“The Unacknowledged (part 1)” by Laureen Marchand, 2016, oil/board, 6″ x 6″
The definition of an adventure is that you don’t know how it will turn out.
My 2016 new year’s resolution was to plan an Adventure for each month of this year. January’s was a winter driving trip back to my old home city to enjoy connection with friends and celebrate a fellow artist’s triumph. All of that was a joy and all of it expected. What wasn’t expected was that it would bring so much change. The painting shown here gives only a hint.
For years I painted figuratively. Then during the production of the paintings that became Bequest, a two-person exhibition with Canadian artist Honor Kever that toured in western Canada for 20 months in 2002-03, the figures left my work. I didn’t think they’d ever come back, but here they are. It isn’t clear yet how long this is for, but I’m having a wonderful time as long as it lasts.
Even more unexpected is that this is a collaborative sort of exploration. The pieces I’m working on are for another artist’s exhibition. In that forum they’ll be scanned and printed on two by five-foot panels and seen with responses to the idea behind them from yet other artists. In a couple of weeks February’s adventure will take place, when I travel to work with the instigator on scanning and designing the panel. The exhibition will likely be shown for the first time this summer, and there’s lots of time between now and then to talk about the show’s concept.
In the here and now, I’m loving the work. There are three small oil paintings, two of which are close-ups of faces. The one shown here is six inches square, painted in grey and white, like the reproduction. Isn’t she beautiful? An important day in a new life, with so much hope. I wonder what happened to that life.
I don’t know what this will mean for my back-here-on-earth output when the project is completed, but I’m ready to find out. And I want to share what I find out with you. So this blog is changing too. It’s had a month-long rest and it’s figured out what it’s ready to be. Three posts a week from the artist’s studio, exploring painting, thinking, ideas, and the walks I take to sort it all out.
I hope you will join me.
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This blog is a series of posts from one artist’s life in one of Canada’s most beautiful and remote wilderness regions. To receive updates, with beautiful images and stories from the artist’s studio, plus a free printable postcard of one of my most recent paintings, just put your email in the box on the right. Your email address will never be shared.
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