2013 and How We Got Here

I haven't written for months, so now I'll likely drum out several posts all in a tumbling row! It's difficult to justify my online absence other than to say it has been an eventful fall and winter. After my now almost dreamlike trip to the family reunion in France (did it really happen? Yes, I will cherish it again and again for the rest of my life!!!), I returned to my job as a casual library worker, however my holiday had set me back on the seniority list of casuals and I returned to virtually no work. You'd think this would open up a world of painting time but I tend to fret and procrastinate and obsessively clean the house when I'm worried about paying the bills. I irksomely focus on making our house tidy ~ a huge waste of time as we are rural dwellers, where domestic chaos is an accepted, no expected, state to present to visitors!!

Toward the end of the year I pulled together a few of my old Christmas Card designs (eventually you will be able to see all my watercolour greeting card designs on my other blog, Thumb & Thistle) and I took part in two local weekend markets, my favourite being the Christmas at the Commons. We've had so much to thank the Commons for throughout this year, and it's there that I've met some of the most real and down to earth people - people whose hearts and souls are far bigger than even the daily challenges they have to endure, and quite a few have lived on this island since much simpler times before their circumstances diminished...these are the people I feel the most at home with, and an ever evolving way of living has emerged for K and I as we now serve frequent shared dinners, offer our hot shower as a drop-in option and our sofabed as a respite to the same friends who give us a ride when we have no gas, drop off chopped wood to keep our fire along, lend us flashlights or come running if someone is sick, and so it goes round and round as we all find our equal footing and establish a lifestyle that nurtures the abundance we can collectively manifest in our small community. I never knew anything like this in the city. Here, the economic currency is the free time that is filled with open, unconditional favours traded between neighbours.

Just past mid-December K was driving home on the first snowy and icy evening of the winter and as he rounded a bend a deer appeared in his path. Although he knows not to swerve for deer, the timing of its placement at the apex of the curve was sudden and visibility low in the pitch dark....what he thought was shoulder room on the road was only an illusion created by ice fog...to his fleeting horror he discovered it was in fact a ditch.... as he skidded into it, he hurtled toward a huge tree and flipped on his driver side just in time to avoid a head on smashup and sure death. I was meanwhile at home snoozing, although even in my floating sleep I sensed an excessive lapsing of time, unconsciously unsettled that he should be home by now. I was soon woken by a friend knocking gently on our bedroom door (we never lock the house in our quiet neck of the woods)..."Ranza, you need to get up now and dress, K has been in a little accident". His overly calm manner betrayed his tentative words. My heart racing, I tore on my jeans and we drove down to the accident scene...as we approached, and I saw that a road crew was actually enforced to slow traffic (what, here? That never happens!!), my stomach churned, and I nearly threw up across the dashboard of our friend's car at the sight of our hefty Forerunner on its side, the hood ravaged open by the metal-gnawing machinery of the paramedic rescue team, and my man nowhere in sight, already extricated and whisked off  by the ambulance. 

K survived, in the opinion of the police and the emergency crew, by the skin of his teeth and the grace of his huge physique. And above all, in our humble opinion, under the protection of the Mysterious Great and Grander Entity. After a long night in hospital undergoing tests and xrays to rule out spinal and brain injury, he came home with a compound fracture and stitches to his nose, lacerations and tissue damage, a throttled knee and a bruised arm. 

K and Seeker in the Fall of 2012

Why had K driven out that icy cold evening? Leaving me at home to rest after an exhausting day, he was on an errand down mid-island to pick up a space heater for my studio from a woman who had a spare one to give me. It wound up coming at a much steeper price. I never thought the resulting comfort of a cozy warm studio would infuse me with such guilt and gratitude at the same time. 

No Longer Freezing, My Studio is Awake Again

Today we were having a laugh at the fact that K's otherwise boxer-like lumpy nose has actually healed much straighter than before.....and knock on wood we're back in the saddle again dealing with life's other simple struggles and exorbitant joys.

K and I met on New Year's Eve 2007, so it's our anniversary of course! We have stayed in to celebrate quietly all the Eves since, and this time as it passed uneventfully into the new enlightened era, I coined our shared motto for 2013:

"Carpe Diem! Fear Nothing, and Force Nothing! Get on with it in 2013!!"

I do have inspiring stories to tell and art to reveal, coming up soon!! And if I stick to my own words I will put the final brushstrokes to all the half-started paintings I began last year, including the yet to be titled oil below:

Oil Painting in Progress

                                      Happy New Year everyone, from our house in the woods.

