Month's end -- and everything is new!

Before the Dance in the blue dress

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 36 inches

Barbara Muir ©
SOLD ♥

Looking forward and looking back.  I love this
portrait part of the Dance series.  The painting is of Sam's
high school friend Donelle, and I first posted it on
the night they were in their last school concert together.
Sam and Donelle went to Oakwood Collegiate, which
at the time had a magnificent music program.  Both
of my sons are musical.  Sam played the trumpet,
and sang in the school's production of Hair.

This painting of a young person on the very edge
of adult life was a theme for me for a few years.
I loved the tentative nature of teens emerging into their
twenties, and all of the decisions about where to go,
and what to study that happen then.  Decisions on the
edge of major changes happen over and over in life, as
I've talked about a lot in my thoughts on The Month of
Change.  In some ways we are always both Before the Dance,
and at the Dance of life.

Today we are on the verge of a new month, and one
quarter of the way through this exciting new year.  It
has already been an amazing journey.  Thanks for
joining me.  And thanks Donelle for posing for this one a
while ago! I wish I had a better photo of the painting.

Have a getting ready to dance in your glorious life day.

A spectacular Month of Change! Thank you!

In a park by the lake -- happiness

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2018

(available)

It's not a new idea, but the guided meditations I'm listening

to every day emphasize that we make our own reality.
Today it's raining.  I need to find/buy an umbrella.  But as
we take our regular Saturday morning drive to the
market, I notice the rain drops on every tree branch,
shining and luminous like jewels, and I feel completely
content.

Maybe that's what I've learned or relearned in the
Month of Change -- the incredible power of the mind
to control our moods.  My point of view.  I do think
I'm lucky to have been born on the happy side.  No
specific reason why.  But super glad to have been
born into a family of mostly funny people, to have
married a kind and funny man, and to have raised a
couple of very cheerful and funny sons.

There it is.  The answer to existence according to
my current sources.  Enjoy the wonderful parts of your life.

Have a singing like the birds because it's raining day.

More thoughts on Winter in the Month of Change

The real winter

5 1/2 x 8 inches

Black marker on drawing paper

Barbara Muir © 2019

(Dirt and potholes are a fact

in Canadian winter.)

For the most part I loved this winter.  Let it be known

that I am really good at luxuriating in any possible
hint of nothing to do.  I am not the snow shoveler
here, although I did break up some ice one day
briefly.  I did go walking with my icers on a few times,
and kept them in the car.  But if winter weather means
I either have to stay in and paint, or read my book, or
talk to friends on the phone -- I am happy.  An artist
friend in the Netherlands and I concluded that that may
be the most surprising fact about us.  Despite serious
difficulties from time to time, in her case serious
health issues, we like to laugh and have fun.  Yes.

Steven and I took a trip to Ottawa for Valentine's
Day. And it was an eye opener (always good for
an artist).  Most of the way up the 401 to Kingston
most towns had far less snow than Toronto.  But then
we turned off the highway to head to Ottawa, and
the snow got steadily deeper.  And in Ottawa
it was much, much more dramatic than in Toronto.
But everyone there just dressed appropriately, and
their streets were clean! Unlike ours.

The snow banks heading up to my brother's place in
Chelsea, Quebec were not pristine white, but grey and
pitted, and filled with grime from the roads.  We painters
don't show that side of winter.  But I drew a little sketch
of it here.  The thing is -- even dirty, icy snowbanks
are attractive to an artist, because the snow looks like
sculptures made by some other world force.  Cool in a
way. (Actually very cool!)

Have a remembering both sides of winter day. 

So sorry to hear our dear friend Marilyn Fancey is gone!

At the farmhouse
watercolour
14" x 16"

Barbara Muir © 2006

I opened Facebook tonight to see a goodbye note from our
dear friend Marilyn Fancey.  She said that if we were reading
this she had died. I couldn't believe it.  I just saw her in August.
Marilyn and her husband Ian were the first people in Nova Scotia
to befriend us and welcome us into their home.  We loved visiting
them, and because they were so kind they sold us furniture at crazy
low prices from an antique shop they ran in an outbuilding on the
property of their lovely farm house.

