I sing. Alone in my car. Oh, sometimes my husband’s there too. 

I used to sing a lot: in choirs, while walking along quiet streets, at friends’ houses, in Girl Guides, around campfires, in the elevator of the apartment building where I once lived… all over 30 years ago!

So this summer I had a free week in Haliburton and the chance to take a course at the HSA+D instructors’ discounted rate while my husband Kal taught collage there (I had taught the previous week). I thought about taking his course, it was a chance to focus on a medium I only lightly touch on in my own work and guaranteed to be fun as well.

So why didn’t I? 

As my regular students can attest, there is a quirk in my nature that means I will move along methodically for a while and then what I call my “randomizer switch” will kick on and I’ll find myself talking about or teaching or doing something unexpected, not quite sensible, but sometimes just the perfect deviation!

That’s how I found myself a student in Creative Choral Music I, taught by the magnificent Sherry Squires (far left in photo).

There was also a level II choir, taught by Andy Rush (an amazing man who could make a high impact aerobics workout video just based on his conducting!). Our two classes came together the first (Monday) afternoon, as we would do throughout the week to prepare for our concerts and to celebrate at the end.

I was in skilled and capable hands, and there’s safety in numbers, right? (Imagine me laughing, so hard that tears are probably coming to my eyes!)

Well, the first part was actually true, Sherry and Andy were terrific instructors. It is also true that we covered a LOT of content in a few short days: warm-ups, voice management, enunciation, reading music, rhythms, breathing, blending, following a conductor, recognizing cues, coming in on time (surprisingly hard not to be early or especially, late), holding music, engaging the audience, being onstage, sight-reading (rather difficult for those who like me don’t properly read music for voice!), an amazingly large and varied selection of songs, etc.

What I discovered, and experienced, was how much my brain had to juggle more or less simultaneously when I wasn’t used to doing any of it! Even singing: it’s entirely different to sing a melody solo, in a key that’s perfect for your voice, (and do whatever you like to it with no consideration for anyone else, because there is no one else to consider) than it is to sing as one small part of a whole having only just been introduced to a song, and (and it’s a big “and”) sing a harmony part.

Singing a harmony part (I was in the tenor section) was a sometimes bizarre experience because depending on the song/arrangement, it might relate closely to the melody or it might be off on what feels like a completely different tangent. All contributing to making a wonderful whole of course, but difficult to process and adapt to (never mind learn well enough to get right consistently!) in a few short days.

In my studio I am used to working solo almost all the time. I have had a number of projects where for certain periods a variety of truly generous people have helped me out, and I’ve also hired fabricators and services to complete certain aspects, but even those cooperative experiences were very different than singing in a choir.

A few short days can get you surprisingly far in the right circumstances, including the right instructor(s), and to feel our 50+ voices blend into a unified whole during sections of both concerts was pure bliss. I felt like one small star in a galaxy of stars – an amazing reward for almost a week of head-exploding mental challenge, voice-shredding physical challenge and moments of pure panic!

The other reward was all the warm, friendly, welcoming veterans (and not) whom I met in both choirs, and I didn't even meet everyone! 

It was not easy being a real beginner again, to leap straight into the deep end, especially when you are expert at other things, but it is vital. It quite literally adds to your vitality, stimulating and nourishing you all at once; and by exercising "muscles" that you don't normally use or aren't skillful with, you increase your mental and creative agility, possibilities and courage.

That fantastic week prepared me for new creative adventures this fall and beyond, but more on those later!

Please share in the comments below any leaps (large or small) that you’ve taken and were glad you did... or if you too sing in a choir. 

The combined choirs of Choral Music I and II, led by Sherry Squires and Andy Rush respectively (far left and middle front). Yours truly is partially hidden behind the white hair of one of my fellow female tenors, top left. This picture was taken right after our concert in the Great Hall at Haliburton School of Art + Design.

Here's a little video excerpt of Choral Music I and II classes' concert, singing one verse of Susan Aglukark's Song of the Land. The cameraman sneezes at one point I think :-)

Above is a wonderful TED Talk on the power and importance of disruption in creative work, with some amazing and famous examples (i.e. the resulting work is famous, the fact that disruption made them possible isn't). This is in fact the source for my title “Play the Unplayable Piano”.

Watching the video will be 15 well-spent minutes of your life – how much of our life on the internet can we say that about? 

​It makes me wonder if I should show it at the beginning of all of my courses – might be a good way to warm up creative thinking and help prevent the instinctive resistance that can arise when I introduce something new. 

Disruptors are an important factor in how I work as an artist as well as how I teach although I've usually referred to the “randomizer” in my brain. A better name for it is “disruptor” since that expresses its effect as well as its role.

​How has it shown up in my studio? How do I even choose instances?

​There was the time I decided to take on my least-liked colour, so I kept working with pink until I stopped disliking it. Pink functioned as a disrupter in every painting I put it in, until it became just another colour in my palette.
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Or the time I decided to work with a brush that had hardened, caked-on paint, instead of throwing it out, then made the best paintings of my life to that point.

To be more creative, introduce something that disrupts your familiar.



​Disruption is uncomfortable,   even excruciating, at first, because the things that make us           comfortable are familiar.