The Road Ahead

I'm Lost in Sudan, You Must Wait for Suzanne

Oh I hate making promises I can't keep. But I rarely do anything in order, chronologically or even in at least in a timely manner, and this should come as a warning on all the packages of my promises. 

My partner K (ours is a passionate and commited yet boundless union in case the word partner has limited connotations in your part of the world)....wanted to commission me (without pay of course, at least of the monetary kind) to do a painting that would take me away from my tendency to illustrate, my tendency to create neat, controlled and whimsical paintings infused with joyful and childish intent...somewhere, he found a photograph of  Sudanese men standing in a polling line, waiting to vote. The year the photo was taken, the vote in question that mattered, I am unsure of. I need to read my news and history. But all pertinent facts aside, I stared at the photo and could only wonder at the resolute expression of the man at the front of the line...he has a mission to accomplish, he is determined to do his part, and he firmly believes his vote stands for who he is and his voice demands to be counted. He is not there by societal obligation as so often is the case in the west, he is proud and he will make a difference. This chance has, perhaps, been newly presented to him...it is not taken for granted. And then behind him, another resolute face, but behind that...what? Who?...his fellow countrymen...do they have the same passion? Will they sell out for personal gain? Are they actually Sudanese, are they transplants, are they....puppets, are they reliable? To vote in the most unstable of conditions, is this a risk, is it a pipe dream, does it have any worth or tangible effect? The faces in this painting, the dress, the quality of light, can any of this give anything away? More yet...how often does the painter discuss the questions that arise while forming a painting? Is it only ever a matter of making it look lovely? All of these things are hitting me as I attempt to connect with my work on this piece, and I now realize that this is intrinsic to one's evolution if one is attempting to create outside of the box...the box being our own limitations...our own enclosure of our fear of breaking out, our own frustration at trying to be understood, to convey what we intend, or even in this case, to translate what we think the image has to say.

The original photo ~ is it simply a day in the life that bears no deep analysis? Am I projecting onto it more than was occurring in the actual day as it was lived by the men who happened to have their picture taken in that nonosecond of existence?

I don't  know. I am into the painting now and all I know is there is more to show in it. Maybe it will just be pretty, maybe it will make you cry, maybe it will embody triumph, maybe it will convey these men as they truly are, it could speak for them, it could also do nothing and flop altogether.

I can't worry about that right now. I just have an urge to get more involved in the patterns, or lack of, in their robes, to bring them into the proper time of day. I decided to use acrylic paint for this one, to concentrate on line and shape more than detail or extensive colour.

I have many unfinished paintings lying about, but this one is begging the most not to join them, so I keep on...I didn't get called in to work today, they haven't needed to call me much this month at all and it has been hard adjusting to the lack of money and all the free time. You'd think I'd just jump at the chance to paint, but my studio is freezing and I need a space heater. Another silly excuse....I'm getting back to it, and I have not forgotten Suzanne Valadon, in fact, I am relating to her more and more these days....

Whispering the Boho Word...

OK. I promised Valadon, but right now you get Janis Joplin instead. And Grace Slick. I came across this photo online today, and I sank right into it. 

 
I am a resurrected 60s~70s wild child at heart, so I have to pay a little homage to the kind of woman I often wish I could be deep down inside sometimes...raspy, raw, able to belt it out and wear fur hats and stick my jaw out against a background of paisley fabric tainted with the scent of cannabis, whiskey and recent breakup tears. And of course, look at the colours in this photo....it is plain gorgeous nostalgic raspberry, aqua and rust complete with hippie beads, aloof stares and huge hair. I love you ladies, you colour our world.

In the tradition of the bedridden rockstars, more rust and paisley...on the walls of our bedroom....I took this photo of myself while nude, just to reassert my flower child credentials...K hung this purple paisley pashmina above our bed, draped sensually against the rusty orange walls.

Now if only I could play guitar.....instead I'm heading back into my chilly little studio to dig out some orange and purple paint.

The Gift of Paris 2012

Well, I have now been to Paris twice in my life! Once when I was 19, and then not again until this August, 2012, most thanks to my dear brother. The occasion for this voyage was the Kirk Family reunion ~ all 14 of the relatives on my mother's side are spread apart between South Africa, Scotland, Austria, Canada and Italy. My mother has lived in Italy for 41 years now, having left Canada to follow the love of her life when I was the eldest to my brother and sister at age nine. I love my mother with all my heart, and only wish trips to Italy weren't such sporadic and rare gems in my life, but hey, I've been lucky enough. I last saw her when I went to visit her at her rural home near Bassano Romano in 2007!

