Keira McArthur

Today the breeze is playful and cool, pushes me out of bed, teases me out of my sluggishness – it was a long night of paying attention to good friendship, while L was in surgery. My liver was talking all night long.

It went well, Kate writes, he is resting now.

I’m in first coffee ritual here beside the east window where the sunlight floods in. It’s top floor street side, wide open so city is fully present – rubber rubber on asphalt, engine effort along Gage Ave, the dinging train as it squeals through back yards, the hydro guys and their heavy equipment project, replacing wooden poles with cement ones all down the street.

These sounds rise and fall with the morning rush. Now a fluting robin (not alarmed, for once), starling and house sparrow chatter, a squirrel’s repeated scolding.

In a while I will close it all out and bring my focus in to cello practice, which is like making love with my soul. The day forward is always richer for it.

Second coffee will be at my studio, where I’ll continue work on this

and this…

At least one of these will be finished by the weekend, and I hope hanging on a wall outside my studio, so I can move on to the next one, and the next.

It’s the first time in my life that I’ve had both time and resources to devote to just this, long enough to seek and discover deeper layers in my work. A gift out of this past winter spring, especially the travel in Europe has been a curiosity about new places my work might go. New levels of fearlessness. If Klee can, if Braque can, well then, so can I.

I’m solving stalled pieces, will work my way into #Portraits.

#Portraits, which propelled me to Hamilton and the Cotton Factory, which continues to intrigue. It is a continuation of, maybe a deepening of #Selfie, into ‘Other-than Self’. Or maybe ‘Self, In Other’. All of that, and more.

I’m fascinated to see where this will go now. The first summer sittings are booked, and I will soon have November dates in Hamilton and Owen Sound to announce for the shows.

Of course, a collaborative book about process and research, as I did with #Selfie. Also music that we make together. That means you have a part to play, too, O esteemed ones.

Stay tuned.