Category: 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…

[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…

[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…