Just chilling

Fiona the cat
Teaching a private lesson on
relaxation in the laundry room

Last week when I went to buy lottery tickets, the total the
for the latest draw was 49 million (Canadian -- so if you're
somewhere else it may not seem like a lot). I was buying
tickets for a draw of 4 million, which I would be entirely
pleased with if I won. People in the line started talking
about the 49 million one, and a 20 something fellow
behind me said, "Yeah I won that!" "Really," I asked,
so how are you using the money?" "Just chilling," he
said, and we both laughed.

"Just chilling," is not something city people are good
at all the time. It would probably take about 49 million
dollars to be comfortable enough as a city dweller with
a massive mortgage and kids to put through university,
to be able to "chill."

I asked the man why he was standing in line to buy
another ticket, and he said, "Well I have to help
my friends, don't I!" One of the things I love about
Toronto is the ready sense of humour I encounter
everywhere. In fact you can't paint a stereotype, but
I'd go so far as to say we're a funny culture. It isn't
the best country for the serious and dour. We like
to laugh, and we export our comedians on a regular
basis. Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Samantha Bee
have all made names for themselves in the US and
there are dozens more.

So until my lottery win arrives I'm planning on
taking a summer course in "just chilling."
Now that would be Canadian. You can't just
"do" something, you have to "study" it. So
I'll sign up for a "chilling immersion" course,
and maybe by the end of the summer,
I'll know more about relaxing, than just,
"make tea, take the tea to your bedroom,
lie down, read your book, drift off to sleep
if you want to."

Have a knowing-exactly-how-to-chill day.

Nostalgia

Catherine Scott
acrylic on canvas
24 x 36 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

Frequently I've heard debates about whether nostalgia has a
place in art. In my experience, it plays a big role in portrait
painting. People who think about the possible longevity of
their painting want to know that some favorite object or
piece of jewelry is in the painting, so that at least for the
moment they will be "known." When I was taking English
Literature we studied the iconography of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Renaissance paintings were thick with symbols
that were associated with religious belief, purity, evil,
saintliness. But paintings of people today are not that
different.

Detail from the portrait of
Catherine Scott showing her favorite earrings

Not being a high realist, I worry a bit when people want
a tiny ring, or thin bracelet depicted accurately. In my
style of work that ring might just be a flash of light -- from
any distance at all -- say the distance from me at my easel
to you sitting for me -- the details of that meaningful
object might be blurred -- lost. But that isn't even the point.
The point is that the sitter knows her mother's ring,
his father's watch, the tie a boy was given to wear when
he graduated is there, however loosely depicted.

Detail from the portrait of Catherine Scott
showing a favoite bracelet and her
mother's ring

I have included my animals in paintings whenever
possible. This gives my heart a lurch when the animal
dies -- but you know what -- it's a joyous thing too --
because there is that personality captured in gesture
and love, in a way a photo in it's perfect, accurate
detail can't convey.

Have an enjoying-the-benefits-of-nostalgia day.

Your high point

A man IV
black marker on watercolour paper
8 x 10 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(another drawing of a man,
done for fun. Loved the
background and the lines.
Do I use a ruler? For some lines yes.
Do I like to? Yes ....sometimes using
one is delightful.)

If someone asked you, "What was the high point of your
life?" What would you say? I would stand almost
speechless with the wheels of my brain turning, and
a vivid, rapid slide show of high points flickering
through my brain, and probably be unable
to choose. The birth of my children? Yes. But talking
to them today, having a bit of celebratory champagne
and joking around today -- high points. My wedding
day? Yes -- I was the happiest of brides, but hearing the
dog start to bark because my husband was home after a
long day of work today -- a high point.

What is a high point? I think for artists, and I know
I've said this many times, the moment is probably
the high point. Maybe not if we're waiting in a long
line at a bank, or airport -- but even then, there
are people to watch and talk to, people to be kind
to, babies smiling, people you can let in ahead of
you and make yourself feel good.

