Grateful to the teachers who've taught me to love my life

 

Reading with Heart
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 
(The model for this

was a former student of mine

who kept in touch with me
after our classes together 

were over.)

This has been a great day.  I went to the morning coffee
meeting in my neighbourhood, and gave everyone my Valentine's
cards.  Plus I'm working on some pieces for my next show
in April.  

I lost my part time teaching job a couple of years
 ago (10,000 part time college teachers in Ontario
lost their jobs because of restrictions on foreign students).

I loved teaching, and I know that teachers have had a powerfully
positive impact in my life.  I hope that one day I'll
get to teach again.  I wrote a happy tribute to teachers
in a former post.  Here it is:

"Thank you to my teachers, and I send love out to all the
 inspiring teachers in my life.  When I started drawing in
school, I was like all the people who tell me I can't even
draw a stick figure.  Why do people think a stick figure is so
simple? But within months I was drawing very competent life
drawings.  

I reeled in shock as a 17 year old girl when the first
male life model came out  to pose for us at art college
-- a huge, naked, middle aged man with a cloth bag over his 

privates.

It took great teachers to bring young innocents who grew up
in the dull suburbs, like me, into the exciting, confusing,
wild, world of art, and they did it. I learned a lot from life
drawing classes.

My teachers in university got me excited about the world of literature,
opening doors to what would be a life long love of reading
and writing.

And more recently the workshops I've taken in person and
online have taught me so much about art, that I am sometimes
so dazzled I don't even know where to begin.  But isn't that
a good thing?   My brother's current philosophy is to ask,
"Is it true?"  Constant learning sets us up in front of that
question every day, and for sure makes life just as exciting
as it was when I took my first art lessons."

I love reading your Instagram posts, blogs and articles 
because you are all teaching me about every aspect of art
and life.  Thank you.

Have a loving your life day!

Here's a super positive exercise

 

Here's a photo from the taping of the Oprah Winfrey show

back in 2009. The woman with her head down

drawing beside the Skype symbol is me.
I am trying to capture Oprah when she looks
in my direction.  I've never been quite as excited and
scared at the same time.

When I was teaching Positive Psych at Seneca College I taught my
students this exercise.  I was trying to psych my students up
to dream big, and I used to say to them -- "You watch me
I'm going to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show one day!"  
Then I used to put my hands in the air, and say, "Yes!"  
Steven and I just did this exercise in the kitchen. Try it.
Immediately our mood improved! Yes.  

The fall after I was on Oprah I ran into one of my former
students in the hall.  He asked me how my summer went, and I
said,"not bad.  I was on the Oprah show in May."  He kept
shouting "You're kidding! That's amazing!" and followed me into
class to tell my new students that they should listen to me!

I've been painting all day -- and sometimes it's a slow process. I'm okay
with that. It's also a delightful process thinking about what will make
a painting complete, what will make it come to life.

I came upon this exercise in my blog that I learned from Mike Dooley, 
and ended up teaching to my Positive Psych classes at a local
community college.  It does seem silly, but it works. Since I learned it
I have had an even more wonderful life than I was already having.  True. 
I am lucky.  And we have hard things in our lives. But knowing how to
 return to joy is a quite fabulous skill.  And it's helpful to those
around you too.  I don't mean you don't allow grief, sorrow, disappointment.
If you pay attention to the news these days, those can be a constant.  I mean
you can sometimes return to being happy.  Here's the exercise -- 

"Stand up (if you can), put your arms in the air, whoop
like you just had the best news in your whole life,
cover your face because you're so excited you can't
hold your joy in, whoop again with your hands over
your head, put your hands on your chest, shake your
head because you're so astounded with joy, and say
out loud, "You won't believe what's happened." 
As I said I learned this from Mike Dooley at Tut.com 
and it is amazing what happens if you try this little
exercise once every so often.  Huge things happen,
wonderful things happen -- that's why I'm sharing it
with you.  (I got on the Oprah Winfrey show, invited
to show in Florence, Paris, New York!) My life has absolutely
taken off into a level of joy I couldn't have imagined since
I learned to do this.  No.  I'm not crazy, I'm one of the sanest
people you know.  And no my life isn't perfect.  People in my
family and intimate circle have serious health issues,
I do experience deep sorrow and loss, and even so...
Give it a try."

So this exercise was good for that too.  I now feel excited and can hardly
wait to get back to the canvas.

Try this -- I'm sharing it from a former blog.

Have a loving your life day!

I hope you believe in love -- I do

 

Flowers at twilight
Photo
Barbara Muir © 

It's Sunday night. We had a great day today making art with young people,

listening to music, singing, dancing -- the best.  So here are my thoughts for

this Valentine's week.  I said Happy Valentine's week to the young woman
at the baking counter at our local supermarket.  The Valentine's Day set up

is beautiful there with cakes and tarts all decorated on the love theme.  And she
said, "thank you that's so sweet!," and gave me the heart sign.

