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Came home Tuesday from a week in beautiful Baddeck, Cape Breton. I was teaching a four-day workshop on abstract painting. There were seventeen students, presenting a full spectrum of art experience and age. I brought along my teaching assistant — my four-month old puppy, Romeo. He was very helpful and, except for some occasional puppy outbursts, extremely good. Having had such a long career focusing mainly on abstraction (never wanted to paint anything else, although I could

There has been so much talk lately about minimalism, paring down, purging, simplifying. I too bought a book on decluttering, organizing. When first reading it, I felt enormous anxiety. Get rid of my precious memories: photos, books, clothes! No way. But then I did some purging, cleaned up my closet a bit. I must admit, I enjoy having a tidy closet and a tidy kitchen. I haven’t continued as I prefer to spend the time painting when I can. And otherwise I am with my puppy or rea

According to Proust, “Artists are people who strip habit away and return life to its deserved glory.” I’ll go along with that! Definitely I’m very familiar with the stripping habit away part. When a painting feel too “easy”, too “good”, I know I need to go further. Not let habitual means of solving painting issues take over, try something else. And if that doesn’t work, try something else yet again. The one thought dominating my mind this morning when working was how so much

You’ve heard of sound bites, right. Tidbits of sound. Well, I’m into painting bites. Tidbits of time to paint. It’s working though, doing some good work in the very tight time limitations I have now. Concentrated time; concentrating mind. When I go into my studio I may think I will work on one thing, but end up doing something entirely different. A different idea, color, energy pulls me. Having so little time and so much desire to paint, I just let it happen. It is very fasci

Romeo and I went to Martinique Beach yesterday. Five kilometers of crescent white sand beach. It was his first visit to the ocean. He enjoyed the waves coming in and out on the shore, the sand, the pebbles, the people, children, other dogs. We both had a happy day. But I am finding I can, finally, break down into tears when I think of my last dog, Lila, who died far too soon. Having Romeo has opened my emotions. It’s good, I know, but surprising me. The pain of losing Lila wa

There is a small room off the large gallery at Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery. We decided to put small paintings in the small room and large paintings in the large room. It worked. The small room was intimate; the large room, expansive. Like moving from a spacious, limitless world opened up by the large paintings, to its inner workings, the heartbeat created by the row of small works. I enjoyed watching people move from one room to the other. A change of expression in bo

I’ve been obsessing a bit recently about the painting hanging over my piano now for about three years. I didn’t want to sell it for a long time; now I do. I’m ready to let it go. Especially after this morning. I realize what it is I needed to learn from it: first, it has a dramatic edge I have been avoiding recently. Not just avoiding, but actually unable to allow to stay even when I was able to make it happen. So, I was thinking: “Leya, you have mastered the art of subtlety.

Back home after four exhilarating, exhausting and productive days as one of three teachers at the Direct Perception Workshop in Tatamagouche. I’m glad to be home. Still, I have mixed emotions. I felt sad on the long drive home. It was exciting to be around so many people, to be a part of Tribe Temp, as we called it. I liked it. I’m used to being alone, need to be alone, especially to work alone, but I would rather not be alone so much. It’s taken me a day of puttering around,

Ashburn Golf Course in April, originally uploaded by leyaevelyn. Despite the snow and cold Friday night (after all, this is only April in Canada), enough people showed up for the one day workshop to make it a lively event. It was a teaser, a taste of the menu to be served up in June. Jerry Granelli did some space and sound awareness exercises, I did some visual awareness exercises, and Alan Syliboy talked about what we had done last summer. Alan brought in an enlarged photo f