It’s always a little scary installing a show of new work. Thank goodness when I got there to hang the work, I still felt it was finished!
The show is on at the Unitarian Centre (949 W. 49th) till the end of January, 2017.
Here are some of the pieces:

If you’re strolling along Tenth Avenue, you’ll see my painting “Above the Great Lakes” in the window of Tenth + Proper.  Chosen to reflect the colours of their window display.

Here it is “up close”. It has crackle and cheesecloth and all sorts of interesting textures, so you might enjoy getting even more up close.

Hope to see you in June at the annual Artists in Our Midst West Side Art Walk June 18-19.

Flood Streams and Ebb Streams

This piece was inspired by a phrase on a chart that said, “Ebb streams are weak and variable but flood streams may reach velocity mentioned.”

It seemed rather enigmatic. I kept that tiny piece till the very end of the piece and glued it on. You have to look hard to find it. It’s also written on the piece in red ink.

This piece includes some map grids and squares of tissue paper to echo the pattern of the grid.

My mentor Jeanne Krabbendam says if you make a horizontal line, people will read it as a landscape. So this is an abstracted landscape.

Some people see the top right as stained glass. I think of it as sunshine rays that have a cubist feel.

This is 30″ x 40″ and has a companion piece called “Above the Great Lakes”.

During the time I was making nest paintings, I learned a lot about the diversity of the kinds of nests that birds build – how tidy, how messy, how big or small (and who helps with the construction!)

These two I think of as rather dreamy, sweet and subtle compared to some of the larger and brighter paintings. And so I’m very happy that they’re “resting” at Fino Lino on Arbutus at 11th.

Three of my other nest paintings are at Rufus Drum Shop on West Tenth and Alma. You’ll see art in shop windows all over Vancouver’s West Side between now and June 20th. Have a browse – and support our local merchants who are supporting local artists.

As part of Artists in our Midst, we all exhibit paintings around the hood. I’m delighted that three of my large nest paintings are heading to Rufus Drum Shop, West 10th just west of Alma. Circles right? drums! nests!

Also it’s very near to where I’ll be on the weekend of June 18-19 with Jackie Conradi-Robertson at 3625 West 11th.

Allan at the Drum Shop is great. Drop in and say hi to him and my nests.

A labyrinth is usually a pattern that you walk as a meditation. A finger labyrinth you let your fingers do the walking (to use the old Yellow Pages slogan).

It might be on a wall or on a table or on a cloth that you bring out now and again.

I’ll be scheduling a mixed-media workshop for making your own finger labyrinth, starting with collage and adding on paints, gels, mediums. Stay tuned.

I’ve done two medium-sized ones

16″x16″ From Alpha to Omega and Home Again

12″x24″ Journey Inward

This large one is 30″x40″ and has a T.S. Eliot poem. On the way in you read every second word and on the way out you read the other words.

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot

In the workshop, we’ll probably work on 16″x16″. But if you make your own it could be larger but probably not smaller, unless you’re primarily using it as a visual reminder.

I’m working on a series of 8″x8″ mini labyrinths that are a bit small for walking, even with fingers, but could operate something like a mandala to trigger a “labyrinth experience” – You “walk” it with your eyes.

It’s very gratifying to get nice feedback on my art up at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver (49th & Oak). They started with maps and journeys and many of them wound up being based on the labyrinth pattern.  I’ve still got a few more in progress, from small (6″x6″) to a large one (24″x60″) that are perplexing me. I sometimes think I should have a time lapse camera on them and some way to click Ctrl-Z to go back in time when I’ve veered off in a direction I don’t like.

Here are some of the paintings that are finished and on display.

When it was so foggy earlier this year, I googled “nests fog” and got inspired to try some techniques to make a painting look foggy.

This has a lot of zinc white with Kroma acrylic medium dripped and sloshed on in various layers.

When it gets foggy again, I’ll try it again.

Or as I would say, “Abstract??!!”

This piece started from a photo looking up at heron nests in Stanley Park.

It evidently became an abstract painting. A friend and colleague thinks that’s the direction I’m going in.

A diptych 48″ x 48″ (each piece is 24″ x 48″) inspired by the view from the top of Helliwell Bluffs on Hornby Island.

I’ve painted on Helliwell many, many times. Tiny watercolour postcards to large mixed-media pieces. I also took a photography course there once and still enjoy the photos although ultimately returned to painting as my preferred genre.