Seeing my brother's face today on Skype and drawing
him was a high point. He can say so much in an ironic
smile. I tried to capture a similar smile in my drawing
tonight of "the man". My youngest says I keep drawing
this "man" this week because a certain TV show is in
reruns.

I'm afraid tonight's drawing was done under the influence
of a glass of bubbly, shared with friends and family. That
didn't produce excellent art -- but it did produce -- you
guessed it -- a high point.

Have a day-filled-with-high-points.

One kindness at a time

Drawing of a man III
marker on watercolour paper
8 x 10
Barbara Muir © 2009

(I admit I did this drawing
for my own amusement, because
I never draw people mid-gesture,
mid facial expression. I wanted to
see how it would look. Not perfect --
as soon as you photograph something
you see what should change, but still
funny. Why am I drawing men? Because
I paint so many women, I wanted you
to know I can also draw men. Okay --
maybe that's just one of the reasons.)

Seriously -- everybody has bad days. But what I
want to learn, is how to stay kind and thoughtful all
the time. I don't mean that I want to be a saint --
I'm firmly stuck in the human form, but I want
to notice as much as possible whether or not I'm
being kind, and to choose kindness in as many
as possible of my interactions. There's the goal.
Sometimes I slip up because of poor communication --
mine, sometimes I'm over the edge in fatigue.
Now how do you stay kind, when someone is being unkind
about someone you love? I posit this challenge to
my own theory to see whether or not I can dance
on the head of a pin. I would automatically
jump to the defense of my friends -- but what
about taking that position with people who are
friends badmouthing people you love? I think
kindness dictates some attempt at understanding,
and then perhaps an "I love you, and I love X
too, so I'm not the person to discuss this with."

Would that method hold up in art circles? I
think so. Here our tastes are so varied, that
we can't go cold because one of us likes realism,
and another prefers the glory of abstraction.
It isn't personal. It's taste. That means I
can love Larry Rivers -- not want to be him --
and you can go for Warhol. We're cool.
I like Lucian Freud, and Mary Cassatt. If I'd
known Mary, would she have liked Lucian -- no
way to tell at this point.

All right. I've answered some of my own
theoretical conundrums. As One of my favorite comedians
would say," Boy I love me." Isn't that kindness
too? Loving me. We teach our students to love
themselves, so they will be able to love others.
So now -- go ahead give yourself a big old artist
hug.

Have a giving-yourself-a-big-old-artist-hug day.

World view

Mother and daughter
(More blocking it in)
acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(The mother and daughter
I'm painting exemplify the positive
world view I seek. Both
of them allow each other
to be themselves. I think
that's part of a positive world view.)

I don't know when it hit me that I really care about people's
world view. It might have been an expression my sister
used to describe how an author thinks, but it stuck. I
got an email newsletter from Susan Jeffers about
Finding Peace of Mind In The Land of Tears, and I
can't wait to read the whole thing. My world view is
solidly positive, and so is Susan Jeffers, which is one
of the many reasons I enjoy her work. Knowing that
I can read about how she deals with sorrow. But authors
who revel in the horror of the world, or the worst
side of human nature don't attract me.

When it comes to art I have a similar world view. I
enjoy trying to make a joyous account of a life. In
art, that's been my mission since I started painting
long ago. This was not a popular world view in the
art world when I was a teenager, and I eventually
felt wearied by descriptions of positive art as "facile", "pretty"
or "derivative." The determination to maintain a
positive world view sometimes takes
some teeth gritting -- life throws us all pain at
least as tough as the pain of labour. But each day,
no matter how hard can have rewards if you look
for them. Today it was raining heavily off and on.
From inside, the world looked bleak, but out
running through the rain to get to the car for
a dozen errands the world was vibrantly coloured,
the richest, lushest full summer greens, glistening
next to Japanese Maple reds, and flowers taking
the weight of the water in and flourishing.

