Keira McArthur

Thirteen tabs open on my browser, two of which have been up for weeks now. Why, I wonder. Two beautifully designed and printed Emergence Magazines beside me on the table, an accompanying ‘practice book’ over there which inspires me to make my own. From where I’m sitting now I can see two bookshelves and imagine […]

Stories that want to be told come in through the eastern window in the morning, or sometimes down onto the roof with the rain. There’s a beautiful one that follows me everywhere I go now, about the water that washes the eastern shore on Georgian Bay and how that is like, and also not like […]

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? […]

The heat of this summer is thick like soup laced with sweat.  I’m grumpy about it.  I’m not grumpy about the work that’s happening here like a series of intense mini-explosions, each triggering the next.  I’d just rather not sweat while I’m working (fan is off when recording).  My fuse is short. Happily I have this nearby… […]

Mama said there’d be days like this.  It’s been weeks of days like this. When you need to change your mind about something that’s buried deep in your blind spot, getting a good, swift sucker punch or two from someone close will do the trick.  It’s best if the motivation behind the attack is baffling […]

Every once in a while I see a bald eagle in the sky,  like poetry so beautiful and alive I stop breathing. We have entered the long cold of January.  Winter came early this year – two months ago –  to invite us deep inside where we can tend to the root of things, tune […]

I’ve given myself two weeks to answer a list.  On my list are relatively small goals but they are necessarily comprehensive, since the overall aim is to break through a log jam of old unfulfilled ideas, to clear out what is no longer useful or appropriate, and give form to the ones with a vigorous […]

A fog-laden wind sifts through tree boughs to the northwest.  Into my left ear the presto drip of snowmelt on metal roof is punctuated by a random slide, thunk of heavier stuff pulled to ground.  On my lap, the steady, thundering purr of kitten. The dark outside is thick with visible air, like stirred winter […]

While Barak Obama was aging rapidly in the effort to deflect the great toxic nastiness of the 2012 US election and (hopefully!) emerge as President with some vestiges of grace, I was building, making, taking apart and putting together, writing and re-writing new art equations in my studio. Through Hurricane Sandy and my dad’s 80th […]

I look forward to this shift to Schedule every year – a good time to set clear intentions. Here goes 2012-2013, Part 1: 1. I will learn the Brahms by March. 2. I will learn the Faure by December, tape a performance and send it down to Guelph, for application as a Suzuki teacher up […]

One of my best teachers gave us a good daily practice.  This came out of a discussion about the idea of when one is truly ‘finished’ with something – in this case a painting – but it could be a poem, a novel,  practise or rehearsal of a piece, a song, a cleaning project, a […]