working alone is the preferred condition; freedom from structure allows a self imposed discipline to emerge.  i know of artists who go out in groups and paint their silly heads off together but that is definitely not me. at the same time, working alone presents a heightened sensitivity to conversations with others, whenever they do occur.

as such 2 of this mornings correspondences;

Thank you, Micheal! Congratulations on getting your work up for all to see, though you would rather be painting, yes? So many — and all keepers! I spent yesterday afternoon and beyond viewing here my “old” favorite paintings of northern water and brush and trees and gaining new favorites: boats, Paris, Venice, Greece, and all. What you see is what I would seek, up close, whether in nature or lived-in cities, or marinas. And the light! Unfortunately, I am unable to give any “available” paintings a home with me, but I have made note of them. I enjoyed the slide shows remaining on You Tube, plus galleries, and your thoughts on your website. If I can’t be by the water, staring at the surface through the trees, or in the weeds, or absorbing the light on the fitting and enchanting architecture and windows and doors, I can stare at your amazing paintings in wonder at how you could see and express what captures my eye and heart most in my favorite places in Canada. So unlike some group exhibitions I”ve seen of water color paintings that can dazzle one’s eyes with technical perfection in the representation of, say, glass — or water or flowers or whatever — that leave me feeling a little guilty for thinking “So what?” surrounded by paintings of hard-won virtuosity and even beauty, or at least prettiness. By the way, questions: some of your paintings are on absorbent ground on the gessoed birch panels? What’s the absorbent part? Others are just directly on gessoed birch? Do you like handling your acrylicized water color paints? Thank you again for your vision and art, in all its abundance. Nice complement to Holly’s granite of the Canadian Shield, with the lichen and exposed roots that I love. Nice of you all to enable me to see the sights I miss while sparing me the months of paddling and portaging to experience it in person. No mosquitoes! No frostbite! But plenty of wonder.

• Micheal Zarowsky

Hi Karen, we try n get out the city, if only to stretch our eyeballs, every time we get enough lot for a couple of tankfulls of gas. living on this incredible mudball, it is absolutely fun to try n bring out the beauty that is there, the way we find it and it finds us, rather than reduce it to a bunch of watercolour techniques; we have a direct way of seeing, i say that without trying to sound arrogant, which allows us to lose our edges and become one with wherever we are. we paint for ourselves, what moves us, or as picasso once said, we sell what we paint rather than paint to sell.

gesso on a panel creates a kitchen countertop hard like surface & watercolours dry on the surface (but the magic here is because of this they can be further moved around) absorbent ground is yet another acrylic paint (?) substance, which i add several coats of on top of the gesso, which absorbs the paint into itself; same way that when working on paper, one soon realizes that paints divide themselves into those which stain, n those which do not; by which i mean some paints will be absorbed immediately into the paper while others will float on the surface for a while; the absorbent ground when dry has a linen-like feel which makes it a bitch to drag a brush across and the paint dries ‘flatter’ than on gesso. so it a matter of coming to understand which surface better expresses any particular idea before starting to work; for example the winter pieces, not all, but by and large, lately i have been working on absorbent ground while the ideas concerning ‘water’ i like the kind of ‘depth’ that comes from working on gesso. like anything, one’s way of working evolves over time into preferences, which hopefully will not fixate into a non thinking sameness so long as we continue to paint the idea first in our heads before ever putting pencil or brush to the surface,,,,

in another self defeating move, which further cements the idea that the work will never get ‘mass’ publication in book form, i have, at least for now until it bores me enough to quit doing so, started posting batches of work on pinterest; the hope here is to attract a serious gallery or 2 which would be interested in carrying and selling our work.

http://www.pinterest.com/mzarowsky/