"Mother" 25" X 34" framed, pastel

This original pastel painting will be on exhibit at the Pastel Artists of Canada National Exhibition, being held at the Neilsen Park Creative Center, in Etobicoke, opening May 30-June 17nth, 2023

What does this Title mean?

In April of 2022, I was visiting my daughter, who lives in London England. It's her determination to show me a very good time whenever I visit. On this day, we were visiting an outdoor market near her house. This table, full to the brim with the effort of handmade bowls was a lot to take in, and believe me, I left SO MUCH out! 

Yes, I was taken by the abundance of these unique beauty bowls, each one different and created by hand, which lead me to think of a Buddhist meditation called "mother of us all". It begins with the contemplation of how manymothers we have had throughout history, given re-incarnation. You don't have to believe in re-incarnation to contemplate this philosophy. We think of the effort of a mother, all the kindness shown to countless beings. We think of kindness in general and the happiness generated through kindness. One way of seeing the infiniteness of kindness is to look at any inanimate object. I see a box of breakfast cereal in my view from where I am writing this. But it could be a loaf of bread, a chair, anything. We think of the origin of the material for this object, and how a farner had to grow acrops with great care and watering in order to reap the crop.  Then, the crop has to be collected and taken to a refining station where the crop is refined into something edible. Every step of the way, more people are involved in this collaborate effort. The the crop goes to a plant where it is transformed into cereal. There are graphic artists who design the box it goes into, marketing people who decide how and where it si to be sold, salespeople going dorr to door,a nd it isn't even on the shelf yet! By analyzing anything in out existence, you can see that we are all dependent on the kindness and efforts of others to creat coutless useful things we need to live. 

As fas as these bowls go, they are not only serviceable and beautiful, but one could argue of the person who extracts the clay from the ground, the many people it takes to create the many glazes represented, as well as the great effort to create something unique and beautiful in every single piece.  Like flowers, no two are alike, they are all a miracle, totally unique.

The image of so many handmade and handpainted bowls suggest the abundance we all live by, whether or not we are concious of it.   

My underpainting was a melange of a warm brick red and a cool green. Over top of that, I drew my bowls in charcoal. At this point, I'd just like to point out, I do not trace, nor have I ever traced my images, ever. I have a love of drawing, and have great satisfaction from knowing I can draw this, freehand. I also feel that your drawing, each mark you make is a direct reflection of each person and their character, your soul.  When you trace a projected image, you refelct a technical tool, not you. It was quite a challenge to draw this, as many of the bowls were on a pedestal, and they were all on slightly different slants. Quite the challenge!

 

Because I'm not after hyper-realism, I on-purpose made concious decisions about how much detail would go into each bowl. The bowls were all hand painted, each one was different, and they were very elaborate. If I included the same amount of detail that was in the photo, I would never have been able to finish this piece. 

What really slowed down the process, was taking the time to stand back, and consider having a similar amount of detail in each bowl. A lot of comptemplation time went into this aspect of the piece. 

I started each bowl with a blended background, that reflected the perspective, and angle of each one. As mentioned before, they were all sitting on various rings, making them all on different angles. So this affected the perspective of each bowl. 

Then I painstakingly observed the decoration on each bowl, decided how much of it I would include, and worked one bowl at a time in this way. Every time I felt a bit of impatience coming on, I walked away. The secret for me, was to set very small goals each day. In this way, I actually couldn't wait to get at it again, which affected the execution of the piece, for sure. Each bowl became it's own meditation. 

Once the main decoration was on each bowl, I spent a huge amount of time, standing back, seeing the painting as a whole, and tweaking lots of final details. 

 

I could have continued to work on this, blending,  and more and more tweaking. One thing that made it easier to come to a conclusion, was reminding myself that I didn't want it to look like a photo. I want viewers to see the texture, to see my hand, in every stroke. 

I was quite happy with the finished product. What inspired me in the first place was the feeling of abundance and fullness, as I felt when I first saw this table full of bowls. I accomplished my goal. 

Thank you for reading.