Miraculous specificity -- the seasons

Untitled (yes another one)

Work almost finished

Acrylic on birch panel

8 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2017

We humans can get pretty puffed up with our importance.
But nature can shoot us down on this in a nano second.
As much as we force her, mess with her, try to change
her -- there are things she knows better than we do --
like time, and the "to everything there is a season" rule.

Facebook pulled up a painting I posted exactly 3 years ago
today. And yesterday these beautiful oranges were in the
grocery store!  We didn't used to be able to buy them in Canada
with the leaves still on -- and the sight thrills me.  It
reminds me of Italy, where these gorgeous fruits were
common in the Florence market, and of my first visit to
California, seeing lemon trees thick with lemons.

Thank you nature, and this painter is grateful to you in
every season -- even winter.  By the way this is supposed
to be the most depressing day of the year!  Really?  I
hope it isn't for you.  But if so I recommend getting
a great book, going for a walk even in the cold we're
enjoying in Canada, and listening to happy music.

Have an enjoying-nature day.

Favourite stop -- a great start

Untitled (Work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2017

Here's a painting I've been working on -- another landscape --
a bit different because it's at a favourite place to stop on the
way to Nova Scotia, on the St. Lawrence River in Québec.
The feeling of peace, and the light when we pull into this
park is unparalleled.  I want to stay, but there is a long
journey ahead of us, and we have no idea where to eat nearby.
(Sure to be a place -- because Quebécers care passionately about
food -- but we don't know where it is and when we get to this
place we have two provinces to go.)

I've been thinking about gratitude today all day -- to the market
farmers who take my order via email, and save the best eggs,
a quiche, carrots, potatoes and greens for me every Saturday,
even while they're packing up because they know I'll arrive
late in the day.  And I am so grateful to the flower store, that
knows what I like to buy, and what I'd like to paint, and give to
clients.  And of course to you

Have a dreaming-of-somewhere-peaceful day.

10 more reasons to be happy.

Untitled (work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

18 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2017

When I taught college positive psychology, (happiness)
which I secretly work into any subject I teach, one of the
exercises I used at the beginning of each class was 10 reasons
to be happy.  10 students would come to the front of the class
and say why they were happy.  It was a college course, and
many students had no idea how to be happy.

The experience was quite moving.  One girl I remember
went to the front of the class, looked down as if she might
cry, then lifted her face and said in a small voice,
"I'm happy because I'm alive." Every time someone said
why they were happy, the class clapped.

The result?  Everyone in the class began to get happier.
Amazingly.  It helped.  They made friends with each other,
they started to study, they got good marks, and that one
exercise out of many had a huge impact.

I will never forget seeing that same sad girl 6 months later,
skipping down the hallway, her hair in pigtails, tied with
bright wool, her clothes a vibrant pink, the smile on her
face radiant.  She stopped me because I didn't recognize her
from the depressed person she'd been, and said.  "Thank you!
and hugged me."

So.... Let me take some of my own medicine.  I've spent
the afternoon in a hospital with a dear family member.

1. I am happy because I have a loving husband.
2. I am happy because I have a loving family.
3.  I am happy because I have kind, funny friends around
the world.
4.  I am happy because I'm an artist, and I love making art.
5. I'm happy that I get to teach and meet amazing people
every year in that job -- even with one night a week.
6. I'm happy that I live in Canada -- never happier about that.
7. I'm happy that I've learned how to be happy, and am
still learning, and think I will learn more and more for the
rest of my life. And I'm grateful for all that you've
taught me on the subject
8. I'm happy that I've learned to love myself enough to
choose only to be with kind and happy people.
9. I'm happy that I don't believe in horoscopes, superstition
or most dogma.
10.  I'm happy that I love to read and I have a wonderful
novel.
Oh no.  I could go on.  I'm happy that my artist friend
Janet Vanderhoof got me to meditate, which has been
a wonderful gift.

I have a million more reasons, but I'll save some for another day.

Have a thinking-about-10-reasons-to-be-happy day.

Heroes make me happy

The artist thinking

charcoal on bond paper

14 x 15 inches

Barbara Muir © 2017

Being happy and understanding how to stay that way is

an obsession of mine.  I am lucky to know, and work with

funny, kind and happy people here and across the planet.

So today I did a little charcoal study of one of my happiness

heroes in art -- Veronica Funk.  I think I have her permission

to try and do a portrait, and Veronica if you're reading this,

I could do more work on this -- or proceed to painting you,

as you have done portraits of so many fantastic women heroes

of your own.  You are one of mine.

Veronica paints the brightest, most exuberant, paintings full

of colour pattern, and themes -- one of which is great women

in history.  

Another conversation that made me laugh and pleased me

no end was with a colleague at the college where I teach

writing one night a week.  We had been joking about 

beginning the course with Chaucer, the great English

writer from the Middle Ages. I studied
Chaucer in university and have a large hard cover text

I can barely carry -- all Chaucer.  The other night because

of this idea I started reading the great writer -- just

picking a random page and despite the old English,

enjoyed his delicious turn of phrase and humour.
But he would be the wrong writer for an essay
writing class. 

