A cold wet day didn’t deter visitors on my recent open studio weekend which was a wonderful outcome. I had some reservations about holding the exhibition in my studio and it is a hard decision to bypass galleries.

The benefits were obvious at the end of the two days and it was definitely the result of having more time to engage with everyone. I believe all creative people need to be able to articulate the concepts and purpose behind an artwork to give the viewer an opportunity to experience it on another level. The visitors were able to connect my location at Tallegalla with the passion and attachment I have to the natural environment.
Here is a great article on the exhibition at the Queensland Times Newspaper

I love to travel and seek out wild places. When I experience something in nature that inspires me I feel such a level of excitement and gratitude that I want to capture enough information, to translate the experience into an artwork when I get back to my studio. I aim to recapture the time and place through the feelings I had at the time to give a deeper layer to the new artwork.

Our first experience of the natural world takes the form of the environment we lived in as children. Mine was the sea, the sand and the Australian bush. The sea is in my blood, the bush is in my heart and the next journey I want to take in life is to recapture the immense freedom of my childhood.

I am looking for the unexpected..and it is always an unknown to return to the studio after travel.

LATEST NEWS Artsouthwa will host my workshop Creative Direction and the Inner Artist on the weekend of the 8th and 9th of November at Vancouver Arts Centre at Albany during my road trip to Western Australia. Please contact lyne @artclique.com.au  or Artsouthwa to book your place. Prices are the same as on the workshop page on this blog.  Please scroll down this page for more information.

Forces of Nature 122 x 122 cm acrylic on canvas

One of the darkest places one can go is to the land of indecision. This invented land may challenge your values.  A lesson well learnt is when you discover that to challenge your values is to compromise the truth of who you are.

There are remembered points in your life where time seemed to go so slow and others when it flies by fast. Indecision land feels like both and simply a good waste of time. Perhaps fears draws us to this place, a fear of making the wrong decision and a sense that the alternatives don’t seem so appealing. Perhaps this seems a little too deep yet in the creative journey we can dock in this land unexpectedly. The temptation is to jump ship, and leave it all behind and let someone else take charge.

In the end, if the situation involves an art career decision it all comes back to the reason we create. Without purpose does art has any meaning?. During a recent bout of indecision I heard a sweet person say of my paintings that some have ‘ a gentle whisper of healing and peace, a sigh of relief as this world writhes in pain’. I was reminded that those who achieve their goals don’t compromise on their purpose or their values. After all if we don’t believe in ourselves then who else will. The acclaimed actress Helen Hayes was known to have said  ‘ Short as I am I played the tallest queen in history. I though tall, I felt tall – and I looked tall. ‘

Below is one of my latest art pieces, a sculpture titled Every Tree has a Silver Lining

Back View: Every Tree has a Silver Lining sculptural art piece by Lyne Marshall

Front View: Every Tree has a Silver Lining sculptural art piece by Lyne Marshall

John O’Donahue, an Irish poet, writes in his inspiring book Divine Beauty that  ‘ The poem is shaped to enter and inhabit forgotten or not yet discovered alcoves in the reader’s heart’.  As I read these words I am acutely aware that all creative endeavors have this core purpose. I have experienced on many occasions how an artwork can transport the viewer to places unknown.

One memorable occurrence, which I later believed to be Stendhal’s Syndrome, happened to me twice in 2006 in Shanghai while standing in front of the paintings of acclaimed Chinese artist Zhou Chaing Jaing. I wrote about this unexpected and life changing experience in my first book Gleaner or Gladiator The Struggle to Create. At the time I fell into Chaing’s work in a dizzy spell that felt like I had fainted while still standing. It was very unsettling yet I knew I had just had a unique spiritual encounter with his painting.

I was sensing the truth of the artist and it opened my eyes to seeking out more creative people who instill this essence into their creations. I found that to create art work that can affect the viewer on many levels an artist is required to dig very deep and take risks. This can make them vulnerable to self-doubt and also the critical words of others.

For myself, as I endeavor to grow in purpose, I find the only way forward to be in the present and explore and rejoice in the beauty of the world I live in. This may be idealistic in today’s world but at the beginning of each day, as the poet W.S Graham writes, I try to ‘Listen. Put on morning and waken into falling light ‘. In this way I am inspired to live each day expecting only the best to happen.

Below ..new work in the Bird Series..