Artist Statements

"In every picture

There's a poem

In every poem

A picture."

~A Chinese proverb~

P.K. Page's Creative Space

I confess. I love reading artist's statements. 

When I discovered the artist statement of P.K. Page , I was delighted.

P.K. (Patricia Kathleen) Page is regarded as one of Canada’s most beloved creative voices. Both a poet and artist, Page crafted beautiful images through her words and art in her home office in Victoria, British Columbia (pictured above with thanks to LAC).

Here are some highlights from P.K. Page's artist statement:

"I began drawing in Brazil in the late 50's. Immersed in a language I could not understand and surrounded by a baroque world of great and tropical beauty, I was wordless. My writing, except for a journal which I didn't count, stopped. Then the pen that had written, miraculously began to draw. It drew everything around me-each blade of grass, each tree, each chair and table.

 It was not long before the 'gear and tackle and trim' of art began to intrigue me: the tooth of the paper I worked on, the colour of the ink, the thickness of the nib, the sound of the nib on the paper-one might even say, 'its song' -and then the different ways of applying colour: oil pastel, gouache, oil, egg tempera. Each required something new of me. I went to a teacher who told me to throw away the pen. But it would be an amputation! I moaned. Use colour, he advised........"

Flowers in a pot (1); Brazil (Rio); 1957-58

Brazillian Dolls; Brazil (Rio); 1958-59

More:

• National Film Board (NFB) : Still Water's: The Poetry of P.K. Page (1990; 38 min 2 s; Donald Winkler)