Every summer, I travel from Toronto (where I live now) to the east coast (where I grew up). I usually start in Maine for several weeks, and then make my way to Nova Scotia.
When I’m there, time slows down. It becomes all about walking in the landscape and looking, paying attention. Every year there are subtle changes in the landscape: what has been planted in the fields this year, what wildflowers are out and blooming, how gardens have grown, how the shape of the coast has changed.
It is something I look forward to all year, but this year in particular, that time was a needed respite from all the bad news and difficult things happening in the world. Being able to remember that there are still things that are simple and beautiful.
Moments in the day are events: Sunrise, sunset, dusk- also the weather- fog, sun, rain, rainbows, mist. I love watching how all of these elements affect and transform these places I know so well.
I take hundreds of photographs, do plein air watercolours and small oil studies. The summer is all about visiting familiar places with the people I have known my whole life, gathering information, experiencing what it is to be there now.
In the fall I return to my studio in Toronto with all of this material and slowly build up a body of work.
When I am painting in situ it is only about observation- trying to quickly document exactly what I'm seeing. There is no judgement about the finished product. I want simply to capture the shapes and forms in the land, the colours, as they are in that moment- so that when I am in my studio later in the year, I will remember. I have to work so quickly because things constantly change- every second counts.
In the studio it is different. I again am trying to recreate the place in a moment, but I have time to make decisions around how to best convey the feeling of what it was like to be there. There are questions of scale and colour, what kinds of marks best describe what I saw-thin or thick, are the edges sharp or soft etc..
How I paint it will affect how it is felt, and I never really know how the correct way will come about- it is all trial and error.
The studio paintings are almost always done in one session- to keep the clarity of intent, and try to maintain the immediacy I felt in the moment I experienced it.
Sometimes it comes together, other times I have to wipe the whole thing off and try again the next day.
A work is finished when it feels like the place in the moment I experienced it, but is also a painting. There is a fine line between overwrought and unresolved work and I am always trying to find that balance.
