Huron County Youth Mural

I have been an artist mentor this summer for a local project called Engaging Huron's Youth in Arts and Culture. For the past two month's local artist Natalie Hussey and I have been meeting with youth in Goderich and Blyth. Each artist has painted a piece of the mural on 3'X4' of unstretched canvas offering their visual perspectives as youth in Huron County. The mural pieces have been linked in groupings and hung in the reception area in the Blyth Theatre. Our opening reception takes place on Thursday, August 6 from 7-8pm. The mural will hang at Blyth Theatre until September 19 when it closes for the season. The mural will then tour public buildings in the county until January.

What has impressed me the most is the committment and enthusiasm of these artists to the medium if paint of canvas. Painting is alive in Huron County!

Sketchbooks

Journals and sketchbooks have been a part of my life for many years. Lately it seems that words have overcome the images. Writing about dreams or doing Morning Pages as inspired by Julia Cameron's, The Artists Way have been an off and on ritual in my life. I began sketchbooks as a way to collect ideas for my body of work. My art comes from a fairly non literal place so I often write to develop a more conscious understanding of what I am creating. I love making discoveries in this way. Sometimes meaning emerges through poetic writing.

I have an artist friend who makes books. Both of my current books have been made by her. When on holiday recently I spent some focused time with a book that has a colourful textured cover and Fabriano pages that accept watercolour. At the outset this book is more about colour and image than written word. Creating each page becomes a form of meditation that is different than journalling. The messages are simpler as visual language tells a different kind of story.

Notebook Drawings

I was just going through my son's reading journal from school and discovered these drawings. It was fun to scan them from the journal and see them as unique moments of creation. It is really easy to overlook someone's doodles. Doodles are great! They are an expression of your unique visual language! They deserve a closer look.

Nest Making

Birds are great weavers of nests. Recently, some young people and I tried to figure out how the birds do it by constructing our own nests out of clay, sticks, wool, moss and a variety of fibres. We designed beautiful eggs with plasticene. New species of birds were hatched from vibrant imaginations. I am always amazed at what can emerge out of the magic of the creative process.

Happy Year of the Ox!

Two loved ones in my family are celebrating birthdays in March that are exactly a week apart and both were born in the year of the ox 36 years apart. In honour of their special year we had a party last night and I made an ox cake. I used a recipe for snickerdoodle cookies for the legs, horns, ears and tail. Hot milk sponge cake makes up the forehead and haunches and fudge brownie fills in the rest.

I remember a dream that I had a while ago about doing work with a shaman somewhere in South America and I was given the job to make a cake to get the ritual started. There was a sense of honour in the task. I had the same feeling while creating this lovely creature for my family and friends. I wonder what the eating of the ox will inspire?

Celtic Roots Festival Art Work

For a week or so every January or February I am hard at work with a now familiar creative task. Since 1993, I have created a design to celebrate the Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Celtic Roots Festival. This is number 17 in the series. A slide show of the all of the work is available on the Celtic Festival website.

In getting started I am guided by the four elements that take form as human or animal. Sometimes there is a theme that needs expressing. This year speaks of "the scattering" of Celtic people throughout the world. I started with the image of a house and gave it the wings of the geese to suggest a house taking flight. The roof suggests furrows in a field, making reference to scattering and taking root.

The animals, ox, goose, dragons feeding the hearth and the fish all speak to me of home in Huron County a place where many found themselves after scattering. Lake Huron and the agricultural land continue to be a valuable resource and a part of our natural heritage.

And so, the act of scattering becomes taking root in a new place called home.

My Stars

It is Valentine's Day and instead of sharing hearts I am sharing my stars. I started rug hooking early this summer while travelling around Nova Scotia. While touring shops on a rainy day in Pictou I found a rug hooking kit by Deanne Fitzpatrick and subsequently became hooked on rug hooking. On our way home while passing through Amherst, Nova Scotia we stopped at Deanne's downtown studio on Electric Street. It is an inspiring place and so is Deanne.

At Christmas time I began making stars as gifts. Choosing colour is about intuitively responding from one section to the next. Most of my wool has come from Deanne's shop where you can order online as well as from The Rug Line in Hensall, Ontario. Recently, my mom has become enthused about rug hooking and has been spending time in second hand stores looking for wool clothing to recycle into rugs. She has had great success. We have also discovered there is a herstory of rug hookers on my mom's side of the family. My grandmother was a rug hooker and so was my great grandmother. There exists in the family a rug hook that my great grandmother used. It made by my great grandfather from the bone handle of a fork.