The Best Days

The Fool - Catherine Meyers

I painted for five hours today. I can't paint steady for that many hours straight, nor should I, because it's not good for the 'ole bod'.
My friend interviewed Mary Pratt not long ago, whom I love, and she was all crippled up with arthritis from sitting for so many hours continuously. It's easy to loose track of time when you are engrossed in painting, and before you know it, hours have passed. Once you get going it is hard to pull yourself away. But the best thing for me is to pace myself.

I like to paint in the afternoon, I write in the mornings and sometimes later at night, like now. My routine is to I always listen CBC Radio and have done this for many years. It's what I love about the radio you can always do other things, much better than T.V.

This first painting of my series 'The Fool' is taking longer than I thought, which is fine because I don't want to hurry the process, and I'm not on a deadline which feels good. I think I forgot how long egg tempera takes using my itsy bitsy painting brushes, and tiny marks. But I am getting anxious to finish it. I have more things to fix and add, which I will start tomorrow.
It was a good day today.


"The days you work are the best days"...  Georgia O'Keeffe

Mary Pratt - How Simplicity Made Complexity

Peaceful Canoe - Oil

Things are never as simple as we think. I never thought of Mary Pratt's art work as simple. I know she elevated simple ever day objects found in her domestic life, and familiar scenes into complex layers of meaning. I have deep admiration and respect for Mary Pratt, and what she has achieved as a woman, and as an artist. Not only because she is an the expert, talented draftswomen, and renderer, but because of who Mary Pratt, the woman is, and the life that she has lived.


Last Monday while I was in Halifax, I got to see Mary Pratt's collection of work that spanned the years of her creative life, exhibited at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. The collection was grouped in themes, as explained in the article published in The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Journal Volume 42 Fall 2014. Biography And Place, Life Stilled, The Feminine, Process And Realism.


I do have a great fondness and affection for the paintings like Jelly Shelf, and the variety of subject matter drawn from her everyday life, but I found myself wanting to see more, or something different, as I walked through the exhibit I saw some of what I was searching for, in her portraiture, and symbolic representations of what she was experiencing at a particular time.

Jelly Shelf - Oil

There are two paintings that stood out for me.  One was the portrait scene of a younger and older man holding a large cod fish.

Another Province In Canada - Oil

Threads of Scarlet, Pieces of Pomegranate - Oil

The other painting was,Threads of Scarlet, Pieces of Pomegranate, was featured prominently in the AGNS having a room of it's own. I found this painting very compelling.

The pomegranate is very symbolic in Greek mythology, as it is considered to be the fruit of the dead, and of conjugal love because of it's many seeds, and Persephone's hidden world full of undeveloped creative potential. 

Mary Pratt painted this when her relationship with her husband Christopher had ended in divorce. She has stated it was created  quite unconsciously.

Mary Pratt states herself: " My only strength is finding something where most people would find nothing ".

Upon further investigation I found more paintings of her work online I'd never seen before, that Mary Pratt described as being impressionistic. I love what I found, and wished some of these paintings had been included in AGNS collection.

Large Marsh Bird - Oil

Harbor - Oil

  I was unaware that Mary Pratt was a print maker. Her beautiful lithography below, I found online.

Lithograph

Mary Pratt is a simple, humble, woman with a complex and beautiful soul. Her personality and life is manifested in all of her work. Her life is her art, and her art is her truly her life, and she reflects the transformation of how the love of simplicity is made into complexity .

Mary Pratt - The Love of the Simple Things

While slothfully lying in bed as I often do Sunday mornings, my ears were glued to the radio listening to a CBC inteview with Canadian artist, Mary Pratt. I don't know when it was I first became familiar with her work, but I know when I first heard her speak, I felt so much affection for her, because she has one of those infectious personalities that makes you feel like you know this person, as a friend. Every time I'd hear her I'd feel more this way, and this morning it was no different. Her wit, humble nature, and talent is so wonderful to me, which causes me to long for the chance to meet her one day.

What struck me most about what she said, was her attitude toward loving and appreciating the simple things around us in our everyday lives. It made me think once again about simplicity, which has been on my mind a lot lately.

This is one of Mary Pratt's realistic renderings. Just amazing how beautifully and skillfully she captures the light and colour.

A close and long time friend of mine just sent me  one of Anne Lamott's recent books entitled, Help. Thanks .Wow. The Three Essential Prayers. Anne Lamott is one of my very favourite non-fiction authors, because she makes the simple deeply meaningful, with a real honest attitude and she has great sense of humour and humanity, as does Mary Pratt, who depicts her subject matter, as being what the stuff of every day life is made up of.

As I age, I increasingly realize as time passes, how important it is to keep it simple, to find love, pleasure, and gratitude in the present moment. Finding happiness and contentment wherever you find yourself, and to grow, flourish and even thrive where you are planted.

Our lives in this world can be, and have become complicated in so many ways. We are either regreting the past or projecting into the future. We say I'd be happy if, or I'll be happy when, always looking outside of ourselves in search of that elusive happy state of mind.
Striving to capture and hold that present moment in time, or having a mindfulness with appreciation, relishing every bit of happiness with what we have, and being grateful to be able to do this, is what brings me happiness.

My day wasn't completely slothful. I had a simply enjoyable afternoon of making more rope baskets sitting on the front porch is the sunshine. Here's what I been making this week and into the weekend.