Mummy and Me, Once Again!

My Italian sister Flavia, 16 years my junior, now lives, works and sings in Paris, and so everyone decided it was the most central and splendid place for us all to convene. The hoard of us stayed in a gorgeous old house in Ballancourt-sur-Essonne, one hour by train south of Paris, and spent a few days exploring what we could of the city of light itself. Many nights drinking and talking through until dawn, laughing our guts out as well as crying, confessing, waxing nostalgic and getting to know one another....it was marvelous and life affirming, celebratory and hopeful. The Kirks are a witty, intelligent and loving bunch, and reconnecting to our shared traits and unique gifts was a solid and grounding epiphany, we all agreed on that. 

Where we stayed at Ballancourt~sur~Essonne

We drank a little...

I spent some precious time in Paris with my sister Coralie...we went to Jardin des Tuileries and the Musee de l'Orangerie....

My sister Coralie and Me

...but my favourite personal experience was our day in Montmartre....we came upon a very special place....12 Rue Cortot, where one of my favourite mysterious artists once lived...the elusive Suzanne Valadon. I will write all about Madame Valadon very soon. She has held the deepest intrigue for me and I often wonder why there has not been a movie made about her life, it could be such a magnificent adventure of a film. Perhaps you are already familiar with this unsung artist and muse who lived, loved and painted wildly among her prestigious and better known male peers during the Impressionist era, but if not, keep an eye out for my next post about my enchanted obsession with this woman and her art. Hers is a spirit I thrive upon and I could barely believe I was standing in the very house where she lived. Sitting in the courtyard, looking up at the studio where she painted, I marveled at the reignition of inspiration and the deja vu of shared passions capable of travelling across time and space from one beating heart to another.

Feeling the Aura of the Historical Courtyard at Musee de Montmartre

The Blue Ribbon and Paris

I haven't written for well over a month....because I now have an excellent and satisfying job across the water in Nanaimo, and I've been adjusting to my new schedule. I am so very lucky, I'm proud of where I work and really enjoy the people there. And above all, I can still come home to our beautiful and peaceful forest home every night....having my year-round bed on this island, set somewhat away from the urban crush, continues to be a dream sustained. So, a long delay in posting more of my art.... but here at last is the finished Blue Ribbon. Lots of personal symbolism here, this is my first self portrait in oils. I drew on inspiration from Balthus, Botero, Leonora Carrington and Edward Hopper....turning through the pages of their art in the evenings between picking up my brush. 

BLUE RIBBON ~Oil on Canvas 12" x 16"

In two days I leave for Paris. I didn't paint my way there, unfortunately. My mother's side of the family is having a reunion in France. It's been five years since I've seen my mother, who lives in Italy. I'll be meeting my South African cousins for the first time! My beloved K isn't coming...I'll miss him so much, but it's my own journey on this trip, and if distance makes the heart grow fonder, mine will almost burst! I'll bring my camera and my drawing pad, and there will be much more art and photos to come when I return. For now, I  am smiling and packing my bags...

Frida Kahlo, Every Suffering Woman's Reminder

In the 90s, while living in Vancouver, I recall a period when Frida Kahlo first became my friend due solely to her emergence as a faddish marketed trend. This article in the Washington Monthly, written in 2002, is one of the most in depth summations of the Frida splash I have come across. Reading it, I was forced to revisit my own fascination and attachment to Frida, and to honestly assess what drew me to her like a bee to honey along with hoards of other women around the world who identified with her near the end of the twentieth century. On a few points I question the writers' predictable theories about the modern sweeping up of Frida into a cult of personality, and the idea that her "rise to fame" was fated to fall away much like bell bottom pants would, that overall "misinterpretation" of her life and art were to the detriment of her longevity in the ranks of her male peers. To me, that is all hyped up hype about hype. What matters is who is left wearing the bell bottoms simply because they like how they feel and look despite the abate of the roaring materialistic crowds. I believe that rebellion and strength, not victimhood, was behind Frida's biographical appeal, that her life as an artist did not compete with or overshadow her art itself, but simply belonged with it....that her story and her art were tightly entwined as one element. And so what. Had nothing but her paintings shown up one day, all in a wooden box stranded on a beach, with no knowledge of her life story, I imagine a widespread search for the mysterious woman behind the curiously surreal and disturbing works would still ensue.

