History in progress...

Art demands a lot of you...both physically and emotionally.

~ Krista Harris

For some time I have been wanting to utilize gel media to thicken my paint as I love highly textured canvases...but it also makes me a bit nervous.  This week I decided to bite the bullet and lay a heavy layer of textured colour to these three pieces.  My focus for this work is on immigration, especially since several generations of my family have had to flee persecution for the perseverance of their personal rights and beliefs.  It's always difficult to try something new, and exciting as well...both in media and subject matter.  Generations of my family, as so many others, have survived through what they were able to grow by living off the land.  The structures they lived in, from huts built into the earth and and made of sod to log houses, houses built of stone to house-barn combinations, are all a testament of the places they lived and how they survived.  Whenever we can, my family travels to Steinbach, Manitioba, where a number of our relatives have settles, in order to visit the Mennonite Heritage Village museum.  There we see the transition from one structure to another and learn about the struggles and challenges of our past.  There we also learn about the food we eat and why it is so important to the culture...and about the clothing and religious traditions...which all come back to the blessings we have received on this earth.  I hope I can capture some of this story in these pieces.