Author ShawnA

Letters Robert-Genn_Mamalilicoola
39

A small painting was brought into a gallery under a woman’s arm. “My ex bought it at an estate auction,” she said. “It’s mine now, but I’d like to sell.” The dealer had represented the artist for many years, so was familiar with his paintings. Formerly, they came to him direct from the easel. More recently, they arrived once in a while, like this one — by way of custodians ready to pass along the provenance. To this dealer, the artist’s larches and firs, sky flicks and French greys had been burned onto the back of his eyelids. And the calligraphic name, laid-in lower right like clockwork, was the signature move

Letters roloff-beny
13

I used to know a photographer by the name of Roloff Beny. Roloff was responsible for a dozen big-format coffee table books. Persia, Bridge of Turquoise was well known, as well as his famous To Every Thing There is a Season. Roloff picked an area and went through it thoroughly. A friend of the Shah of Iran, he once took a red-carpeted year to travel that country in his Land Rover. Roloff generally arose before dawn and was already set up at first light. The midday sun found him asleep in the FWD. I never did figure out where or when his faithful driver slept. As evening and the “magic hour” approached, Roloff was back on the job. “As an artist you should be in business until the time when you almost can’t see,” he used to say. A few years ago he met an untimely end in his bathtub in Rome

Letters Skwachays-Lodge_Poem-Suite-501_Art-Detail
14

My hometown of Vancouver serves as a gateway to some of the  remote hearts of Canada’s First Nations communities. The city could be seen as merely a pass-through for purpose-driven travellers, artists and historians en route to the islands and forests of her ancestral peoples. Vancouver’s neighbourhoods-in-transition seem to be invisible. For urban dwellers, the contributions and struggles of many First Nations are noticeable most often in the form of polished, re-contextualized objects of art sold on Gallery Row or can be seen as breathtaking exhibits on the other side of town in the Museum of Anthropology

Letters egon-schiele_seated-woman-in-violet-stockings-1917
49

Anyone who takes a lingering look at the work of Egon Schiele can’t help but be impressed. A brief, bright star in Austrian art (he died in a flu epidemic in 1918, age 28), his drawings, his painted drawings, and his drawn paintings are electrifying. Depraved subject matter aside, his is a line to behold.

Egon’s markers move slowly and intelligently, often nervously toward description. His form-follows-function lines are an education. An understanding of anatomy is combined with the sensibility of Art Nouveau. Bones morph, flesh purples and becomes visceral. Line holds colour in place. Expression is often understated

Letters UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1950: Photo of Nina Simone Photo by Tom Copi/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
16

In times like these, artists may examine their role as grabbers of attention, sources of information or providers of comfort and hope. Some find it impossible to separate a creative voice from one that reveals truth and engages action. Some wouldn’t dream of separating art from activism.

In the 2015 documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?” director Liz Garbus unpacks the story of 3-year-old Eunice Waymon, a classical piano prodigy in Tyron, North Carolina. The sixth child of a Methodist preacher, Eunice performed at revivals and walked across town to study Bach at her piano teacher’s house. By nineteen, she’d made it to New York but

Letters Winslow-Homer_Boys-in-a-Pasture
33

A subscriber wrote, “I know by experience that art-making is a conduit to something higher than workaday life — but I’m finding it harder and harder to overcome depression about the low status of my day job and the low status of visual artists. It’s not just that painters are viewed with some contempt; increasingly, our work just isn’t viewed at all. Look at the entertainment section of any newspaper. It will have articles on just about every other art form but painting. It seems that painting is terminally ill or dead. At age 42, I have the typical dream

Letters Cory-Trepanier_Glacierside
9

Painting on location is an event. One begins with the idea of where to go and then takes the trouble to get into that spot. Once there, gear is set up and brushes dipped with the knowledge that light and temperature are fickle and fleeting co-conspirators. A special kind of grit is gained from the entire ceremony — accidents and frustrations mix with the thrill of the unknown. From the corner of one’s own garden to the planet’s most pristine crags, a location waits to be painted. With location work, we’re rewarded with unrepeatable moments and wisdom — the resulting paintings but a record of a larger devotion to the natural world

Letters Vincent-van-Gogh_wheat-field-with-Crows_1890
25

I always like that scene in the movie The Jerk where Steve Martin leaves home saying, “that’s all I need…” He takes only a chair. Then he takes a lamp. He apparently doesn’t take a belt because out on the sidewalk his pants fall down. I think I identify with his situation because deep in my heart I know I can do quite well with less.

This time I left home without any art materials. I knew there was a box of old art materials in the closet of our friend’s home — enough to get started.

Letters brian-jungen_whale
21

Carefully curated images on social media of shiny children and food, vacations and relationships presented by regular breathing humans, are irking social scientists. Apparently, the suffocating display of a polished facsimile of human experience without evidence of the associated toil, rather than delivering the desired feeling of connection and love, is alienating us and giving us the blues.

When it comes to painting, we do expect a level of proficiency and an absence of mistakes. And to call it art, we look for magic. As humans, we may also need some sign of struggle to know we’re dealing with the real

Letters jack-hambleton_boats
16

If you’re going swimming, you’re better off if you swim with a friend. So goes the theory. Folks who get together and paint on Thursday mornings know what I’m talking about. There’s something to be said for collective consciousness, shared energy, or maybe just the joy of like-minded companionship.

Here’s a buddy system for studio-introverts or home-workers. You need a telephone friend who is in the same business, some music and a clock. Squeeze out and get all your stuff in order. Phone your friend and propose a time-frame. Two or three hours are good, or it can be until

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