Art – Page 2 – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, Art, Artists, Arts, Canadian life, Creative Writing, Poetry

Home Is Where The Art Is

February 23, 2016February 23, 2016 Cynthia Reyes

So — you think your dwelling is too small? Try living on a boat.

Margaret Mair and husband Richard live on their boat “Into The Blue”. Margaret also paints and writes her poetry there. And produces her blog.

Margaret's Boat

“The space is very compact, and set up for both living and sailing”, she says. “That means having to think about everything we bring on board: it must be something we need (that includes art supplies, for me) and can store securely.”

Some people have a room to create their art. Margaret has “a corner”.

Margaret's Corner on her boat

There are advantages. She and Richard have traveled widely, from Canada to the US, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.

“We can cast off our boat and move, go exploring or visiting and know that we have our own comfortable place to stay. Anyone who lives on a boat lives very close to nature. We have an intimate relationship with the weather: when the wind blows hard the boat rocks and creaks and the ropes groan; when the sun shines the water sparkles; ripples on the water gurgle against the hull of the boat.”

Margaret's Painting of Boat on Beach

Margaret’s poems and pictures often reflect her close relationship with the sea:

It calls, the sea,
To the restless boat
Uncomfortably cotched
On a sandy shore,
Longing for
Rocking waves
And cooling current
And the feel
Of wake moving
Singingly along
Her planked hull….

Acrylic on canvasboard; 20 x 16

Margaret started writing poetry as a teenager. She started painting in her forties, first learning to draw and work with colour – chalk pastels.

“I worked my way through chalk pastels to experimenting with other media until I arrived at the medium I most frequently use, acrylics.”

Margaret Mair's painting - We are Islands

“It took a friend’s introduction to SPARK in 2011 to make me think most deeply about how paintings and poetry could work together. I did not really start creating my own melding of the two until quite recently – January 2014.”

Many poems and pictures followed, as you can see on her blog.

Her pieces often evoke powerful responses.

“Everyone responds in their own way, and finds the thing or things that speak to them and their experience.

“I gave my mother a piece that hung on her wall until she died, a first iteration of my Tree of Life, much larger and more delicate. One day while I was visiting I watched a young girl stand silently in front of it for a long time, just looking. That was one of my favorite responses.”

And a few final words about home:

“I have learned that what you bring to a place is as important as the place itself. Keep it reasonably clean and relatively tidy, as cool on the hot days and as warm on the cold ones as you can (we’ve lived in some drafty places), put your favorite pictures on the wall and fill the bookshelves with your books and magazines and pieces of art, let music fill the rooms, make space to do the things that are important to you, and love the people who share it with you.”

Brava, Margaret.

All photos by Margaret Mair. Artworks copyrighted.

A Good Home, Art, Artists, Beautiful Neighborhoods, Bond Head, Butterflies, Canadian life, Canadians, Children, Country Homes, Country Living, Couples, Homes, Inspiration, Joyful Moments, San Miguel de Allende, Teaching Children Art

At Home with Sandra Walton-Ball

August 19, 2014August 19, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

David Walton-Ball opens the door of his summer home, east of Toronto, and is greeted by a child looking up at him:

“Can Sandra come out to play?”

Sandra — you may be surprised to hear — is not a child.

She’s David’s wife, a talented artist whose work hangs in galleries in Canada and Mexico.

Neighborhood children gravitate towards her and she loves them. So she teaches children to create their own artwork.

She and the children have developed a system at her small studio at the summer house.

If this sign is up, Sandra can’t come out to play.

In Mexico where she and David spend the winter, Sandra teaches art to children whose parents can’t afford to pay for lessons.

“We put on Andrea Bocelli and the children sing along.”

San Miguel de Allende is home to many artists from Canada and the U.S.

Years ago, Sandra met Leonard Brooks, an esteemed artist who started the Canadian and American migration to San Miguel. They became friends. That’s one of his paintings behind her, above.

Music playing, the children in her studio sing and paint. This is her gift to them and their families: encouraging the children’s creativity. She introduces them to the styles of Mexican artists such as Frida Kahlo.

You wouldn’t know that, nearly 20 years ago, Sandra was so ill, she was on life support for months. It took her 15 years to start painting confidently again.

