CURRENT WORK IN PROGRESS

This section includes highlights of some of my current work in progress. If you have any questions about my work and approach, media inquiries or would just like to come by my studio for a cup of tea,  please feel free to message me through CONTACT on the HOME page or at (604) 812-6509.  I always welcome visitors!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

JANUARY 2023

Transformation: the act or process of changing completely; a complete change.

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We emerge and begin again.

two of the great lessons humanity will learn in the 21st century will be:

to harm another is to harm oneself

when you heal yourself, you heal the world

reclaim your power

heal yourself

love yourself

know yourself –

these phrases are becoming more and more common, why?

Because they are the pathways to our own freedom and happiness.

A poet named Yung Pueblo wrote these words and they strongly resonate within me.  As 2023 is finally here, I am thinking about my new body of work and seek to uncover and embrace uncomfortable emotions from my past.  I believe that honesty within ourselves creates strong connections and leads us “inward” towards our authentic selves.  I am currently working on a 54” x 72” piece entitled “Life: A Continuous Cycle of Love and Loss” – a gradation of carbon black to titanium white exploring the idea of “Kintsugi”.

The Art of Kintsugi is the art of ‘golden joinery’. I began slowly rubbing the cracks of my pieces with iridescent gold and mica pigment in the initial stages of the process.    This 500 year old Japanese tradition meaning ‘joining with gold’ adorns broken ceramics with a lacquer mixed with powdered gold.  This process of ‘mending’ by celebrating the flaws and imperfections is a reminder of the beauty of human fragility and has become a metaphor for healing and adversity in my new work.  Working on the gold cracks in the initial stages of a piece then layering them with over 90 washes of saturated colour also signifies that we all have a past that has shaped us but most importantly, we are not defined or bound to it.  In embracing my imperfect past I found clarity, the beauty of the present moment and a new sense of power emerged and began to redefine myself and my work.

More information and images of current work to come!

Ebb and flow are two phases of the tide, the ebb being the outgoing phase where the tide drains away from the shore and the flow is the incoming phase when the water rises again.  Sarah Finney states that “Life is full of Ebbs and Flows…that we need the contrast between the two so that we can learn to take more care of ourselves.  We cannot always be in a state of flow, nor can always be in a state of ebb.  We need them both.”
Before COVID – 19, I confess my life was quite formulaic.  I have a husband and three children and I realize now our lives were overscheduled.  Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays - Studio, Tuesdays and Thursdays - teaching preschool mixed media classes for the City of Burnaby and the majority of the nights during the week and weekends were filled with kids’ hockey games, badminton, baseball tryouts and weaving classes.  I was the Queen of lists, having to-do lists for Studio, for Teaching and for each child. This defines my previous “Ebb”.  This frozen time or newly found “Ebb” during the wake of COVID -19 has allowed me to reconnect with my inner self and realize the little things to be grateful for: time, health, family, friends, baking, producing new work and my new discovery of watching NetFlicks. (yes, I did not watch television) Perhaps this new form of “Ebb” is a time of letting go of scheduled time for “Flow” to happen naturally and seeing this uncertain period as a transition of what was and what is to come.  I believe in embracing this time with kindness for one another and optimism.
During this time, “gratitude” comes to mind and those in the past that have helped me discover my path in art making - my mentors.  During my stay in Japan more then 20 years ago, I met an 85 year old painter named Sugimura - san.  We met in a local coffee shop and our relationship became a five- year mentorship of weekend visits to his studio.
The piece, “The Study of Cobalt and Ultramarine” is inspired by his ideas of the colour Blue.  Coming from a lineage of fishermen, he shared many childhood stories of the sea.  He spent a lot of his childhood on a fishing boat with his father and grandfather observing the seas and was obsessed with the colour blue.

“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” Steven Spielberg

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Currently working on three large scale pieces inspired by my stay in Japan from 1998 - 2003.  These pieces will be dedicated to the three artists and mentors that have shaped my work today.  I am grateful for their teachings.

I look back now and I feel that Japan was key in shaping the work that I produce now.  I believe that simply diving into our genuine passions keep the work personalized and creative discipline allow the work to evolve on a regular basis.  Mentors or other artists who share the same sensibilities are also key.  I have been fortunate enough to have many mentors in my life that have always passed on their words of wisdom. In Japan I was fortunate to have three mentors who taught me the importance of finding who you are as an artist.  At our monthly visits to their studio spaces and coffee shops they shared many stories and many personal experiences as working artists and I thank them for their guidance.   A printmaker -  Shegheki Tomura, a painter - Eiichi Sugimura and a painter and printmaker - Hisashi Momose.  All were forty years older and have been professional artists for more then two decades.

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