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On a cold snowy day, the thing to do is curl up and watch an inspiring and beautiful documentary.  I am ready to watch this one again.

Painted Land, In Search of the Group of Seven.  It is who they were and what they did.  The description on the back cover reads, “past meets present”.  Historian Michael Burtch, and the writer and photographer team of Gary and Joanie McGuffin give us a visual understanding of how and why these Canadian painters took to the woods. Using the letters of the artists and their paintings the film team actually went out into the north side of Lake Superior and found the spots each painter probably sat, observed and painted.  The film uses aerial photography and actors to show the terrain and the artists heavy and cumbersome painting equipment and clothing (they wore ties!).

The painters may have been trying to shed their demons but in the process gave the Canadian wilderness a voice.  This documentary, 100 years after, is trying to do the same by again bringing the preservation of the wilderness to our hearts.

Please ask your libraries to order this in for your community.  Our wild lands are still worth preserving! I bought my copy at the Quiet Water Symposium in Lansing Michigan from the McGuffins.  I think if you go to the following site you will be able to purchase your own copy.

http://www.whitepinepictures.com

How I Landed Here                                                

My journey to this point in my art profession took an unusual path.  Not one I chose, not one I intended, and not one I am familiar with for another artist.  Eons ago while at University for the second stretch (I love love learning) I was studying business and had to take a class, any class in the arts.  Fair enough, I chose 3d design.  One semester turned into the rest of my life.  Because I had taken all the classes I needed except what I might major in, I just about spent the rest of that education in that space.  Quickly I became the lab tech, fixing equipment, teaching whenever I could, spending as much time as possible absorbing every process available. Moving from cardboard to wood to plaster for abstract sculptural design and then clay.  Working in clay creating figurative work, molding and then casting the work in plaster, resin, mixed media but mostly bronze.

It is in that studio where I learned the entire process of bronze casting.  Not a simple nor quick process, but it is magical!  If you ever get a chance to watch a pour, take the opportunity.  Bronze casting poured at around 2000 degrees Fahrenheit is a swirling orangish white gold I have never seen even in the most gorgeous sunsets.  A lot of wonderful work came out of that university studio, which is now closed.  And time moved on.

Early on at the university, I started working in the private studio of the head professor of that department. What an education I have had for the last 20 plus years!  An education that has covered classical music, football, opera, and foreign accents.  Oh, and we also made a lot of sculpture.  Primarily large monumental figurative sculptures for cities, parks, hospitals and government agencies.  The scale of the work was usually six feet to 15 feet.  Every part of the projects I was involved in, from beginning small competition pieces to the full size commissioned sculptures.  These works take months to bring to fruition, from initial design to clay to molding to bronze and then the public unveilings.   It is really something to see the reaction of the public to something that just months before was still being worked out in clay.

The works created in that studio do have my name on the back but are not mine.  Projects this large are put together with committees, contracts, lawyers, however, my name was not in the contracts.  So, I have had a dilemma.  I need this very kind of experience to compete for large projects, I have the experience by the truckload.  I just cannot use it when applying for projects.  Talking with a mastermind group I have recently joined, I told my story.  The response, was “wow! We don’t know what to say”.  Yeah, that’s what I said.  So, I am writing about this experience.  Would I change these past years?  No, not quite.  The education I have received could not have been bought anywhere on earth. The friendships are lifetime and heart bound.

However, I do have public projects of my own in state parks and city gardens as well as in private collections and a museum!  There is more to come!  Some things will stay the same and some things will change.  That my friends is part of the beauty of the fine art world.

What if anything would any of us change about our experiences?