A Gift For YOU: The Sunflower Project

The Sunflower Project, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_123" align="aligncenter" width="239"] Jessica in her GardenO/C 48 x 60Original painting by Debbie.lee Miszaniec[/caption] I Have A Gift For You: Do you love art?  Do you believe that each of us has not one, but a thousand gifts to give the world?  Do you love art and believe that art is one of those gifts?  Then I have a gift for you. I want to give you a painting. I want to give you a painting of a sunflower seed. The sunflower is a dramatic plant: Tall, strong, visually striking, it is a wonder of life to behold as it grows and tracks the sun through the season. I recall my sadness, the first time growing them, at the first frost. I wished I could turn the clock back…
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Cowboy Coffee

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_116" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Cowboy CoffeeO/C 9 x 12Debbie.lee Miszaniec[/caption] Cowboy Coffee is a painting from my Western series. You can see more here. Painted on a bandana background, it refers to Cowboy culture prior to the invention of barb wire fencing, which led to the fencing off of range land and permanently changed ranching culture in North America. Previously ranching operations ranged freely across much on north america, with herds intermingling. The job of Cowboy was crucial and harsh. Rounding up and herding, sorting and branding cattle on the open range; cowboys lived with the cattle for the season, eating, sleeping and working on the range in makeshift and improvised settings. The text of this painting, Free Range Coffee, playfully alludes to both this reality, and to the current…
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Wall Flowers

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_113" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Wallflowersby Debbie.lee MiszaniecAcrylic on Canvas24 x 48[/caption] Wallflowers is part of my Landscape series. Completed in 2015, it serves a very special role: It is an idyllic image of a perfect day at Fish Creek Provincial Park in Calgary Alberta Canada. What's more, it is an encyclopedic painting depicting a range of attractive wildflowers which have been declared invasive species, because their hardiness and vigorous growth habits endanger bio diversity in natural areas by pushing out native plant species. This is a problem because animals and insects who rely on those native plant species as food sources may be adversely affected by their displacement. I created this piece in cooperation with the Friends of Fish Creek Park, as an aesthetic intervention and educational tool. The idea is…
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Pancake Breakfast

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_109" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Pancake Breakfast 9 x 12 O/C by Debbie.lee Miszaniec[/caption] Pancake Breakfast, from my western series, is a fairly straight forward piece. Growing up in Calgary Alberta, one of my favourite traditions of our annual (July) city wide Stampede celebrations are the free pancake breakfasts. For ten days, rich or poor, young or old, if you can line up on a sunny summer morning you can have a great breakfast, and entertainment, and possibly swag, all free of charge.  Breakfasts happen all across the city every day during Stampede. Put on by community groups, churches, corporations, politicians, dentists, you name it, they are a great expression of community inclusion and caring. Even if you can't afford to go to the Stampede grounds more than once, or at…
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Dime Novels 1903 & 1907

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_95" align="aligncenter" width="222"] Dime Novel 1903 12 x 16 O/C Debbie.lee Miszaniec[/caption] [caption id="attachment_96" align="aligncenter" width="227"] Dime Novel 1907 12 x 16 O/C Debbie.lee Miszaniec[/caption] The Dime Novel Paintings are part of my Western Series, which you can see here. They are still life paintings referencing the covers of early 20th century Western themed weekly fiction publications. The West lives as much in the imagination, in hyperbolic stories of legendary skill and courage, as it does in historical fact. We are much nearer to the source of the legends than earlier stories of medieval knights or Greek heroes. We even have photography, which can show us the real faces of some of our legendary figures, should they actually have any base in reality. Yet this vision of the west…
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Following Legends

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_97" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Following Legends 20 x 28 O/CDebbie.lee Miszaniec[/caption] Hi there again, and happy Friday the 13th! Hopefully you all ate your Lucky Charms cereal this morning, and don't have any work to do under tall ladders or anything. Following Legends is the second of two paintings thinking about female western legend Annie Oakley. The legend of Annie Oakley forms the backdrop, the wall paper, to the life of the little girl from Wild Roses (last week). The little girl grows up and perhaps becomes one of the flag bearers at the Calgary Stampede, our equivalent to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. And so "the show goes on", and "on with the show" as the text at the top of the painting mentions. You can see more of…
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Getting the New Western Gallery on to the Website

Events & Announcements, The Story Behind the Painting, Working Artist
I have just added a new western art gallery to my website. Included in the gallery is the painting featured in my last post, and I will be talking about some of the others more in depth as we go along. The images are not super high quality yet, the captions are short, and the design does not line up with the other galleries either, but it is there. Adding it required changes to all of the other pages, and will also require further changes, but one could spend all week on updating and never get into the studio! The other side of my new years resolution is spending the afternoon in the studio, so what it is really about is achieving balance between office and studio so I am neither binging…
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Latest Painting: Wild Roses

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_98" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Wild Roses 20 x 28 O/C Debbie.lee Miszaniec[/caption] I began the tedious task of taking action on my New Years Resolution to spend my mornings on administrative work (like updating my website) and afternoons painting. While there is a daunting backlog of updates to be made, I made good progress on my landing page today. The image above, Wild Roses, is not in the web-galleries yet. Updating those will be a job for next week, and when that is done you should be able to link to a bigger image. (update: Western Gallery is now online!) Currently featured on my landing page, Wild Roses is one of my most recently completed paintings, from the body of work that I am painting for the  Western Showcase. I am a born and raised Calgarian. In Calgary the…
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New Years Resolutions

Working Artist
It's that time of year that we are all looking to the future and deciding what we want that to look like! For many of us, myself included, that means resolving to lose the 10 pounds we put on over the holidays. Clear clutter, get organized, take care of finances, focus on family, all great personal resolutions. But what about our career resolutions? That is not just something for people in offices looking for raises and promotions, it is for us creative types too. I propose using your resolutions as career planning tools. What has not worked in the past year, and what are you going to do about it?  What do you want to do more of? What new projects look interesting and how can you get started on…
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