jennyarntzen.project

  Each day starts waking up in the morning. Each day is infinitely unique. Each day calls me to find a new perspective, a new point of view, a new way of looking at things. Each day presents infinite opportunities to rise above the challenges I face. Each day I look for inspiration to find solutions to those challenges for the good of all concerned. This cat drawing has been pinned to my drawing board for months waiting for it's next layer of colour. I was out walking my dog last summer and saw this neighbour cat sitting on the bottom step of the front stairs. I said, "Hello, Cat, how is it going?" It turned its gaze to me and looked calmly at both me and the dog. It looked at us with complete ease, while at the same time gathering necessary information and making ready to respond if the situation changed. I picked up my green pen, the ink was supposed to be archival and waterproof. I used the pen to re-visit the shapes of the cat sitting on the stairs, thinking about the...

  This week I continued to build my art production infrastructure. There are now three 3' x 4' magnet boards installed on the walls of the basement suite, where I live with Mom. The magnet boards allow me to put work on the walls, move it around, take it down and put it up again. The work always communicates new information when I can step back from it and look at it in a different context. The subject of these studies is a neighbour cat we encountered on one of our dog walks.  The first group of layers was done in pencil crayon. It was interesting to observe the different signifiers activated by using a selection of 3 greens in the first cat and a selection of 3 reds for the second cat studies. Immediately ideas about green (growth, envy, life) and red (jealousy, rage, passion, blood) were evoked in my imagination.  The second group of layers is being done with a translucent gray acrylic paint. This mix is a combination of iron oxide black, acrylic medium, and water. It ...

  My friend has a most beautiful, intelligent, energetic, intense shepherd. He is such a singular soul. It is rare to get a picture of him when he isn't carrying a toy or a stick or his tongue isn't hanging out. He is incredibly handsome. I am only able to work from reference photographs to do my drawings. I don't have the luxury of time or freedom to draw from life. So my challenge is always drawing out the life that was on the other side of the photograph. The energy, the movement, the drive, the sense of purpose. The intangibles that are hinted in any given photograph but never articulated as line, shade, tone, gesture. It feels like weeks since I had the time, concentration, energy, materials and idea come together to make a drawing. Today feels like a big win. Something tangible in the middle of all the work I do that disappears from hour to hour and day to day. 

  I have been working many days to get my studio set up so I can make a drawing or painting when the inspiration is with me. When I am feeling low I have a terrible imagining of a judgemental bystander who is examining my life, my current state, and the choices I am making and finding me inadequate. I collect images from my near environment: family, pets, walking in the neighbourhood. It doesn't matter what I have done over the course of my lifetime. It doesn't matter what has happened in the past week that has exhausted me. It doesn't matter what good I might have done in the hours leading up to this moment.  When the spirit moves me, I grab whatever is at hand and make a drawing or painting. It is these seemingly happenstance selections that bring significance and meaning to an otherwise perplexing situation. All that seems to matter is that there is this mean person in my imagination that is telling me that I am not enough, I didn't do enough, and I will never be or ...

 This is a series of work in progress. This is an experiment - I haven't done much architectural drawing. But I love this house so much. It is one of Vancouver's beautiful heritage houses that has been carefully restored and maintained. And it is on my block. I had this idea of putting a larger than life cat into the picture - this was the photo that served as the reference for the cat drawing. However, after sketching the cat in, I decided I just liked the house on it's own. It has so much character and many stories to tell. First layer is a contour drawing of the edges. Second layer I added translucent tinted ink to define the main areas of local colour. I still have no idea what I am going to do about the sky or the surrounding shrubbery.

  Neighbour's cat caught my eye on a dog walk. It was sitting on their front porch monitoring activity on the street.

  I had tea with the estimable Debra Powell yesterday to talk about building a team and support network for women over sixty who are re-inventing their lives. We talked about the myriad projects and passions we have developed over the years and our need for structure and camaraderie as we work on these various interests. I shared my frustration searching for employment and not being able to find any work that fits my experience, education, and skillset. At the same time, I have projects (currently inadequately funded) that need attention and will contribute to building strength in our communities: caregiving, truth and reconciliation, music, art, creativity, dogs.  What I need is professional infrastructure to give me the inter-personal, relational dynamic of shared purpose, shared mission, collaboration, goal setting, problem solving, and celebrating the wins. I want to read and write more about the successes of women over sixty re-inventing their lives. Taking their hard-ear...