There is a lot to worry about in the world: sorrow,
disease and war. And when we concentrate
on what's working, and what's good we aren't ignoring
those facts, or abandoning our family and friends
living in hard circumstances. We give ourselves
the space to be courageous, create beauty, summon
kindness and treat each person we meet with proper
care.

That is my world view.

Tonight I'm showing you an earlier stage in a portrait
I'm working on. At this point it's all underpainting.

Have a living-a-positive-world-view day.

Heart messages

Drawing of a man II
charcoal on drawing paper
9 x 12 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

How many times have you been told to follow your heart,
not your head? Apparently as artists sitting squarely in the
right brain, we "sense" the reality around us, in a more
profound, less logical way, than people who are more
left brain, or able to call on both hemispheres at once.
I am thinking about the woman -- Jill Bolte Taylor,
who you can watch on TED TV talk about her experience
of having a stroke. She noticed that her left, logical brain
shut down rather quickly after her stroke, and that her
right brain was both fascinating and spacey.

Put me there. Fascinating and spacey, and trying with
all my might to summon logic. And I have not had a stroke.
Does this mean that if we operate more from the heart,
laugh and cry more easily, we are doomed to illogic?
Hold on a minute. Here's the twist. The writer part of me,
(here we go again into splits and conflicts) is apparently left brain,
from all reports. So perhaps that's why I can talk to my
subjects when I'm painting them. Make that, that's why
I love to talk to my sitters when I'm painting them.

But in my mental travels today I remembered Lindsay,
a Biology Prof at school telling me about a book
The Female Brain, and today watched a You Tube video
of the author, Louann Brizendine, who according to
Lindsay, (no offense here please guys) says that
women have a larger corpus collosum
connecting the two hemispheres of the brain, although
(naturally) there seems to be some debate about this.
So perhaps even when we are mostly right brained,
women have an easier time pulling in the left. I'm
distinctly hoping this is true. Need it. Order, logic -- all
of those qualities I admire so much in my more
left brained friends.

I've been working today on a big commission and
doing critical research, (not this brain stuff -- don't
worry), but instead I think I'll show you another
drawing of a man. This time I've used charcoal.
It was a quick study.

Have an-enjoying-both-sides-of-your-brain day.

Living a full life

Drawing of a man
8 x 10 inches
black marker on watercolour paper
Barbara Muir © 2009
(not finished)

Sometimes I think I'm a split personality. I'm not -- but
there's part of me who's a sleeper. This me lives in a
temperate climate year round -- maybe Bermuda, no,
maybe England, and pretty much reads novels, drinks coffee,
and tea, eats my good friend Paula McIver in Nova
Scotia's blueberry and strawberry scones, (flown in for
that purpose every time Paula makes a batch) and when push
comes to shove walks her dog along a sandy beach, and
then feeling virtuous (because of the exercise) goes
back to her book.

The other me -- who seems to be the "real" me, except
when I'm sleeping, and even then, is always on the run.
On the run and trying to catch up. She is a list maker,
with a list that keeps growing, like something in a well
done animated movie, growing, and growing, and ...
well you get the point. She has so many days in a row
of that rushed feeling, that she really needs that other
laid back me to come in and save her from time to time.
Just not now. It's like that sad feeling you get when you're
raising little children, and working too much. They
come to the door, and pop their adorable, longing
faces in, and you have to say "later sweetie,
I just have to get this one thing done." The other
me is that sweet kid. And I am telling her later.
Tonight we ate dinner on the back porch, a little
chilly, but lovely salmon, rice and salad. For
that brief half hour, I was both mes. Two for one.

Don't call a shrink. You don't fool me for a minute.
You know exactly what I'm talking about and then
some.

I worked on a large commission today, but the photo
just plain did not work, and then I kept working.
So I thought I'd show you a drawing I did today,
also not finished, but I think I'll do another one.

Have a-letting-the-little-kid-in-for-a-minute day.