I’m a real right-brain, random-abstract, blue-sky, rainbows and unicorns sort of a thinker. Lead with my heart, ask questions later. Phenomenal memory for details and song lyrics, but no sense of chronology– I can see the news article as clearly as if it’s being broadcast live, but couldn’t tell you if that event was 5 or 10 years ago, before or after the Berlin Wall fell, if I was a teenager or an adult then.

And I like art.  I like all kinds of art– I appreciate the talent it takes to create photo-realistic pieces, stormy seas, landscapes that draw you in, castle walls that keep you out.  I like the abstract, impressionism, cubism. I’m less comfortable in my appreciation of those forms, because I don’t always feel I have a deep enough understanding of what the artist was trying to convey, and yet the free-form, intuitive-passionate is the style in which I like to create (with no formal training, no art school, no sense of design).  I like to create, and when I do, it’s occasionally with a plan in mind, but more often than not, the painting shows me what it wants to reveal.

This summer I had the opportunity to travel to China, and stayed for a week or so in Beijing.  You can, if you wish, read all about my time there, starting here.  Although I wasn’t there long, the experience left a lasting impression, and I got the opportunity to capture some of feelings in a pretty large piece I have called “Crossing the Jinding”.  Photos and notes follow.

It is a collage/mixed media piece on a 36×36 canvas.  I was struck that Beijing was a city of many contrasts, especially between the Ancient and the New.  That is represented in the two sides of the piece. Beijing’s old name, Peking, is also present, and the imagery is meant to represent the modern buildings that surround the ancient heart of the city– the Hutong. The watery imagery is meant to represent the Beijing’s past,  that water not only supported agriculture, travel and defense, but also washes away less savory truths.

Artifacts from my visit are woven throughout, some precisely and orderly (as we think of the military history of China) and some randomly and chaotically, as we might think of the energy of a modern city populated by millions.

The Jinding is a bridge in the Hutong, which you would cross to pass from the ancient city of Peking into the more modern neighbourhoods of latter day Beijing, but to me it was more a metaphor for experiencing the history and passage of time.

This latest creation hangs in dining room next to an earlier piece I did about a trip to Europe.

“Crossing the Jinding” is acrylics, mixed with: a polyester scarf (shredded), velum, and paper in the form of receipts, entry tickets, post cards, wrappers and baggage claim stubs.