you are everywhere (sold)

'The Lilacs are out and I'm thinking of you'-recent email to my Daughter. Every spring she would make a point of picking some for me. I hold the memory close.

I love this passage from 'Lilacs' by Amy Lowell

' Lilacs in dooryards

Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;   

Lilacs watching a deserted house

Settling sideways into the grass of an old road;

Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom

Above a cellar dug into a hill.

You are everywhere.'

May, Quiet Conversations,  oil / cold wax on canvas, 16x20in, copyright Jan Yates 2014

*On another note, I am happy to report that Saturday's open studio event was a perfect day! Thanks to new visitors and collectors, students, neighbours, friends and loyal patrons for stopping by. Your support means more than I can say.
The only downside - I was so busy in conversation, I forgot to take photos !

art & wine , fundraiser

Hhhmmm.., really..I wasn't aware of the magnitude of my obsession with dandelions (yes I accept the vineyard fixation) until  I came across this painting from LAST May!

At the time, I recall putting it aside with passages unresolved-but now quite like it for those exact qualities.. 

 May, oil on canvas, plein air, 11x14in, copyright Jan Yates, 2014

'May' will be available at tomorrow's Studio Sale.

 I would also like to thank Mr Zettel for writing the lovely article published by Niagara this Week. You can read about the sale and fundraiser for my Scotland residency here

 At the event I will also shamelessly show off Kacaba's lovely VQA wine-with my painting label-sampling may be in order.

..hope you can drop by-!

Saturday Studio Sale

The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.
 Vincent Van Gogh

July, oil on canvas, plein air, 30x36in, 2014, available

I really love the above painting. It was made on a good day with a good friend and I am happy to share the story during Saturday's event (info below). This is an opportunity to be in an artist's  environment -I will be leaving my tools and paints out so visitors can really get a grasp on the 'work' involved in making art.

Saturday Studio SALE

May 24, 11-5

death for Dandelions.

Upcoming is the Canadian long weekend which means only one thing:

Every man with a lawn tractor will be out mowing down those beautiful yellow dandelions. (why oh why said I??) 

Time is of the essence so between rains I’ve been outside painting them.

 May, oil on canvas, plein air, 11x14in, copyright Jan Yates, 2014, available

 

It is lovely working a midst the flurry of yellow finches back from their holiday-yellow is good.

about time

On a grey day I find the Forsythia to be especially enchanting. It soon will be gone, so I made the time, to respond one last time, en plein air.

 May, last of the Forsythia, oil on canvas, 11x14in

copyright Jan Yates, 2014. available (300, secure online payment via paypal, shipping arranged)

 purchase here

Next time what I'd do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I'd stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I'd watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all, I'd know more -- the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.

-Mary Oliver

pure, undiluted, untouched

Forsythia is pure joy. There is not an ounce, not a glimmer of sadness or even knowledge in forsythia. Pure, undiluted, untouched joy. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I try to book my painting time around the fleeting May blooms. Forsythia waits for no one and I was at her beck and call.

 

 May, oil / cold wax on canvas, 12x48in, copyright Jan Yates 2014

cloud illusion

The world's favourite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May.

-  Edwin Way Teale

Yes, I continue to work in the orchard series as I am drawn to what the trees represent.

In the time of blossom there is an airy feel-almost as if a cloud is resting on the land.

This cloud camouflages and protects the nesting birds, one of which made it's way into this painting.

Waiting for May, oil on canvas, 36x48in, copyright Jan Yates 2014

 available (inquire here)

"It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what."
-  John Galsworthy