Skip to main content

Cold Wax + Oil Workshop in Winnipeg


Last week I gave a cold wax and oil workshop in Winnipeg to these artists.  All of them have been painting in acrylic for many years, so cold wax and oil was a big departure for them. And even though I suggested that they make 'bad art' in one exercise during this class, there were some really exciting paintings that came out of the workshop.

I've probably written about making 'bad art' before.  The idea was mentioned in the book, the Tao of Photography, as well as  in Eric Maisel's book, "Coaching the Artist Within":
"To create we have to take the bad with the good.  We're bound to write bad paragraphs along with good ones.  That's the eternal law.  We can get rid of those bad paragraphs later on, but first we must write them.  Otherwise we won't write anything at all.  If we try to write only the good paragraphs, we are three-quarters of the way toward paralysis.  The name that we've coined for this problem is 'perfectionism.' But it isn't that people afflicted this way are striving to be perfect.  They are just striving to be good, which would be no problem at all, if only they also had internal permission to be bad."

Many of the artists in this class belong to a collective called the 'Group of 8".  They meet regularly to plan group shows, to discuss their art, offer critiques and support each other.  What a gift that is.  Part of what I like to do in my classes is to set aside time for the students to share their background, as well as their thoughts and experiences related to their art with each other.  The class comes to a whole other level of depth and support when the students share their experiences in life and art. 

One of the women in the group is having a solo show in the fall.  She has a friend who offered to help her with her artist's statement by providing her with a list of sixty questions to ask herself.  Thoughtful questions about her art practice..."Why did you decide to be a visual artist?, Why do you paint the kind of images you do?, How do your paintings express who you are as an artist? How do you know when a painting is finished?"  We tried to tackle some of these questions in the class at lunchtimes, but there wasn't enough time in a 2 day workshop to discuss more than one or two.  I'll save a few of those questions for a longer workshop.


Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.  Earl Gray Steven

 To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.
Sam Keen




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meet the Owners of a Scottish Castle

Anne Tristine Nguyen, Ali Orr Ewing, their children, Ava, Atticus and  their dog, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dunskey Estate, Portpatrick, Scotland Anne Tristine Nguyen and her husband, Alistair Orr Ewing are the owners of Dunskey Estate near Portpatrick, Scotland where I will teach a painting workshop in September. Dunskey is a splendid Edwardian castle on 2000 acres of ocean-front land with miles of walking trails. As well as daily workshop sessions in the studio on the top floor of the castle, our small group of artists will enjoy breathtaking hikes, superb accommodation and fabulous meals.  Not having met owners of a castle before, I asked Anne if I could interview her to hear a little of their background story and that of the castle. Can you tell me a little of your personal story and that of your husband, Alistair Orr Ewing? Anne emigrated to America when she was ten years old, but it was at an art gallery in Saigon, her birthplace, where she met Al
Post a Comment
Read more

The Importance of Silence in Art

Gathering Light 60x60"  Oil on canvas © 2014 Janice Mason Steeves  Michael David Rosenberg, the musician known as Passenger, sings, "See all I need is a whisper in a world that only shouts." In the workshops I teach, I find that one of the most common problems with paintings is that they shout. Most have too much going on: too many small shapes, too much texture, extremes of colour, too many lines, too much, too much. One thing I say most often as I walk around the classroom working with students individually, is 'make bigger shapes'.  But not only bigger shapes. Quiet shapes.  Where can your eye go and rest in the painting? That isn't a consideration in much of contemporary painting or much of contemporary life.  Ours is a noisy world both visually and auditorily.  Ours is a world that shouts.  People are afraid of silence. I wrote a blog post  3 years ago about planning a retreat in my own home, where I shut off the computer and the phon
1 comment
Read more

Lessons that Stone Walls Teach

Dry stone wall in the Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland   I've just returned from teaching a Workshop in Wild Places class in the Burren in County Clare, Ireland. Writing this post, I'm reminded of another post I wrote after visiting Inishmaan, the middle of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland several years ago. Stone walls crisscrossed the island in tight webs like a fisherman's net. I wrote then that the web of stone walls made me think of the idea of putting limitations on our painting as a way of exploring more deeply and how walls give limits against the limitless. You can read that article   here. As our group hiked in the Burren with our guide, Marie McGauran we learned that the walls are stronger because of the holes in them. The wind can pass through. The oldest stone walls, estimated to be 3500 years old are at Skara Brae, a Neolithic site in Orkney. Most walls were built in the 18th and 19th century, marking areas of private ownership and resulting in poverty
Post a Comment
Read more