Meaning what

Since the invitations for my upcoming exhibit went out, I have had a few exchanges around the title:  There Is No Hidden Meaning Here. One friend and  former student wrote me asking:  “I am curious about the title.  Are you telling  the viewers who are always looking for meaning to stop and just enjoy.”

I replied:  “The title means both stop thinking and also, it’s a little the opposite:  there’s lots of meaning, but only if you stop thinking.”

Her response:  “I think I get it now….a more spiritually deep meaning comes when you let the color etc speak directly to you.”

Definitely.  And then I got an email from David Greenhaven in New Mexico, with whom I’ve corresponded occasionally on-line.  He had very graciously mentioned my work on his  art review blog:  sagefarmart.blogspot.com (to see what he wrote, go to http://sagefarmart.blogspot.com/2009/11/leya-evelyn-there-is-no-hidden-meaning.html)

To quote him:

Leya Evelyn’s paintings are chock full of passion for form and color.  The swing back and forth between thoughtful composition and wild abandon is very compelling.  She clearly gives a lot of attention and effort into the application of paint and other materials on the canvas and on top of other paint and yet the pieces don’t come off as overly studied, perhaps due to the scrumbling and the fast stroked oil stick on the eventual surface.

Thank you, David.  He also suggests that the title for the exhibit might “want the viewer to believe that her work is all about design and no deep thoughts.”  He does, however (thankfully), have “an emotional response to Evelyn’s work and the magic of  her palate.  Her work makes me believe there is the chance of hope and peace and new possibilities ahead without forgetting the history we’ve lived in order to get to this place.”

Because of the many layers of collage, words, drawing and paint in my paintings, there is, naturally, hidden aspects–meanings, it you care to put it that way.  Interpretation is very personal.  What you see is, usually, relative to your experience.  What I want is for the painting to be able to  transport the viewer beyond that relative knowledge, the everyday experience, to discover what is without reference.  Forget words and meaning:  just experience what you see.  A tall order for a piece of art, to be sure, but if I don’t try, it can’t happen.

There is no hidden meaning here

Meanwhile, between having lovely housemates for a couple of weeks, enjoying their company and helping them find a place to live, I’ve been preparing for an exhibit opening this Friday, 6 November, at the Secord Gallery in Halifax.   The paintings will be on the walls until 27 November.

If you are in the area and can, do stop by.  The invitation reads:

SECORD GALLERY
_________________________________________________________________________________
UPSTAIRS AT
6301 QUINPOOL RD., HALIFAX, NS B3L 1A4
TEL 902-423-6644  FAX 902-423-8834
www.secordgallery.com  info@secordgallery.com

New Exhibition!!

There Is No Hidden Meaning Here
Recent Works by Leya Evelyn

November 6 to 27, 2009
Opening reception: Friday, November 6 at 7pm

Born in Washington, D.C. and educated at both Brown and Yale Universities in the United States, Leya Evelyn moved toNova Scotia in the early 1980’s after having lived and worked for some time in New York City. Evelyn’s paintings show her passionate concern with pure forms, abstract shapes, and intense colours. The powerfully rich and deep colours that dominate her paintings and the loving, painterly application of those colours demonstrate the artist’s abiding interest in the techniques and effects of abstract painting. Leya is internationally recognized for her work.

This new body of work reflects an even greater confidence and clarity of vision, as the artist continues to refine her unique and compelling visual language.

Please join us for the opening reception. By Thursday, November 5, works in the exhibition can also be viewed on our website from the following link: http://www.secordgallery.com/gallery/Current-Exhibition

A number have works have already been posted in our upcoming exhibition section and can be viewed through the following link: http://www.secordgallery.com/gallery/Upcoming-Exhibitions

The airport has hearts

Yoko just sent me the photos she took of Aaron, Joanne and me at the airport.

That was a happy day!  Since then, two weeks ago, Aaron and Joanne have found an apartment in Halifax and moved in Saturday.  That evening the three of us and Yoko went to the movies and dinner.  It’s an annual event:  Yoko and I always escape to the movies on Halloween.

This year we went to see Coco Before Chanel. It was good.  It’s still linguring in my thoughts.  It’s haunting me:  her single-minded passion for her work and also her unique combination of fearlessness and vulnerablility.  Qualities that seem to be the necessary foundation for making art.  Being open and daring.

Yoko and I had seen Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax in September.  It was also very intriguing, the kind of movie that makes you want to know more about the people in it.  Both Yoko and I went home and read up on them.  I’d still like to know more.

