Landscapes

I've just been trying my hand at painting again. The reason for this is that last fall, I got a studio space. It's in the building that housed the now defunct Vancouver Playhouse Theatre company. The new owners have divided the space into mostly sound-proof recording studios so that when I arrive, I wend my way through a maze of these studios, a medley of musical styles emanating from the doors. 

At one end of the building is a large room where the visual artists live. It's here where I can make a big mess. No one cares that I have paint in my hair or that my brushstrokes cast splatters in a 2 meter radius. I don't care. Sometimes I just sit and listen to music. Sometimes I just sit there. And sometimes from the window I watch the punk rockers coming in and out, feeling some kind of solidarity with them.

Other times, I paint. This is the beginnings of a landscape, on the drive back from the interior of BC. It's dry but cold there right now. And quite beautiful in a way I can't quite name. Not rustic. Not peaceful, sad, inviting, dramatic, or lonely None of those. One day I'll think of the word, if there is one. But maybe I'll have to transmit it through my painting. Somehow.