Once recovered, she decided to take more risks with her art. And so wherever she is – in Owen Sound, the family’s main base, or in San Miguel de Allende, or here at the summer home near Toronto, she’s painting – doing “gutsier and more experimental work”.

“When something happens to disrupt your life, you recognize that things can happen and you may not get a chance again – so you start taking risks.”

David hired someone to turn half of the garage into a studio with skylights, and there’s been no looking back.

Generations of the Walton-Ball family have lived in Historic Bond Head for about 150 years.

During World War 2, the family planted and supplied potatoes to all their neighbours.

(Another historical tidbit: David’s first ancestor in Canada is the “Walton” for whom Port Hope’s main street is named. Port Hope, a famous heritage community, is near Bond Head.)

Through 50 years of marriage, Sandra has seen how special the place is to David. It’s grown on her.

“I fall in love with it each summer. Each year my garden grows. And now, like Virginia Wolfe, I have a room of my own, so it’s easier to find my heart.”

They love this place for the history, the house, the studio, the family times, the garden and the orchard. Some of the apple trees are more than a hundred years old.

One summer, Monarch butterflies visited Sandra and David here. (Monarchs fly from Mexico all the way to Canada each summer and back.)

“You couldn’t see a leaf,” Sandra says. “The trees were covered with Monarchs.”

That magical event led to this painting….

… and a gift: a butterfly chair from David.

“Perhaps the Monarchs were saying thanks for all your good works with the children in Mexico?” I ask.

“Perhaps,” Sandra replies.

To learn more about Sandra’s work, or to acquire her paintings, email: swaltonball@gmail.com

A Good Home, Artists, Authors, Gardens, Home

Five Acrylic Paintings: Homes and Flowers

August 17, 2014August 17, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

I’m pleased to bring you the art of Elizabeth Melton Parsons,writer and painter. Having only one talent, writing, I’m in awe of people like Elizabeth, who can write AND paint. This series is about HOME.

A Good Home, Art, Artists, Miniature Paintings, Water colour Paintings

The Marvelous Muriel Mason

July 23, 2014July 29, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

The Images in this post may be re-used only with the artist’s permission.

Some people inspire me no end.

Muriel Mason is one of them.

Muriel has been painting since childhood.

“Actually, for as long as I can remember,” she says.

She’s self-taught.

Born and raised in England, Muriel taught physical education and anatomy at a high school. She and her husband Michael, a professor of English, moved to Zimbabwe, then Canada, with their two sons in 1966. They live in a village east of Toronto.

Artistic talent runs in the family. Michael has written poetry and prose, son Paul is an accomplished author, and Robin is a lawyer who also writes.

Over several decades, Muriel’s art has been recognized repeatedly.

Since 1985, her work has been accepted into juried shows of watercolour miniatures in Washington, DC and Florida and in a special show in Sweden. In 1986, she was elected a fellow of the Ottawa Watercolour Society and received an award of excellence from them.

Muriel also designed tiles for H &R Johnson and Christmas cards for the Cystic Fibrosis Society. She creates larger paintings too, and has worked in pen and ink.

Her favorites? Miniatures in transparent watercolour. She’s created well over a hundred of them.

“I often look at my paintings and I’m amazed. I think ‘I did that?’ It really amazes me. It’s a sense of achievement.”

But a few years ago, a tumour was found growing around Muriel’s spinal cord. Four operations followed, each with a period of painful recovery.

To the delight of family and friends, she started to sit up and even walk again, with the use of a light metal walker. But she could no longer paint miniatures – the neck pain is too great.

Would Muriel return to other kinds of painting? She recently has.

“Just a few little things,” she claims. (I say “claims” because I know her standards. What she calls “a few little things” are undoubtedly beautiful paintings.)

Like the great Michelangelo who declared late in life, “ancora imparo” – I am still learning – Muriel is now learning how to paint despite struggling with physical challenges. You could say she’s back to teaching herself to paint. At age 85.

And she’s still exhibiting. A recognized international expert in miniatures, she will have a show in Whitby, Ontario in January of next year (at the Brooklin Public Library).

Brava, dear Muriel!