Our kids loved visiting them.  Christopher and Sam would watch
TV (we didn't and still don't have a TV at the school house),
and we'd play cribbage with Marilyn and Ian every single
visit.  They were amazing at it and we were not, but we had
so much fun.

Both Ian and Marilyn were folk artists, and showed every year
until recently in the Lunenburg Folk Art Festival.  One of the
first gifts Ian gave us is a folk art wooden shovel painted with
a picture of our family mowing the lawn and playing
ball on the grass outside the school house.  It's a piece we've
cherished ever since.  

I did this watercolour back when my kids were young.  They appear
in the farmhouse window behind Ian and Marilyn and their dog
Tess.

We are so sad, and heartbroken for Marilyn's children Lori and Steve
and Marilyn's husband Ian.  Thank you Marilyn for all the love you
gave to us every summer for more than 20 years.  We will miss your
wonderful laugh, your great sense of humour, and your kindness.

Have a loving the friends you love day.

Winter nostalgia in the Month of Change

The Cake House

Acrylic on canvas

14 x 18 inches

 Barbara Muir © 2011

Toronto is moving slowly into spring.  Only a spoonful

remains of the mountain of snow that was on our tiny
front lawn last week.  Steven and I went for a long walk late
this afternoon, and found ourselves commenting every time
we saw snow -- bits of it here and there, but mostly gone.

It was not a horrible winter.  Okay a lot of snow did fall,
but not until the end of January.  We had almost two
winter months with no snow -- December and
January -- not normal.  Yes we did have winter --
cold temperatures and a couple of really impressive
snow storms.  But we need both winter, and snow in
order for the summer crops in this part of the world to grow.

So despite the excitement over spring's actual arrival, we
are a bit nostalgic for winter.  We had a good one.
Kind friends and family, (okay a month of illness
in January), but even so if the season starts in December,
most of it was good.

I am working on a winter landscape, which I put away
to chill last week.  Today I feel like I've cracked the code.
A glorious feeling.  I was painting all day, and in
high spirits, but the piece is not done.  So I'm showing you one
of my favourite winter paintings from eight years ago.
It's of the back of a house on a path in our local park
called the loop.  At the time we called it "the cake house,"
because as it was being built it looked like an ever more
spectacular cake.

Have an enjoying the seasons day.

Constant change in the Month of change

Untitled (Work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30 inches

Barbara Muir © 2019

Quite frequently I am a slow painter.  It's not that I can't go fast,

it's that some paintings take a lot of thought and deliberation.
And I could no more explain to you which paintings require that
focus, or why, than I could explain astrophysics.  The process
remains a mystery to me.

This painting is one of those slow babies, and it is changing minute
by minute.  It is like a complicated recipe that you have to move from
stovetop, to microwave, to oven, to the refrigerator.  So here we are
today in this iteration, and I can confidently expect more changes
tomorrow.  Because I will go to sleep and dream, and new answers
will come flying into my brain.  For now.  This is it.  And I am
enjoying the dance.

Have an enjoying the dance of change day.

A day off -- Not happening in the Month of Change

To all the Jemmas in the world!

Acrylic on bond paper

10 1/2 x 14 inches

Barbara Muir © 2019

So tired tonight.  We agreed that I'm allowed to say that

right?  I won't go on.  But I thought maybe I won't blog
tonight, and then I thought about artists like Nicki
Ault, Edward B. Gordon, and Harry Stooshinoff.  All
prolific bloggers, and painters. And I thought,"what about
that abstract sketch that reminded you of Harry Stooshinoff?"
Not my painting -- it doesn't look anything like Stooshinoff's
work, but the fact that Stooshinoff does abstract landscapes
(and does a painting almost every day), and here I am.

Thank you to all the prolific and excellent painters on
my blog list, on Instagram and on Facebook.  You power
and empower me.

Have a super day, and keep on being creative in
whatever you do!