The Flower News
It’s been a strange time for everyone for so long now. My life has been largely unchanged by the pandemic. The life of a painter is fairly solitudinous most of the time, and I’ve cultivated a quite sedate and minimal existence in general. We’ve never gone out to eat much, and I don’t require haircuts. We haven’t usually spent a lot of time at the mall. Our daughter has been away at college for four years, and next year will be her fifth and final year. Our friend group is small. I paint, and the shipper comes to my house usually, and picks up the paintings that I send to my galleries.
Still, even we have been affected by the shut-downs, the pandemic, this unprecedented time. I have started to think a little differently about the importance of floral paintings at this time. At the beginning I might have thought that art and flowers would be less important, but the feedback I have received tells me that this is quite the opposite. Flowers matter.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the gallery I showed at in Edmonton closed. I contemplated, very briefly, just taking a break from working. But painting is who I am, and how I get through, so I just persisted, knowing that the canvases would be sitting in my studio for some time. I didn’t allow myself to think of the futility of the process. I painted. I looked closely at flowers.
And yes, they accumulated. I put them on the wall in our front room, salon style. I enjoyed the conversation between paintings, blooms. I let them talk amongst themselves.
And so amid the solitude and the accumulation of paintings, a few things have happened. Firstly, I began exhibiting my work at Signet Contemporary Art in London in Chelsea, home of the Chelsea Flower Show.
So what a place to be showing one’s flower paintings!
I’ve also begun a connection with GWP Art which is in Los Angeles and Toronto. I’m very excited by my partnership with these three art advisors.
In September, upcoming, I had been invited to an artist residency in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland by the esteemed James Baird. Given our current situation of lockdown and travel restrictions, this is unlikely to occur. It was an honour to be asked to participate in this much vied for residency, and I hope in future it will happen. Of course, it’s disappointing, but none of us escape experiencing these types of things right now.
In other news, the flower news, the peonies in our yard are starting to bloom, so I’m looking forward to exploring compositions and finding new inspiration.