Top: video of Tim Harford's TED Talk on How Frustration Can Make Us More Creative. Above left and right: Over and Over and Chair with Swatch #1; both examples of work that included disruption as part of their process.

Every residency or workshop I have taken has disrupted my normal practice, sometimes enormously, especially when being far from home was combined with a really powerful mentoring situation.

More often I am inclined to take on things I don't know how to do as aspects of a project where I do know how to do other parts. Like last summer's charcoal figure drawing mural at the Art Gallery of Mississauga; or the chairs I am working on now.

My first efforts to use fluorescent colour was a powerful disrupter, both challenging and fun. When I introduced it in a class I was teaching, I got the full range of responses: from those who giggled with amazement at being completely out of their comfort zones and delighted disbelief at what they were producing, to one who refused to try even a drop, and of course everyone in between.

​There are a couple of things about disrupters that we need to remember, whether they are an old friend or a scary stranger: they make us far more creative as we struggle to adapt to them, discover new things because of them, and they are uncomfortable! They may even feel excruciating at first, but that's natural, because the things that make us comfortable are familiar.

“Seek experiences that make you nervous, where you’re right on the edge of blowing it. Try not to blow it, but if you do blow it, learn from it and keep on keeping on.”

— JASON HARDY, digital designer and 
self-proclaimed “creative generalist”

I read this quote today in a profile of Jason Hardy and had to share it with you. He's found a vivid way of expressing what I seem to keep doing, what I know I must do, though I have times when I shrink from it and other times when I embrace it whole-heartedly.

There is a nervous sensation I get just below my solar plexus that I've come to recognize as my friend (my exciting, daredevil friend!). Without it I would not grow or learn or DARE the way I do. Those experiences in turn shape who I am as an artist and as a person, so I would not recognize myself without that "friend".

"Explorer's instinct" might be a good name for that impulse, one that has led me on some life-changing physical journeys as well as guided me to the challenging projects I've taken on in recent years.

My current show 'Chains Unlinked' was the latest example. I submitted a proposal that I thought was exciting, that would create an interesting, integrated experience as well as a visually distinctive and dramatic use of the space. I felt good about sending it in.

Then I got the acceptance letter! At first I was (of course!) pleased and excited, but at a certain point reality set in and I thought "Oh sh*t! Now I have to figure out how to actually do this!"

Figuring it out as you go along is part of the fun, terror and excitement of straying into unknown territory. What's important to remember is that it's rarely fatal (!), and you are allowed to ask for help and advice along the way! 

We often forget to ask for help. It's something I'm still working on myself. I know I've made progress though because this group of work only happened due to the help and support of many people.

I thought it would be fun to include a few photos of projects that were big stretches for me, that led to some moments of dark terror as well as giant leaps of faith and many miracles, large and small.

Whether the new challenges you take on are massive or modest in scope, they are the most direct path to growth, in creativity, experience and confidence. They make us nervous though because by definition they require us to risk failure.

The final day of installation started with clean-up. Tarps came down, drapery went up, then we spent hours getting the unlinked chains up and their positioning and angles fine-tuned.

At day's end we were done; it only remained for the professional installers to light everything so you could see it properly. They did a great job! In fact the difference between how it looked when we left and after they lit it was an object lesson in the importance of properly lighting a show. I've been in shows where some of the work had half (if that) of the light it actually needed.

One major improvement that occurred with proper lighting was that the white layer of drawing on the drapery panels become visible where in low light only the black layer could be seen easily.

The Art Gallery of Mississauga's 'Walk the Talk' event is coming up and includes a tour of all three shows and informal talks from some of the artists, including me. 

I will talk about how I layered up a kind of evolution of meaning and experience while keeping things thematically tight yet physically airy in a small space. I may also talk about taking on projects that risk failure to stimulate my own growth and creativity. 

Bring your questions and observations and we'll have an interesting discussion about it.

Please join me:
Saturday, July 25, 2015 at 1pm
Art Gallery of Mississauga (click on name to go to their page)

P.S. The time-lapse below is a bit too fast. I'll try to improve it when I edit the whole installation process into a single video.

Exhausted after a big day of drawing at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, with probably an even bigger one tomorrow. Big areas are likely to be erased away in order to get a fresh start. (To get the inside scoop, don't forget to ask me what I've been using to erase with!) 

Tomorrow is my last full day to work on this massive figure (detail only shown above), so the pressure is really on. Of course when I'm drawing I need to forget the pressure (somehow) in order to draw usefully.

Just working on a figure this size feels like pressure enough. It can be a little terrifying if I allow myself to think about it too much. I'm glad to say though that there were times today when I didn't think at all; I listened to my music and just felt my way through the drawing. Did some of my best work that way. I hope I spend a lot of tomorrow in that state, in which case I know it will work out.

Also tomorrow the support structures for one of my sculpture installations will be installed. Went out this evening with Kal to buy some of the hardware bits for that. So glad to have Kal back home! This drawing requires all of my attention and energy, so Kal assists me by attending to some of the details for the other pieces.

Please wish me luck, I am going to need it!

PS: On the weekend I will work on the time-lapse photography I've been shooting as I draw, so watch this space!