Gimli is East of Here, Right?

Tomorrow, at 4am, I leave Calgary for a drive across the Canadian Prairies to Manitoba. Done this many times over the years and each time I can’t wait to start heading toward the sunrise. The time I spend in Saskatchewan will be stage lights bright. And the sun will be low in the western when I arrive in Winnipeg. Lots of road coffee on this journey.

Driving across the prairies brings place names that in themselves seem adventures. Moose Jaw, Portage la Praire, Medicine Hat, Indian Head, Swift Current and many, many more places like this chart the journey. When I’m in Brandon it always feels to me I’m mid-point between the west coast and the east coast of Canada. One things is for sure, arriving at Brandon, Manitoba, means two hours remain to Winnipeg after a long day on the highway.

On the prairies it seems you can see off to the edge of the earth as you drive. The hush of the vastness is compelling. Spirit seems everywhere.
I’m going to Manitoba to seek out some paintings, so canvas and paints are my travelling companions. A couple cameras will do the trip too. Will also meet up with some gallery friends in Winnipeg and Gimli.
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Let’s meet up on FaceBook http://wwwmfacebook.com/JimPescottPaintingsinDots

Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist: he lives and creates in Calgary, Alberta. Email is info@jimpescott.com Phone 403-870-0591. Website http://www.jimpescott.com

Living With Art

For most of us, sleep consumes a large portion of life.

When we sleep, most of us dream much like we are at the movies but without the popcorn.

When we awake, the show ends and life resumes. There may be day dreams at times, but the awake time is often filled with functions and pragmatics. The theatre of our awake life seldom performs as when we wish ourselves a “good night”.

Can we introduce things to make our day something more? For example: the work of an artist who blends “her classical artistic training with spirituality and healing energy merged into paintings” could be an option. Basically, this is about owning original art: a painting that speaks deeply to you. But not just a painting as there are so many options involving art and what touches you personally. What YOU feel is what really matters in looking at art that provides you nourishment in the spaces where you live and where you work.

Live with art that nourishes you always. The nourishment can be “sprituality and healing” but it can be anything else that matters to you.

Another artist writes , “When thinking of Art one should not exclusively think of museums or art galleries, art should be a integral part of our LIVING SPACE, OFFICE SPACE and inspire our daily lives with colorful and original objects. Living with Art is in itself an Art”.  Include original art in the spaces where we live and where we work.

Don’t walk away from art you love, bring it into your life.

If you’ve been “living with art”, what are your experiences. Please, please share with us.

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Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist who lives and works in Calgary, Alberta. To connect with Jim about his original paintings, or a project you have in mind, call 403-870-0591, or email hime at paintwithdots@shaw.ca. His website is http://www.jimpescott.com

Trees With Ideas

Trees with ideas.Trees that express themselves. They test the limits with trunks and branches and leaves: we can only guess at what happens underground. And sunlight becomes a partner as the day proceeds: bouncing light and splashing shadows over the ground.

Trees with ideas share loudly in the quiet of spaces. They love to surprise. And they touch me with teasing.

 

 

 

Windows In The Trees

Looking through trees it seems there are windows allowing me a view. And there are tiny eyes looking out from the trees as though windows allow them a view as well. On both sides, we simply watch.

Is a big part of life about watching through windows?

We “people watch” as though people are on the other side of the glass: perhaps they too watch us. And please don’t tell me you resist the opportunity, at dusk while walking in the dusk light of the evening, to look through the windows of homes where the lights are on and the curtains are open. Facebook seems a window place. Weather, too, seems a window moment: we watch the weather from our kitchen window. Television augments the window experience with an entire weather providing a window on meteorology anywhere in the world.

Perhaps the most interesting window of all: when we frame a work of art.

 

Upside Down Buildings

What if all buildings were upside-down? What would we call them?

So let’s do it. Let’s imagine all buildings are in fact upside-down and you just discovered this has happened. How would you feel about this: upset, amused, annoyed, interested, concerned, jazzed?

The choice is yours to accept upside-down buildings or to reject them. If you accept them there may be benefits you didn’t expect. It you reject upside-down buildings you’ve kept the status quo which is fine as rightside-up buildings seem to work pretty well.

Alright, now let’s say that actual buildings are all upside down: this is our “normal”.  And then someone constructs a downside-up building. Will you be upset, amused, annoyed, interested, concerned, jazzed? Will you want to keep the status quo?

Art can be like this.

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Jim Pescott is an international contemporary artist living and creating in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. To contact Jim directly about his paintings, or a project you think about, please phone 403-870-0591 or email Jim at paintwithdots@shaw.ca. Enjoy his Facebook page at http://facebook.com/jimpescottpaintingsindots Jim’s website is http://www.jimpescott.com

 

Step Inside

Step in?

Sure. Of course.

No, not into the studio. This is an invitation to step into the painting. That’s right, to explore from the inside as in a dream whilst colours flow and the image evolves. Then walk away when the painting is done. This is my experience everyday.

The painting now waits for someone else to step in. Someone who stops, looks, feels compelled to explore, and they step inside. Exploration becomes captivating.

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Jim Pescott lives and creates in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is an international contemporary artist: recently Jim’s work exhibited in the Salon 2011 held by the Societe Nationale des Beaux-art,  in France, at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris. http://www.jimpescott.com   http://facebook.com/jimpescottpaintingsindots

 

Love Affair

 “You have a love affair with aspens.”

I heard the words and immediately felt so guilty. I’d not ever thought about aspens as an object of love but I knew it was true.

Right now, in my studio, I’m painting a group of seven canvases that include a total of seventy-five aspen trees around the theme “In A Yellow Wood”. Proof enough. Who would do this if they didn’t love aspens?

Aspens are so interesting. Each aspen is an individual: it looks nothing like its neighbour aspen as a douglas fir would. Every aspen is its own shape and this, together with the scars it displays, relates the individual life it lives. How like people this seems.  Perhaps each aspen I paint is a portrait.

What is the tree that you love?

The aspens in this painting are on a hillside that slopes toward an escarpment. They endure a nearby roadway, certainly gravity and people who brush against them. Of course the raw elements of various weather systems throughout the year are a significant endurance as well. This group of aspens seems much like a family as they reach to each other and touch.

Orange Tree

Orange tree trunks must exist somewhere. Or rather, if the canvas wants an orange tree trunk then one simply appears. Either way, “Orange Tree” now exists.

Ever seen an orange tree trunk somewhere? Anywhere?

Paintings In Dots

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“Evening Shadows” Share With Calgary Artist

After a wonderful week in Montreal at the Quebec 2011 art exhibition, it was great to get back to the studio in Calgary.

 

“Evening Shadows” was the first canvas waiting by the easel: it wanted “yellow” and this happened with thin, wet, sloppy dots. Next the canvas wanted “trees”: in response, trees were identified with darker dots where trees needed to be. When the canvas wanted shadows, shadows happened one dot at a time.

 

A super time in the studio.

 

Jim Pescott
Paintings In Dots
www.jimpescott.com
403-870-0591

“Windows In The Trees”

While unwrapping a new canvas the other day, a vision of deep shadows and windows in the trees came to mind: actually it really wasn’t a thinking experience as the canvas was sharing and my role is to listen and then respond although more and more I get the feeling I’m not responding.

“Windows In The Trees” is 20″x16″.