The news every day is daunting, but I agree with the people promoting love
instead of hate, that change is coming. Love still exists, and maybe

if we can make our passion for caring about each other dominate our choices
we can solve some of huge global issues.

As I said in a former blog:

"I feel sorry for people who say they don't like Valentine's Day. Why? Because
the day is commercial? Make your own cards then, or like my mother used to
do make chocolate fudge for your children, or your love.  My husband and
I had help from young family members to start decorating the house today --
we put up the Valentine's decorations we've saved for years.

Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate.  Celebrate whatever love you have.  Your cat,
your friends, your family near and far.  That love really is the answer.

And your kindness and love for me that you show me all year 'round helps me
think of the world as a space of possibility, and affection, you help me believe
that miracles can happen."

Have a spreading the love day! 

The inspiration of artist friends

 

With Flora Doehler in her studio
in Bear River 12 years ago.  

When we're in Nova Scotia every summer we make a point of going
and visiting our friends Flora Doehler and Larry Knox.  They live
in Bear River 5 hours away from our school house, and Steven
will have already driven 2,000 kilometres (about 1,000 miles). 
But it is so great to see them, and to visiit Flora's studio.

Her flowers are so vibrant that it feels like they're dancing on the canvas.
Wow!  I get happy just thinking about that on this very cold winter day. 

And Flora and Larry are so warm and kind and funny -- it's a pure
delight to be with them.

The Heliconian Hall had the first opening of the Drawing from Life
exhibition which I went to this afternoon.  It's a great show.  If you can
make the Wednesday opening from 4 - 7 p.m., I recommend it.

At the opening I had many great conversations with artists, including

with a collector of my work.  Steven and I had been talking about
Botticelli's work in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.  And the
collector had done a work inspired by Botticelli.  Plus she'd been

researching him when Steven and I were talking about him.
Synchronicity right? Always so cool.

Movie night in our house. 

Have a loving your life day!

Friendly Friday

 

Across the Highway

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inches
Barbara Muir © 2016

I found this post from a former blog, and I like it.  It's late.  I've been 
painting all day, and I wish you a wonderful night, and a super 
weekend.

"Dear artist friends, get your dream visions down.  This beautiful
view across the street at our school house is what we dream about.
(See the image above).We dream about walking across the street
 from our little school house at this time of night, late, late and
 seeing the stars, the entire Milky Way clear as can be.  

We dream of going to the beach, we think about it night and day, and
 feel so lucky that we have had this joyous experience year after
year.  The only years since we bought the school house just over 20
years ago that we didn’t go, was the year I broke my ankle, and the
year we couldn't go because of COVID and Nova Scotia wasn't

letting in visitors. 

 

The year I tore my meniscus in my knee — our wonderful friends
down the road, not only cleaned up the school house before our
arrival, they brought over a double bed and put it on the main floor,
because they thought it would be too hard for me to climb the stairs
 to the second floor to go to bed.

But this year as we will say over and over to one another, is different.
And this year we are focusing on all that is wonderful both here at
home, and where we can get too.  Ottawa was beautiful, the drive
was beautiful, and our street right here in Toronto is lovely. 

The dog and cat are waiting for me to feed them their night
snacks.  Please enjoy wherever you are, and if you’re in the
Maritimes and drive by our school house on Highway 6, say
hello to the building for us."

It's very cold here, and I know we should appreciate that
because lately summer has been way too hot.  But I'm 
dreaming of the ideal summer anyway. 

Have a loving your life day!

The delight of creating

Untitled (Work in progress)
Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inches

iBarbara Muir © 2026
(I'll try and get a better photo 

of this tomorrow.)

Yes this is one of the paintings I'm working on.  Not finished yet, but

getting there. Quite a treat to work on this beauty in the middle of a

cold, grey day. (Still pretty out, but not quite as vibrant as on a sunny day.)

There's a way to go with this painting, and I'll let you know when it's done.

As always thank you for your support.  It means the world to me.

Have a loving your life day!

It starts with loving yourself

A Valentine's wall at
The Summerhill market

Photo

Barbara Muir © 2025
Art -- Summerhill market staff

I had a wonderful day today painting, and visiting a good friend.  It was
also great to meet a young woman who works with my friend, who
has just fallen in love, and to talk about love as she smiled so
happily.  That made me think of this former post:

"When I taught Positive Psych one of the first things we said

to students was, "if you don't know yourself, you won't love 

yourself, and if you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else,

and you won't be happy."

This was not a popular idea when I was growing up -- loving 

yourself smacked of narcissism.  But in fact nothing could be 

further from the truth. If we love and accept ourselves, the world 

is less about us, and more about the people we love.  It's when we 

don't love ourselves that we go around hurting other people, don't
end up doing what we love, and generally don't enjoy our lives.

I credit Louise Hay, excellent therapy and Frank Daley, who

wrote the book Who are you and what are you doing here? for

helping me get that concept, and then of course the constant work of 

quieting the ever present inner critic to keep the idea going. 

I know I'm lucky.  I love my life, my work, my family, my friends."

 

Have a loving yourself and your world day!