View from my studio. 2.4.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)
This week, looking closely at the view from my studio window, and trying to capture it in a series of loose watercolor sketches, has helped me maintain my sanity. During the time I’m painting, I’m not thinking about anything else. There’s the perspective of parallel, gridded streets and rooftops receding into the north; the softness of bare deciduous trees with the occasional conifer; the urban buildings of northern Montreal and Laval in the distance; and most of all, the changing weather and what it does to the light, the colors, and the sky.
View from my studio in a snowstorm. 2.6.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)
And change it does. In a week, we’ve had bright sunny days, overcast ones, and a blustery snowstorm. Yesterday was sort of in-between: warmer, partly overcast, slightly dulling the colors, with wetter pavement from the melting snow.
View from my studio. 2.8.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)
I’ve been drawing and painting this view ever since we moved here two and a half years ago. It’s not gorgeous. But it’s interesting to me, it’s complicated, and it’s a challenge to make something of it.
When I wrote the essay for my book of winter drawings, Snowy Fields, back in 2023-24, I spoke about why I sometimes work in series. It’s exploratory, I wrote, but often it’s not until later that I’m able to see deeper reasons why I was doing a particular body of work.
The initial reason I began these watercolors this week was actually quite mundane. We are going to Mexico City in a week, and I was considering taking a new watercolor sketchbook, in a more rectangular format than an older, landscape sketchbook by the same manufacturer that I used on a previous trip, more than five years ago. I wanted to test the paper remaining in the old sketchbook to see if it still suited my technique, so I started the painting at the top of this post.
That one painting showed me what I wanted to know; the paper would be OK. But a day or two later, when it snowed, I decided to make another sketch. And yesterday afternoon, I did another.
When I stepped back from the absorbing time spent painting, I realized that I’ve been thinking about how the familiar landscape of my life, of all our lives, has suddenly and radically changed. We’re facing realities and potential outcomes that shake the foundations of everything we’ve taken for granted. It’s frightening, consuming, and unpredictable. Instead of running away from that, I want to see it clearly. I want to go deeper into it and know what we’re facing — not in order to be paralyzed with dread; or to cower despairingly while praying for some savior, human or divine, to fix it; or, worst of all, capitulating in advance — but so that I can make choices and act responsibly and with integrity, whether as an individual, a friend to others, or a member of society.
In order to do that, I need to take care of myself — therefore the establishment and continuation of self-preserving, self-healing practices. I need to be well- and selectively-informed about what is actually happening: governmental actions and the motives behind them, and the various forms of push-back and resistance that are now gathering momentum. And I must discover and decide upon concrete actions to take, because clawing this thing back in the U.S. and preserving democracy in Canada are going to require ALL of us to stand up for what we believe.
The good personal news is that I feel considerably better and stronger. The shock-and-awe tactics the administration has used are clear to me now, and I’m no longer feeling as buffeted by them. The dangers and the sadistic, evil intent are absolutely real, but if we look closely, we can see what we’re facing and exactly who these people are. That is a huge step forward, because it’s the opposite of what they want. Creating confusion and keeping people overwhelmed and emotional are the name of their game. Effective opposition, instead, is going to require awareness, steely-eyed steadiness, and the patience to stay in there through the long haul. It’s a changed landscape, but one that’s coming into focus — and that’s a positive development.
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