Chaucer

marker on bond paper

8 x 5 inches

Barbara Muir 

Et voila a small sketch of the man for you based on

a photo of an actor called Phil Boardman portraying

Chaucer in 2000 as part of the Chautaugua  series

in L.A.

Have a picking-heroes-that-make-you-happy day.

Why I started to paint

 New in pink

Acrylic on birch panel

5 x 7 inches 

Barbara Muir © 2014

(One of my favourite paintings.

Small but exactly right.)

As a little girl I hated school.  The reason?  My mother
was way more fun, and a stay-at-home Mom.  She loved
reading books, singing songs, reciting poems, and made
delicious bread and brownies. Plus most of the time she
was kind and nice.  And she made me a big fan of the CBC.

School was different. It felt like we had military police for
kindergarten teachers.  Why I don't know.  My
first teacher Mrs. Jordan was always nervous and shrill.
Except when we were painting -- and I'd never painted
before.  Then she was a strangely spontaneous, happy
being.  At every other massively organized point in
the half day, she seemed to dislike children.

Looking back I think it was sweet of her to write on the
back of our paintings what they were about.  I wish I
still had the one of my mother holding baby me on her knee,
and eating cake at her wedding, and my father
looking on.  That one made my parents laugh
because I was their third child, and they were firmly
married before any of us came into the world.

Fresh from the garden

Watercolour on Arches paper

12 x 14 inches

Barbara Muir © 2010

That military order continued in school. Opportunities for
art were rare, but always worth it, always a great change
from the normal rote.  And in grade 7 and 8 I had the most
amazing art teacher.  We made life size wire and papier maché
sculptures of the characters from Alice in Wonderland.  And we
painted and dressed them!  The best.

That teacher, whose name I forget, got me really entranced
with art.  She was happy, and beautiful, in love with
her subject, and enjoyed her students.  The way teachers should be.
I have to thank art, and my middle school art teacher, for
giving me a fantastic life, and super friends in art.
To Miranda Brouwers in the Netherlands who is teaching art as
I write this.  You are bringing joy into your students' lives.
What could be better?

Have a bringing-joy-into-people's-lives day.

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail

Rushed 

Art Group Sketch

16 x 20 inches

Barbara Muir © 2017

Be determined.  A good motto.  I saw in an email that my
art group was meeting tonight, and not again for 6 weeks.
I thought I absolutely must go and paint from the model.
My complicated schedule meant I had an hour and a half
at the most to be there.

So I parked.  It was snowing for most of the day today,
but when I hauled my supplies out of the car I stepped
in a 6 inch deep puddle.  It was raining like crazy.  Slush,
ice, slippery sidewalks.  And the normal door into the class
 was blocked! Yikes!.

A kind lady from the adjoining library funneled me through
the warmth of the library, and ran down the two flights of
steep stairs to check that the group was there was there.
 I saw the stairs and froze. (knees) But the librarian ran up,
grabbed my bags and ran back down.  Done. I was in.

The model was lovely a woman with a Masters in acting,
who now teaches private lessons in English to grade school
children in China via Skype.  I'll call this rushed.  (I
know -- don't answer that question -- but it is a sketch --
maybe 3/4 of an hour, but I don't think so.)

Have a working-on-being-determined day.

Large and small

Untitled (work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30 inches

Barbara Muir © 2017

Thinking today about the simplest of contrasts large and
small.  The inspiration for that idea came from a desire
to do a small painting, and the realization that for the
most part I like working on larger pieces.  I like the
freedom of the big canvas -- which is highly impractical
living in a small space, with a tiny studio.

The fact is that the big art world, the major galleries
for the most part like large works -- the larger the better.
Though I remember seeing a brilliant show of very tiny
pieces that went in a line around a huge room in the MoMA
in New York.  But that same artist exhibited a massive video
of the artist chasing tornadoes (small ones) and getting right
inside them.  The sound system and dark room in that exhibit
made the experience so real that Steven and I were holding
hands, and people kept running out of the space because
they were so scared.

And the fact is that larger work has more impact, as one of
my gallery owners once said, "because it is large!"

So here's what I'm working on.  The subject is the wide
ocean -- a favourite theme of mine, and favourite
place too.  It is a medium size painting.

To add to the topic, and perfectly timed as
I was just rolling the idea over in my mind -- a tiny pink
envelope dropped through the door that contained a
beautiful thank you note, with a joyous pink tree
on the front and a message about Happiness! This is
the second perfect small card that has landed in our
hallway in the past week -- and the second message
that touched my heart so deeply.

You get the point -- it's the message that counts, or the
image -- not the size. By the way I am always in awe of
the small work by Edward B. Gordon, Nicki Ault, William
Wray and Miranda Brouwers.  And yes Vermeer could
pack a lot into small.  (I know the list is endless).

Have a loving both the small and the large art day.