And we avoided the little Halloween beggers!

Halifax explodes: with art, family and friends

Saturday night a lot of the city was alive with artwork.  Galleries, streets, windows, busses, all sported the message that the arts, and interest in the arts, was alive and well in Halifax.  People of all ages and interests wandered through the city looking at paintings, sculpture, videos, hearing music and seeing performances.  Until midnight, when the city turned into a pumpkin and rolled back to its usual somewhat quiet nature.  It was fascinating.

A couple of friends, Zoe Nudell and Pam Rubin,  had an installation using pieces of metal debris removed from the demolition site of a beautiful church that was taken down across from the Shambhala School in Halifax.  Many of us had watched the destruction of a magnificent building with great sadness.  Zoe and Pam had covered the large metal pieces with flowers.  In front of the installation, they had placed some vertical metal bars laced with greens.  It had a quiet, sacred feeling.  A fitting memorial.

But the best part for me was being joined by Aaron and his partner, Joanne.  I picked them up at the airport Friday night late.  They will be staying here with me until they find a flat in Halifax.  A big change for all of us.  For Joanne, the first first time in Halifax and the first time to live in Canada.  For Aaron, a return to a place he knows and loves well.  For me, finally, family here.

My friend Yoko accompanied me to the airport Friday night (so I wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel!).  In the waiting area, she noticed there was the panel I had worked on for the Visual Arts Nova Scotia collaboration, Canvas.   The painting with all the hearts on it.  It was facing the stairs for the people arriving in Halifax.  A fitting entry for my family!

And of course, Aaron knows a lot of people from when he lived here before so it was reunion time in Halifax.  For Joanne, it was an inviting introduction to life in Halifax.

It’s Christmas in my studio

My gallery in Toronto returned a lot of work yesterday. This morning I unwrapped all the paintings from their bubble wrap.  So I guess this means I don’t have a functioning gallery in Toronto at the moment!   But it feels so good!   Lots of paintings that can be reworked, renovated, revitalized. Some too that can stay, look pretty good as is. Mostly it is exciting to see the path I am taking: where I can go from where I have been.

Occasionally, very occasionally, I have the thought that I have painted my last painting, that there is no where else to go. But then it seems there are lots of options, many possibilities leading from where I have made other decisions.

So now the fun begins. . .

The Great Man

A friend lent me a book saying she kept thinking of me while she read it. My first impression of the book was it was lightweight, easily written, not much depth. But as I continued to read, I understood what she meant. It’s about the artworld, many aspects of it. From the point of view of several women over sixty, each one having had some kind of intense relationship with “the great man”, a well-known figurative painter, who had recently died. In the process of being interviewed for two biographies of the great men, these women reveal not only personal, intimate details information about themselves but also interesting views of the current art market.

A few quotes from Maxine, the great man’s older sister, in her early eighties, also a painter, but an abstract painter. Although Maxine is not the single central character of the novel, nor the most appealing person (she is portrayed as an angry and bitter, lonely and exhausted woman) she has some interesting comments on art.

“Oh, painters are like a big Irish family in the potato famine: There’s never enough of anting to go around–collectors, galleries, grants, prizes. . . . But I’m so old now, I’ve got nothing to lose.“

Maxine at the dinner party with Paula, the conceptual artist:

”I have done my best to avoid becoming familiar with conceptual art. It seems like a lot of clever, cold hoo-ha to me. As for so -called dialoguing–if that is really a verb–I have no idea what that means. I paint out of direct experience, and I’m not talking to anyone when I work, least of all to myself. I have to get everyone out of my head, including my own voice, in order to be able to paint. Please excuse me if the answer is obvious and the question is retarded, but what the hell ever happened to truth and beauty?“

”So is it really art?“ said Saul Unger softly in Maxine’s ear. ”That’s the question. It should be called something else, because it is something else.“

There was also several passages portraying Maxine at work painting:

Maxine hated to be interrupted when she was working. Being dragged from the world of painting back into the world of life was as difficult as forcing herself from the world of life back into the world of painting. A thick but permeable membrane separated them. Going from one to another required a shape shifting in the brain. She was never entirely safely ensconced in either world; the demands of the other one could be heard, muffled from whichever one you were in, so no matter where you were, you felt a tug of anxiety that something might go wrong in the other one in your absence, something you’d failed to account for before you left.

