Opportunities knocking

Can you believe it has been a year since the world was forced to slow down?  So much, yet so little happened in the last year that it is hard for me, and I am sure others, to really say whether time flew by or not.  It did both at the same time. 

   You can say that I have a big Type A sticker on my
 forehead and that it served me well over the years - positive reinforcement was definitely strong. While work
 didn’t slow down last March, everything else did.  In some ways, all the noise that we either seek or surround ourselves with just got quiet; enough for all my fatigue to come out, and perhaps more importantly, my inner voice to shine through.

I have talked about how this COVID year was so determinant for me as an artist, and as the world is slowly opening back up with the roll out of the vaccines and the return of Spring, I just know that life won’t be as it once was for me.  My decision-making process has changed and I am saying no to opportunities that I would have jumped on without thinking only a few years ago.  Big opportunities. Boy, it’s weird, mourningful, and wonderful all at the same time. 

But I am saying yes to new opportunities!  In April, some of my paintings will be exhibited at a Community Pop-Up Art Gallery at Lansdowne Park, here in Ottawa.  This will be my first exhibit and I am excited (and nervous)!  I have discovered “Uline” and bought grid walls to hang my paintings.  Who would have thought this a year ago!  I will provide more information when we get closer to April, and I do hope you will be able to pop in.

I also have been doing a lot of water colours - learning as I am doing. I  love the movement that I can create - almost making the colours dance. 

  It is not easy though - acrylic in my view provides more leeway to fix mistakes - these not so much.  My goal is to put some on my website shortly.  In the meantime, here are some small cut outs that I wanted to keep from paintings that I reduced in size or didn’t like as much.

With, I hope, some form of normality in the not too distant future, I am allowing myself to dream about my next trips and adventures.  Besides being able to see people and be more social, I am so looking forward to exploring new places and immersing myself in nature.  What are you looking forward to getting back to?