My grandfather was a landscape painter. He tried figurative and abstraction but landscape was his language. Unlike him, but like my mother, I started with figure and portrait. They remain a primary interest, but my approaches to them and the reasons why I work with them have changed.

Over the years I've made a few anaemic efforts to work in landscape, particularly when I've been camping or travelling in a beautiful place. There is a kind of guilt associated with my drinking in a spectacular view but only feeling tired at the thought of trying to sketch or paint it. But it's never felt right to force myself, it has always been better to photograph it or just sit and enjoy the view.

Very recently however, landscape, for reasons that are inexplicable to me, has emerged in my work. Not enough yet to call it a trend or anything, but it is always important to notice what emerges in the studio, particularly if it is so new that it feels strange.

The first image “Tree” (above right) is a small, photo-based mixed media piece that began with a purely abstract base. Then a skin transfer I had made (of a tree) just seemed to belong there, so on it went... possibly in a class demo. Interesting things often emerge for me either in demos or during my preparations for a class.

The second image (below) is a view of sky and water and almost a residue of land that emerged entirely from my subconscious. I had no idea this was coming as I actually drew it in vertical orientation. The landscape just announced itself as I rotated the drawing to check it.

Maybe it was seeing Rod Prouse's work online recently (click his name for a link to his work) that got landscapes rolling around in my subconscious or the fact that my wandering feet have been still for too long and I am missing wide open spaces and fresh vistas. 

Whatever the reason, what matters to me is the reminder that we never know where our creative work (play) may take us... and that's a good thing!

Energy management is always an issue for me, one that I have to keep working on. Teaching art, while incredibly rewarding, uses massive amounts of my physical and mental energy, even though I only do it part-time! 

So getting into the studio regularly can be a challenge. I am lucky to have enough shows going on (generally) through the year to force me back in and focus me on studio work. But in between, when there is no urgency, an unhelpful loop can develop: low energy = little studio time; little studio time = lower energy; and so on, until it actually makes me despondent.

I know I'm far from alone in this experience, so at the risk of seeming repetitive, I am returning to this topic, for the benefit of any artists or art students reading this, but also anyone else who works creatively. Any creative activity feeds our creativity as a whole.

The way I lead myself gently out of the unfortunate loop I described is to get hands-on with something, get tactile with a material or process that is simple, not “precious”, that I don't need to commit lots of time to. Getting tactile helps every time.

Right now for example – you'll laugh – I have been folding and cutting paper in the same way we did to make snowflakes in what, kindergarten? Some of them turn out to be snowflakes and some definitely do not, but while making them I lose myself in the process of folding (what structure will I use?) and cutting the designs into them, improvising with my scissors.

It gives me an unreasonable amount of pleasure to work on these simple things and while I'm having fun I am also developing my facility with pattern, design, reflection and 3-dimensional structure. Who knows how that may pay off in the future? In the meantime my energy level rises as does my mood :-)

Do you have any difficulty getting into the studio every day, or maintaining some other creative practice? If so, what has worked for you? Your solution may help someone else. Please share in the comments below.

Pinch me. Yes, that's me on the front page of The Brampton Guardian. The adjacent photo shows the article on page 11, based mostly on an interview with me.

Most people who know me know I do what I can to get the word out about shows, talks, workshops and other events. My philosophy is simple: if I don't invest time and energy in doing that, how will anyone know? Why would I do or offer any of those things if I don't want anyone to know about them?

A lot of artists shy away from promotion and publicity. I can understand why. 

The kind of person whose life ambition is to maximize the time they spend alone in their studio listening to their own train of thought may not gravitate naturally to putting themselves “out there”. As well, there is a set of skills and knowledge involved. 

In my first career as a designer/art director, I worked a lot in both promotion and direct mail. Those are not necessarily considered the premium areas to specialize in, and not because of budgets (some mailings numbered in the millions!). I believe one reason is that the results were so incredibly and immediately measurable. They were both very much a numbers game.

Every promotion and mailing had specific, tangible goals such as how many orders were placed? How many entered the contest? What kind of traffic numbers visited the booth? And so on.

Everything about the visuals, the writing, and the offers (price, free gift, contest, that kind of thing) was geared toward getting a measurable response while being consistent with the brand (which I always thought of as the "voice").

This is not the kind of thing that gets most artists excited, and while of course the work is the most important thing, if that work is meant to be seen in the world, never mind sold, we need to get first some skills in marketing and publicity, and secondly, just a little bit excited about coming up with a good turn of phrase, or an incentive or increasing our email list size.

Back to my photographs: This is my first front page for an exhibition. The only other time I made it onto a cover was when I wrote an article for The Root my alumni magazine (you can check it out by clicking here, the article is on page 17).

More than a little luck was involved in making it onto this front page: first the curator had to invite me to be in the show; then she had to give other spotlights to the other two artists so that I became the press focus; the show needed to be at a high profile venue like the Living Arts Centre; an editor had to decide that maybe the photograph would be a nice addition to the front page, or the content would improve the mix of stories.

Luck tends to find you more if you're putting yourself “out there” of course. So don't be a wallflower :-)