Personally, I always feel safely in the world of painting. Even when I am not in my studio. Although I would prefer to spend more time in my studio, it is a physically exhausting practice and I need time away to refresh my body, especially my eyes. Even in a museum, I find I can spend only limited time.

But as you get older and death is more a reality, not just a thought, then time is very important. In the course of the novel, there are thoughts and conversations about death from several characters.

The thing Maxine had always most feared when she imagined dying was the moment following her last breath–lying there air-less, empty-lunged, finished with inhaling forever; the emptiness after that last gasp, the whiteness, the freedom from need. That particular terror and literal breathlessness was what she had been trying to get into her painting this morning.

For me, there is also excitement in the the thought of ”the freedom from need”, less holding on, more need now to just do it, take chances, jump off that bridge of the unknown.

Picking up the pieces

I saw The Gleaners and I, a documentary film by Agnes Varda, earlier this week. Two years after the movie was made, Varga did a followup. One of the men from the original film, a man who was probably not over forty, said, when he was interviewed again, he didn’t like how she had portrayed herself in the first film, showing her grey hair and liver spotted hands. He didn’t enjoy seeing it; it wasn’t flattering.

There are times now when I marvel at the changes in my body. It is, to me, very beautiful to see the flesh on my arms, how they can make wrinkles if I hold them the right way. Something I’ve never seen before on my rather thin arms. I am fascinated at what can happen just because time has moved me in a certain direction and not another. Because I am alive.

A shaggy dog story

Lila and I went to Point Pleasant Park this afternoon for a long walk. It had been raining hard for twenty-four hours but the sun finally came out and it was very pleasant. On our travels we met a couple of other Portuguese Water Dogs, Lola and Diego, and their owner. We started chatting about how intelligent our dogs are and how difficult they were as puppies, because they are so intelligent.

I mentioned that this past summer I was sitting around the table after a nice lunch with a couple of friends on a very hot day and we were chatting long after Lila thought was necessary. So she went upstairs. I said to my friends, I think she is trying to tell us it’s time to go for a swim. I was right. Lila was trying to get my bathing suit down from the hook. So we went for a swim.

Lola’s dad said once they had gone to visit some family and they all went down into the rec room after dinner to hear the kids play music. When one child started up on the drums, Lola decided she’d had enough and went upstairs to get her leash. She brought it down to her owners. When that didn’t work, she went up and brought down Diego’s leash. Then they knew it was time to go.

Pix from PEI

I finally got my camera back so I could unload my photos. Here are a few from last weekend.

First, taking off from Caribou, N.S., on the ferry to PEI.

Our midnight birthday party:

Images of Anne:

of autumn:

and one for the road:

Puff in the pool

I went to PEI for the weekend. (That’s Prince Edward Island, for non-Canadians.) My friend Yoko has some visitors from Japan here for the week and we drove up Saturday, took the ferry across, arrived in time to see the last performance of Anne of Green Gables, went back to the hotel, celebrated one of Yoko’s friend’s birthday (her 27th), and finally went to sleep at 1 am.

Sunday morning I awoke early (as usual) before everyone else and went for a swim in the hotel pool. It’s a big pool, perfect for lane swimming. And I was the only person there. The acoustics in the pool-room gave a lovely echo and somehow I began singing Puff the Magic Dragon every time I came to the end of the lane.  It seemed appropriate.

For the rest of Sunday, we wandered around Charlottetown for a while, then went to Cavendish to the Green Gables House/Park, then across the Confederation Bridge and home around midnight.  I took a lot of photos but left my camera at a friend’s house today so I can’t show you any yet.  It was a picturesque excursion.

The Japanese are known for their love of the Anne of Green Gables story so it was especially nice to be in that world with them.  I was expecting to see a lot of orientals in the audience but, interestingly, over half, maybe even three-quarters of the people were sporting grey or white hair.  I don’t think I have seen that many people with grey hair in one room in a long time (and it was a very big room!).  It reminded me of an interview on the radio show Q with Jian Ghomeshi the other day (I think it was Tuesday).  There was a panel discussion on the common use of neuro-enhancing “smart” drugs. One man was extolling the benefits of mind-enhancing drugs.  In fact, he believed in a few years, maybe ten or so, it will become common for people to take them with no stigma.  As an example, he pointed out that not too long ago you never saw older people dying their hair whereas now it is the norm:  you rarely see people with grey hair.  That is a huge leap of logic for me:  from outer appearances, fashion, to the inner side of human behavior. But then, I never expected to be singing Puff the Magic Dragon in a pool in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

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