The making of Sonnet in Green by Iris Low

Balcony Artists

Short Film about our mural project at 

The North Shore Neighbourhood House made by Therese Lydia Joseph:

Audrey Low and Therese Lydia Joseph working on the mural with me at NSNH

In the 80’s I was very fortunate to work on a number of murals in the Netherlands with Artist Jan de Kok. One was a very large mural in a school building. So fast forward to 2014 and I am working with fellow Artist Therese Lydia Joseph and my daughter Audrey on a mural commemorating 75 years of the North Shore Neighbourhood House in the North Vancouver Community.
It is a wonderful organization and working together with its Executive Director on this was great. They run daycares,Seniors programs as well as other recreational programs all over the North Shore . The Food Bank setup is really impressive. One of the clients of the Food Bank said that the NSNH had humanized it for them by offering a table to have coffee and soup at so they could socialize. All in all a worthy non-profit society. See their website for more info and the option to donate too: http://www.nsnh.bc.ca

Some of the images of the mural on the balcony of the
activity room at the NSNH at  East 2nd Street, North Vancouver

We made three separate murals using a graphic of the North Shore Mountains as a backdrop. For one mural we used drawings done by children in a Daycare run by the NSNH. It was fun watching all those talented faces very seriously drawing their impressions of the NSNH and their community. Another mural with the same background was full of drawings done by seniors who participate in a social group run by the NSNH. They drew all about the North Shore as they remember it from the past, a real eye opener to how much the North Shore has changed. The third mural was inspired by the Food Bank and other services that NSNH provides.

Painting a mural is an incredibly weather sensitive thing to do. We were lucky that September in Vancouver was a great month full of sunshine. Alas now we have to wait for good weather in order to put on the protective layer. Which could be a problem as it rains a fair amount throughout the winter. Thank you to Muralist and ArtistTodd Polich for offering us advice on how to paint a mural. Please come and check it out.

Where do they all come from, these paintings of flowers and plants at times when I am really in a low mood?

Poppies by Iris Low

Tulips by Iris Low

When you are depressed you look for something to help you up out of your mood. Sometimes it is alcohol (and it works for a little while) or there are pills (again work for a little while). Then I will randomly paint anything that comes to mind and there they are...the flowers. Why I don’t know. They come from the recesses of my mind, not photos or au plain wire, but freely from some part of me that sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Thank God for his Creation, for what would us poor mortals be if we didn’t have such beauty around us to make us want to be better painters and people.

Iris Low

Mindfullness

In efforts to cope with my mental illness my doctor invited me to practice mindfulness. Staying in the present moment, not fearing the future, or ruminating about the past, but just living in the moment and observing that sensation. It was difficult to practice as my mind would continue to dive into anxiety and depression. Just sitting and meditating was too difficult for me. So I decided to paint intuitively as a way of directing my mind into mindfulness. The result is the work I am presently doing. I intuitively choose the colours, inspired by the moment I then apply wide brushstrokes or squares of paint to the canvas.

Sonnet in Green, by Iris Low

I have long been fascinated by “the brushstroke,” a very personal way that an artist produces work. If you look at van Gogh’s art in his later life you will see how prominently his brushstrokes feature in his work. For that matter any impressionist focuses on the brushstroke. Rothko, who suffered from depression, produced magnificent paintings of giant squares of colour; he wanted to just paint emotion. It is heady stuff to look at his work, so large and meaningful. Another artist like this is Gauguin, who’s colour use was spectacular. He too suffered from depression. It has been an inspiration for me to look at artists who suffered from mental illness and to see how bright and expressive they were with colour.

detail of van Gogh’s brushstrokes

The colours I use in my mindfulness series are an expression of my mood, my emotions at that moment. Mood is not static but ever changing, it moves and flows, which is why there is movement in my paintings. Mindfulness has been a fantastic therapy for me and has provided me with an outlet that shows, I believe, that there is light in the darkness of my illness and I hope that this is expressed to others who experience mental illness or who’s loved ones do.