Kim Bartelt’s paper paintings are soothing to look at. It’s the palette –– pastel pink, terracotta, oyster, sand and grey –– and the simple cutout shapes that make them so easy on the eye. Bartelt has worked with paper for several years; “I like its fragility, the noise it makes when you touch it, the transparency. It always lets you see what’s behind it, it never covers up completely like real paint does. It has a luminosity to it, and also a chalkiness, which I enjoy a lot.” Recycled materials such as fabric and silk paper often make it into her work, also. “I definitely think that these materials, carrying a history of their own, add to an artwork,” says the Berlin-based artist. Even the canvases have a history, and some have travelled as far as Beijing, Ethiopia and Morocco. “I loved the idea of their travels; there are small dents and marks on the canvas and the frames, it’s beautiful how life has left its marks.” Bartelt likens her process to a puzzle. Her studio floor is covered in paper cutouts, and very often it’s the leftovers from a cutout that inspire her next canvas. “One series of works is actually called ‘Puzzles’ as I move these shapes around until I find the right place and relation to the surface and the other shapes.” Have a look at her work. And her home/studio.

I came across the work of Sean W. Spellman today and I was taken in by the playful simplicity of his drawings. Spellman has journeyed across America more than two dozen times recording his travels in paintings, drawings, photographs and song. I like his sunsets and sunrises the most, the squiggles of waves, and the stars in the sky. It’s all very wanderlust-ey.

It was hot this weekend, gloriously hot. I noticed an un-peeling in myself and everyone around me. Bare arms, bare faces. Heat has a way of softening us, like butter in the sun. I came across a collection of vintage images this morning that capture the laziness, the lethargy and the yielding that takes place inside our bodies when heat is all around us. A couple sprawls out on a beach in Coney Island, kids lay down by the water in Póvoa de Varzim, people sunbathe under the canopy of a tree in Czechoslovakia.

It started with a blocked ear. Was it a build up of ear wax? Was it Covid 19? I’d heard about a woman with a rash who tested positive for Covid. And someone else whose conjunctivitis was a symptom of Covid. Back in March, every little symptom rang an alarm bell. I finally called my doctor who told me to squirt some saline up my nostrils. Salt water cures all. And within a month or so, my ear unblocked. In retrospect, I think a blocked ear was my body’s way of shutting out all the noise. The three ringed circus in our home, sirens on Bedford Road, Covid cases on the rise, shall we meet for a Margarita on zoom? Over on Robert Street it was just as loud. Drilling, grinding, sanding. Our renovation was in its last few weeks. Did we choose the right taps? Will we have a kitchen sink when we move in? I started to label boxes. Our second move in a year, this time in the midst of a pandemic. My ear unblocked and my legs went numb. It was as if there was no blood or oxygen running through them. “Jason, why are my legs so tired?” “Because they’re holding you up.” Then came the twice monthly flu symptoms that lasted for days at a time. I remember sitting outside in August shaking like a leaf that won’t let go its branch. It’s challenging when you’ve always counted on your body to perform for you, and it suddenly starts to resist. To recoil. To rebel. I ignored it at first. Then I fought back. I will swim in that ice cold lake no matter the outcome! And then in the Fall, with the wind pushing me along the beach on my 43rd Birthday, I surrendered. This isn’t what I want my 40s to feel like. I have mountains to climb, rivers to swim. Finally, the leaf let go of its branch. I’d always associated burnout with bankers and lawyers, people in pin stripe suits on stair-masters to big bucks. It turns out, burnout happens to any human being who consistently pushes her body beyond its limits, and who consistently overrides who she is and what she needs. Exhaustion is the body’s signal that we’re doing all the above. And if you can’t hear the tiny but mighty voice of consciousness within you, your body will block both ears and lockdown your legs so that you have no choice but to stop and listen. A pandemic was the last straw. And I am sorry that it took an enforced global halt to make me listen. Correction, act. But as human beings we rarely take action unless we’re forced to. And while at first it seemed that my body was letting me down, it soon became clear that it was protecting me. Burnout can be a gift. An opportunity to recalibrate. To slow down. To reflect. Yoga has helped enormously. I’ve morphed from hare to tortoise. Clay remains a steady companion. I garden a little and walk a lot. All activities that ask for my patience. Persistence. I take vitamins, and balance my activity with inactivity. It’s quieter now so I can tune into that tiny conscious voice a little better. Any meaningful recovery takes time. I am marking my progress alongside the perennials we planted in our garden. And the Oaks and Maples that are “resting” in tree protection zones around our neighbourhood.

It’s Goldilocks, in her getaway car, ditching the bears for a better life. The car reminds me of my grandmother’s Chrysler LeBaron Wagon. She called it Woody. It’s always been a dream of mine to one day drive a wood panelled car. A license would be a good start.

To make something with your hands is to have your heart and head in it. When they aren’t all in, the hands simply don’t cooperate. I can’t tell you how much clay I’ve wasted lately, piles and piles of it, that’s either cracked or collapsed in the making. Heart not in it. Head elsewhere. I also know what it is to think about nothing else but the clay in my hands, and watch as it effortlessly morphs into a three dimensional expression of heart and head. Constantin Brancusi said, “things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them.” The simplest sponge cake deflates in the hands of a distracted baker. Glass cracks. Wood warps. Textiles unravel. There were likely hundreds of iterations before Brancusi made King of Kings in 1956. It’s massive. Awesome. Intimidating. And it very possibly built itself.