Maureen O'Neill is an artist with an international reputation. Her work is found in collections throughout the British Isles, Ireland and Europe; across Canada and the United States; and in Central and South America. Open editions of her work are being collected in Indonesia, Korea, Australia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic; they are also in several African countries, including the Congo.

22 Reasons Why I Paint

1. “Nothing is worth more than this day”
2. “Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all”
3. “That time mineral This time vegetable Next time animal Some time man”
4. “Ring the bell that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in”
5. “There is no object so soft But what it makes a hub For the wheeled universe”
6. “Find the job you like and you’ll never have to work a day in your life”
7. “I’m dreaming the hardest”
8. “Any act of good is a diminution of evil in the world”
9. “The only reason that one paints is that one can’t help it….The artist gets a peculiar sensation from something he sees and is impelled to express it and, he doesn’t know why, he can only express his feelings by lines and colours”
10. “Live all you can. It’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life….We work in the dark. We do what we can. We give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art”
11. “Leaves turned to soil beneath my feet. Thus it is, trees eat themselves”
12. “…there is a hidden order, mimicked by, or revealed by art, which makes sense of our brief lives. Or perhaps there is not any order, except at the molecular level. Perhaps there is only kindness and tears”
13. “Fabrizio…was obsessed with finding the great secret that had inspired every alchemist since the beginning of time—the Philosopher’s Stone. The Ultimate Answer to the enigma that was life and death. The jewel of Ouroboros. The ancient words came to him again: ‘Stone which is not stone, a precious thing which has no value, a thing of many shapes which has no shape, this unknown thing which is known of all’”
14. “Among the stones I stood a stone”
15. “Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course With rocks and stones and trees”
16. “With each person who comes into the world, there is something new that has never existed before, something totally new and unique”
17. “Tiny stars of love….The inner freedom to do beautiful things”
18. “They became part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the world seen through the eyes of love. The sky stuck to them, the birds sang through them…the leaves now and then brushed open a star….’as with your shadow, I with these did play’”
19. “This is the night of radiant depth unfolded”
20. “The china rose is all abloom And buzzing with the yellow bee”
21. “I weep as I make the honey Wearing the shirt of a bee”
22. “Everything is MU”

Sources:

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted by Robert Genn, Dec. 5, 2008
2. Emily Dickinson
3. Walt Whitman
4. Leonard Cohen
5. Walt Whitman
6. Confucius
7. Marilyn Monroe
8. Bernard Malamud
9. W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
10. Henry James, The Ambassadors
11. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
12. A.S. Byatt’s ending to her review of Cloud Atlas in The Guardian
13. Mark Frutkin, Fabrizio’s Return
14. Lord Byron, Prisoner of Chillion
15. William Wordsworth
16. Martin Buber, Le Chemin de l’Homme, quoted by Jean Vanier
17. Jean Vanier, Becoming Human
18. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
19. Rainer Maria Rilke, quoted by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi
20. Virginia Woolf, quoting a song in To the Lighthouse
21. Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
22. Commentary on the last of the Ten Oxherding Pictures, Zen Buddhism

A catalogue of my recent exhibitions and activities can be found under the heading 'Catalogue'. I teach painting in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. I will be giving several week-long summer courses, and intend to return to Prince Edward Island to paint and show my work there.