Keira McArthur

Wifi is not strong here, which is just fine. Simple is Peaceful; I am off grid, charging my battery with sunlight. . …while waves come in from the north east to lap at the shore, while the forest birds sing, while the shore birds fish and the earth side of my feet soak up heat. […]

These times.  Ukraine, Palestine, homeless people in our streets, broken hearts, and some folks just …stuck. I hear news like the hit and run death of Boris Brott and what was a level floor turns into a 45 degree pitch. We carry heavy things in these times and hearts are cracking open.  Steady on.  There […]

My phone is in Kingston, 200 km of driving sleet and transport trucks ago. I travel through this with my daughter from my aunt to my niece. There’s a rightness to the timing. In the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau I find a plug upstairs after the cafe closes.  There’s a bench with cushions so I […]

It’s the 18th of December, one week before Christmas day.  I’ve rehearsed and planned and delivered and engaged, I’ve painted and written and talked and sang and posted, I’ve cooked and sorted and laundered and cared-for and now all of a sudden on the eve of my first day off in what feels like centuries […]

stare and stare at these paintings, make a choice to add paint, increase opacity, move a line, stare again and question and re-form my understanding of the work and my own approach to collaboration – what is changing?  why and how the change?  How can I follow – willingly submit to change myself, when I cannot see the future? […]

Drippy Sunday morning; the world outside has shrunk …which appropriately rhymes with Funk, because Funk is precisely what I’m in. … niggly, prickly snappish me with a million essential things to attend to but instead I chop a fridge full of vegetables and chicken into tiny tiny pieces, beat up a dozen eggs, fry severed […]

As predicted, each painting for #Selfie has had it’s own arc of becoming.  They have all been surprises, have all taught me things I wouldn’t otherwise know. It’s been a privilege to be at the centre of this project and participate in the discovery, the shaping and polishing of each facet.  Quite a geological process […]

This show project has turned into a kind of Selfie Pilgrimage for me.  I must say, my initial resistance has been a challenge to overcome – I DO so resist, especially when reading articles like this one by James Franco (The Meanings of the Selfie, New York Times, December 2013)  who rationalizes his recently acquired […]

Another snow-day gift… So I’m throwing paint again:  I find myself working in the round. hmmm.  walking through fire, maybe?  in Tibet? These are all underpaintings, and they’re all humming loudly.  I’m excited to see what happens next, and next… This canvas is many paintings that have all been painted over – I think the […]

This is social media experiment in making art.  As I worked through the process of this painting I wondered whether I could actually describe that process in a series of photos, and tell the story of the piece as it becomes itself.   Might be neato.  I’ve started this with my cover photos on facebook, but […]

It’s the kind of snow there’s a constant More of.  The plows and trucks and blowers, out all night long are still going strong at 10am.  Cars slide gently sideways to stop signs. Kids and grown-ups both are thoroughly snow-suited, booted, winter-gloved and touqued as they kick & trudge through piled white, falling white, blowing  […]

We were in my studio where almost every inch of wall, floor table and shelf is crammed with stuff in process and use, with tools, & paint & vine charcoal & buttons & books & thread & blank paper & other paper covered with notes or ideas or solo, duet, trio, quartet or orchestral music.  […]