Nevertheless, by 2002, when the colourful and ambitious movie Frida came out, I was further entrenched in my adoration of her. And when I went to the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2005 and viewed in person some of her paintings and rare photos, I pledged a full hypnotic allegiance to her...the bond was cemented.

When 2007 rang in, I found a giant Frida calendar on sale for half price at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I took it home, hung it in my kitchen, and I've never bothered to replace or discard this 2007 edition. I've kept it with me everywhere I have lived since, and adopted Frida as my muse and confidante. From time to time I change the month to reveal a different painting that suits my current mood. The other day I realized I have unwittingly accrued a photographic record of her presence in my various living quarters...she has hung in my kitchen, my bedroom, even my closet, and now she sits watching me in my studio. If she were a stuffed toy I could be called certifiably insane. Thank goodness for her exalted reputation! Even hardcore intellectuals and otherwise level-headed people might forgive me for talking aloud to her when I am by myself. I know I'm not the only one!

What made me then, and still today, so personally interested in Frida?

I think for me it was her facial expressions in her repeated solemn self-portraits.  Never showing her teeth, never revealing her intent, never flinching, she holds in her stoic eyes the strength to endure and thus to triumph, and her rigid upright posture transforms her very apparent lack of mobility into a stiff attitude of courage and pride. She has the aura of a woman to be dealt with, one sure to trounce any competition, to defeat any pain, stare anyone down. I also enjoy her bold straightforward use of colour and folky brush strokes. To me, yes, they are naive and folk-like and not beyond intuitive comprehension, more real than unreal. She lets you know in the most head on way that nothing can shock her, nor should it you.

I never had children of my own, and neither did she. As I see it, she expressed that fated "dead end" as an acceptable phenomenon and her miscarriage as a testament to her feminine endurance, as epic and worthwhile and scarring as childbirth itself, her dead baby ghost a matter-of-fact cohort. In my own lazy moments, I often think of her sitting upright in bed, her easel sitting crossways in front of her. Instead of pitying her, I imagine the indulgent luxury of painting a la Frida, with my duvet wrapped over my knees, and comfy pillows at my back. I do believe that certain childless women turn their nurturing instinct inward in a decadent way, and outward in a creative way. We all give birth no matter what. At least, this is the understanding I invented between she and I. And of course too, she could divulge to me the mystique of her Mexican identity and loyalty, show off to me her proud and flourished costumes, impress upon me her determined impact upon fluctuating political times, She could wail to me about her wild womanizing lover and husband, and confide in me the fact she may have been a bit deplorable at times...all of this and more influenced an entire sisterhood of women like myself to reach out their hands in communion. Her paintings told us this story, true or not, it doesn't matter. They are powerful, emotional works, and that is lasting. Does she speak more to women than men? I've never bothered to check. She speaks to me.

Yes, the capitalist world brought her to everyone's attention as a marketed trend, but she simply stood still through it all and waited for it to pass as it was bound to do.

So, heavy as Frida's life was, I know that if she was just as strange as me, she needed a sense of humor.  Here you have a brief history of my interactive life with that pesky Frida, who I enjoy being strange with:

2008 ~ I Saw You Eat That Donut

2009 ~ You're Not Leaving Dressed Like That

2011 ~ Do You Prefer This Hat or The Monkeys?

Incidentally, I love this elegant photo of Frida:...although she always has a proud and regal air in her pictures, she is softer here and almost, almost smiling:

And one of my favourite paintings, perhaps because it brings the spirit of Frida into my own familiar natural physical surroundings .... The Little Deer (or The Wounded Deer). 

No Frida, nobody can shoot down your art. Don't worry, you are safe and you will endure.

The Blue Ribbon in Progress

Well, I placed the unfinished Turkish Panel aside and I'm keen to get back to it as a I have a solid plan for the border. But today I woke up unusually early for a Sunday, to continue with my small oil painting The Blue Ribbon. It was a really enjoyable day ~ I sat in the window in the natural spring sunlight and used small brushes to slowly begin layering at this painting in a  lazy stream of consciousness. It's a self portrait, and I will not try to explain it yet as it's still got a way to go, although I can tell I will finish it in just a few days. Typical me to fall into my fairy tale world. Oh well, here it is so far, mildly hoping to draw on subtle influences from Leonora Carrington and Edward Hopper. More on those two later. To defend my ambitious habit of clinging to such great mentors for guidance, remember that Oscar Wilde said "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".