Michelle (Basic) Hendry - Fine Art

Winter Light & Wandering

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Scott Building Gravenhurst

Scott Building – originally a part of the Gravenhurst Sanitorium Complex, now a part of the Ontario Fire College (photo) © 2011 Michelle Basic Hendry

After the big storm on Wednesday, I spent a good portion of the afternoon clearing snow and moving the shovel and snowblower in and out of the shed. When I went to secure the shed, the lock had frozen and was full of snow so I took it inside the house to let it thaw and dry out. I love winter and the quiet that follows a big storm and I don’t spend enough time outside at night. Returning the lock was a great excuse.

It was after midnight when I went to return the dried out lock. The skies had cleared and before I turned on my flashlight, the snow reflected small bits of ambient light. It was as if the sky has been turned upside down and it was the stars that sparkled on the landscape.

It was this memory that saved me from sitting in my chair for the remainder of yesterday, wiping away drool from a left brain system failure. The sun was out, it was the Chinese new year, so I picked up the snowshoes, threw them in the back of the truck and went in search of soul food.

hoc roc tree

Trees down by the Hoc Roc River (photo) © 2011 Michelle Basic Hendry

I followed my instincts from one location to another, enjoying the warm light, cool shadows and fresh snow. The ’system failure’ is a whole other story and when I find all the pieces of my brain again, I’ll share what I spent the week working on.  In the meantime, enjoy the photos!

ice shack

Shack on the ice (photo) © 2011 Michelle Basic Hendry

Winter Fallow

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Winter Birches
Winter Birches, Photograph © 2010 Michelle Basic Hendry

During the darkest days of Winter, I am generally less productive. The time I take to recharge my physical batteries and take care of my health after a busy season can also be a valuable time to allow transformation – in thought and in creativity.

It is during these ‘winter fallow’ periods that I go inside and look for inspiration, analyze the product and projects of the year before and generally  recharge. Nature itself experiences that slow dormancy and I tend to value it. Creative projects are often less formal and more play, and the paintings to come are still in the earliest of development.

Spring is still weeks away, but, the strengthening of the sun speaks to my cells and I am starting to very slowly move forward again. My project in the works, the Book on the Echoes series, is well underway and I am preparing drawings for some of the final paintings. Release is planned for September.

I am trying a big experiment with magic realism – a 36 by 48 inch painting. It will trickle out in bits and inspirations, but the finished piece will likely take months by the time the sketches become drawings and a final drawing is set to paint. This is new for me, so we’ll see how it goes!

So in the meantime as we approach the Equinox, I will share my inspirations here and as things become ready to share I will post them.  I assure you they will be worth the wait. I am very excited about the season to come.

I will be taking a short break from the blog and I plan to resume posting on February 24th.

Places of the Spirit

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Church
Church Interior, August 2008 © 2008 Michelle Basic Hendry

After such an eventful week, I took the day to stretch canvas and clean the house. It was so pleasant outside. I opened the windows and aired out the house. A little more, today, Winter lost his grip. We still have a lot of snow, but the air was mild and the smell hinted of Spring.

I am still trying to get the full story on the little abandoned country church that had its windows removed. It seems that this is a project undertaken by the local deanery to preserve elements of it and not the vandalism I originally feared. After a couple of days of phone calls, I hope I’ll know by tomorrow what happened and what the future of this beautiful place is going to be. The 120 year old wood building stands vulnerable to the weather at the moment. Abandoned in 2005, the image above is how the church interior appeared last summer. It does not seem abandoned in this image at all.

I only discovered this place 10 months ago, but, the experiences I had in this beautiful building, I shall never forget. Photographer Bev McMullen shot an image of me during my second visit to the location and my first time inside in August of last year for an article featuring my work. (See A08.pdf here for the photograph in the Muskokan). I was so floored by the light inside this church, I returned to shoot some more pictures for myself with the intent of painting them. That day I was a little under the weather, exhausted from the exhibition and all of the stuff that goes with an opening. After being inside the building for only a few minutes, I relaxed, felt incredibly peaceful – and well.

Despite the wam day, it was cool inside and the quiet filled the room. Far from an empty silence, the church was filled with the kind of feeling you would expect from such a place, but not often find. After finishing my shoot, I sat quietly in the same place where Bev photographed me and absorbed this feeling. I am not a religious person by any means – I prefer the term ‘spiritual’. This place was filled with Spirit.

The feeling stayed with me in the months following. Even with its adornments stripped, I could still feel that feeling last weekend. Hopefully, I can take that feeling with me, no matter what the outcome may be….

I have dropped my current projects (they were not moving forward with any success anyway) to start a painting I have been planning since that day in August. It is of a small part of this place as it was. I feel I need to paint it now.

Spring is in the Air, Sort of….

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Winter Sunset
Winter Sunset, 5×7, acrylic © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

I thought I would add this week’s small painting just in case you have not been out to the Small Paintings Blog. All of the small paintings on the blog are available for under $95 US (this one is $50).

I was hoping to have a WIP for you today, but I was having a week like the weather! For some reason, the paint would not stick to the canvas.  I was on my last nerve when I got something I could live with and managed to get the drawing on. More on Wednesday…

Ice Fall
Ice Fall in Gravenhurst Bay © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

After my last post, I decided to take one more trip out on the ice. The cold snap was coming to an end and it is very likely that the ice will be unsafe in places after this next thaw subsides. We are getting close to Spring and it was 11C today (51F). I knew this would be my last trip out for the season.

As it was, the pressure crack I showed you on the last post expanded substantially due to the freezing temperatures we had sustained for 5 days. We had overnight lows around -27C (-16F) so the expansion was even greater than we expected. This makes the ice crack and groan – and worse, water seeps to the surface and it is difficult to know how thick the ice is. Conditions made us decide to abandon the open lake for smaller bays and the ice fall photograph, above, was the result. There are more images on my Flickr page.

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All text and images © 2001-2018 Michelle Hendry. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited.