The Rebellious Curator

I found a 3x3 inch watercolour tucked away in my backpack which I had painted on location in the mountains long before the pandemic. It looks nice in this wooden frame.

"The goal of the artist is to deepen the mystery" - Francis Bacon

INFJ's are creative people who live mostly in their heads.

Their intuition is constantly in overdrive, and this can be exhausting for them.

Ideas, thoughts and emotions live as abstract in INFJ's and is why they are often drawn to create the abstract. Thinking abstractly however, can cause complications when voiced both through their art, and in communication with others, resulting in being mostly misunderstood.

Even so, they need to express themselves through various forms of art and are constantly thinking of new ideas.

Their mind is hard to turn off.  and many INFJ's do not sleep well.

Inside and Outside

Walls outside must have some flowers

Walls within have books and paintings to pass the hours

And charming windows with curtains

That look like paintings with magical powers

- Wendy Jones

Painting by Marc Chagall

I've played around with writing poetry, limericks and haikus since childhood, and most of them are either whimsical or dark, or both. I'm working on an assemblage idea which may revolve around this poem and a vintage dollhouse. Yes, silly poetry and a dollhouse... definitely something I'd dream up. Stay tuned...

Found an old journal with a few of my earliest blogs..

Blog #9

On Regret

"The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave it neither power nor time". - Mary Oliver

Untitled o/c 2014

I went through a period of time where most, or all of my paintings had pink and green. I also loved the power of combining pink and orange, or placing pink and orange next to each other. I always added areas of pure titanium white and small bits of bold red for contrast. That combination is still magic to me.

I always tell my students to paint from their heart first, then their head. The hand will follow.

I found an old journal and wanted to share a few of my earliest blog posts:

Blog #12

Hubris Bloat

"My husband is a full-time Theology student. He reads a lot of dry, scholarly text. He recently coined the term Hubris Bloat to describe descriptive artspeak like this:

In this painting, I engaged aspects of painterly abstraction, generalized areas of colour, rendered light imprecisely, and intentionally confused spatial relationships. 

In other words, it's colourful and confusing."

Potty Mouth House o/c 2014

This painting was part of a series of abstracts about a derelict, abandoned house by the river near the community where I live. This house was broken down, grown over with vines, and riddled with graffiti. From a distance, it may have been haunted, but upon closer exploration, it had a rather welcoming personae. I tried to capture its soul, as I felt the house had its own interesting history despite being laden with profanity and disrepair. This painting describes the interior looking in through the broken front door toward a staircase. The word DEAD was grafittied on the exterior to the right of the entry, and an upside down cross to the left, which I made only partially legible in the painting.

Two of the other paintings in the Potty Mouth House series.

The abandoned house by the river.

Found an old journal with my early blog posts and thought it would be fun to share a few of them.

Blog #3 - Painting Process

"I'm very interested in contrast. The tension between light and dark, busy and quiet, soft and hard. I try to work the composition in and around my areas of contrast. I rarely prepare canvases before painting - I just get into the colour while I'm feeling it, and I like the places where the bare canvas shows through. If I work quickly and intuitively, it works out well. Too much thinking and planning and it becomes forced and ridiculous." 

Tumultuous Wave o/c

This is actually a tripdych (only 2 canvases are shown above). It depicts a time when I was struggling with depression and the act of painting was one of the ways I dealt with it. 

Going through an old journal, I came across some of my early blog posts, and I wanted to share a few of them.

Blog #1

A Small Introduction

I've always had humble aspirations as a painter. I didn't become an artist to make any money. I just had something to say and the best way to expel that was through the visual form. I struggle with self-doubt and over-thinking, but I am learning to quiet that, let go and trust my heart to paint what I feel."

The Trees Echo with Laughter o/c

I painted this early on in my journey as an artist and was one of the first paintings I did on a black canvas. I used a limited palette of Prussian blue and sap green with cad yellow and painted this rather quickly in no more than two painting sessions. 

The title came at the very end when I was sitting in front of the canvas with the radio on. Stairway to Heaven started to play and as I listened to the words and stared at the painting, the title just clicked. It was one of those times when I knew the title was right, and to this day, it is one of my favourite paintings. 

I came across an old journal in which I recorded some of my first blog posts way from back in 2013 or so. I thought it would be fun to share some of them:

Blog #8

"When I surrender to the painting, it quickly paints itself. I'm there to steer the composition, stop, or keep going. My approach to colour is very non-technical and somewhat irrational. The end result may mean different things to different people, and the mood may be hard to pin down, but I like the mystery of that."

The Joy you always wanted me to Have o/c 

This painting was donated to a charity auction and sold for 900.00. The charity ministers to marginalized women in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. I painted it during the latter half of the year after my mother's death and was dedicated to her, Anne Violet Thiessen(1925-2013).

I believe this quote can apply to over-sharing our journey as artists. I think some of the best artists from our past, and many of the best of our contemporaries today, work quietly in isolation and only make their art public when work is completed and they feel the overwhelming desire to share it. 

"Travel and tell no one.

Live a true love story and tell no one.

Live happily and tell no one.

People ruin beautiful things." 

- Kahil Gibran