemed weak, fragile and needy, and that scared me. In my defense, I was young and did not yet understand the cycle of life.

Birth, growing pains, bliss, aging pains, death. It is as simple as that.

Why should you keep a journal...

I started to keep a journal at thirteen, I felt the need to confide my feelings and my thoughts down to paper. I did not know it then, but by doing so I provided a useful map to a better understanding of myself.

I kept all my journals, and sometime when I am trying to remember certain things or events in my life they serve as reminders. However, they were most useful at showing me the repeating patterns I have created over my life time. When you put something down on paper you can not deny its existence, especially when you are the author of both your life and journals. By realizing these life patterns through my journals, I embarked on a journey of changes. After all, if you keep doing the same things you have always done then you will always get what you've always got. At some point in a life there are only so many lousy outcomes one can take. On the other side, you hold on to the good stuff.

My journal was my confident, it was where I made sense of it all. Ok, I must admit that some of the entries I made as a teenager were lacking in depth (and some of my adult entries didn't make the Hall of Fame either), yet when I read through some of the passages I wrote, I can find a window looking into my emotional state. Like all teenagers my feelings were raw and I didn't understand the mechanics of it all. I rediscover the naive girl I once was, the dreamer, the idealist and, the artist.

Through the years a long list of joys and sorrows are filling the pages. Agony of the heart going through a painful breakup. Loneliness, misunderstandings, judgments, and self-pity, you find it all. The joy of achievements, the joy of motherhood and its mishaps, the doubts and the courageous decisions, the unconditional love, the passion and the dark side of the soul. It is not a novel, but it is a life.

Through journal writing grows a better understanding of the self. Sometime it can force you to take a good look at yourself and realize the different dimensions you carry within yourself. It allows you to choose the parts you want to invest in, or better comprehend. It is a Legacy to oneself, a precious gift. One that will help you remember your journey through an overstuffed memory bank that your brain will become over the years.

Loosing jobs to technology

Lately I have been seeing things a bit differently, for instance as I am watching television there is an ad about getting "movies on demand" directly from your living room couch. I imagine most of us would think it a great idea, no need to either walk or drive to the video store, no need for returns either and, most but not least, no late fees! However, when I think about it I wondered how this would affect the people at the video store in our village, I believe there are 5 people working there including the owner.

During my last visit at the video store, I chatted with the owner about how her business had changed these past years, and she was sad to say that she was loosing a bit more each year and she might have to close shop sooner than she thought. Between the downloads and the on demand movies from cable providers her shop has lost ground. Consequently, our community will soon lose its only video store and 5 people will have to look for a job. But it is not only the small shops,the big guys like Blockbusters are also losing grounds.

This is a trend that is affecting so many different spheres of the work force that one wonders how long it will take before the majority of us find ourselves out of jobs.

It has affected my family directly, for twenty five years my husband was a photographer specializing in artist's portfolios and art work reproduction, trough trial and error he perfected his craft to get the right lighting, composition, angle and mood. He could make an art work look even better than the original.

He tried to keep up with the times and invested in new equipments and new technologies. However, while he thought he was investing in his business, his client base was dwindling. After several years of upgrading he was actually using his savings to keep his studio open. What happened? Progress and simplified digital photography for all and, most of his clients started doing their own shooting. It did not matter that the end results weren't technically perfect, hey, they didn't have to spend money on a photographer!

Most of our friends in the profession are turning to other avenues to earn a living, for some the transition was not so bad but for others it was very difficult.

Then their are all those small shops that used to make a town or a village, they gave character to the main streets. People got to know each other, it was colorful and lively. Now, most of these places are replaced by Corporate Stores, convenient but without soul. Where cashiers are slowly replaced by self check cashiers, where the service clerks are replaced by scanners or computers. These Corporate Stores are becoming one stop shop all, from groceries to clothing and car parts too medication, no need to go on main street. Consequently, small shops are closing or have to specialize.

Is technology slowly killing the work force, now I find that a bit scary since we all need money in this world to sustain ourselves. So, how will we earn a living if machines and technologies are doing the work? They say that the service industries will be our future, but how many services can we provide to sustain our ever growing population? And, who will be able to pay for them if the majority of people are working at meaningless jobs at minimum wage salaries?

If you watch the news then you can see all the destruction that mother nature is inflicting on all the different areas of our planet. If this keeps up, I wonder how long the Insurance Companies will be able to stay afloat, and how long the governments will be able to provide financial relief to the victims? And how technology will be able to help the global financial crisis for all of us to benefit?

I wonder how many of us will be able to reinvent ourselves to find suitable employment or start a new business. I guess only time will tell if we can continuously innovate our economic growth, or will we have to change our ways to survive this new century.

I wonder if cable tv and all its new channels are not design to hypnoptize the global populations into inertia? In a positive note the broadcasting industry is providing work for a lot of people. However, when the rest of us will be out of work and run out of money...who will be watching? No money, no cable, and so on...

Other promising jobs are in health care (as long as we have health insurance), then the legal sphere and lets not forget new technologies because we need smarter phones, computers, cameras and whatever else. Lets face it, we can not stop progress, but it would be nice if progress could serve us all better. For each new thing we come up with; we create a new problem...

All of this leaves me wondering...what is next?