painting

Regardless of the medium, artistic expression provides us with the unparalleled potential to transcend the barriers to true communication that language and culture impose on us. It liberates us from the confines of the “here and now,” and allows us to imagine and to feel. It’s a shared experience that provides a vehicle for travel beyond the temporal boundaries of our linear existence. The artist creates a work and then we then create our own interpretation. In the process we become a part of the work, and we also become artists ourselves. Marcel Duchamp expounded upon the nature of this relationship when he stated, “Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity. To all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.” Which brings me to my one of my favourite artists in any medium, Cape Breton native Stephanie Steele. Her art is passionate, eclectic and visionary… and so is she. I’ve been a fan of her work for several years now (I included some of it in my book The Other Side of Truth in 2012 as an example of how art can serve as the ultimate tool for non-verbal communication), and I thought this would be a great time to ask her a few questions about her life and how she views the creative process.