Art in Simple Spaces Cheryl Quejada Canning. June 2026 Sydney a 2-minute read. “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” — William Wordsworth There is a rhythm to my life that has nothing to do with perfect studios, curated corners, or the kind of aesthetic spaces people post online. My art has never depended on that. Wherever I live, wherever I go, I bring my art with me not as an accessory, but as an extension of who I am. I’ve worked on canvases in tiny apartments, in borrowed rooms, in places where the only “studio” was a clean table, a window, and whatever tools I could carry. I’ve painted in between loads of laundry, in between errands, in between the quiet and the chaos. I don’t wait for ideal conditions. I improvise. I adapt. I create. The everyday studio: natural light, working hands, and materials waiting in quiet readiness. My supplies are always top‑quality, that’s the one non‑negotiable, but I don’t need a full set of colours or a perfect setup. Give me a few palettes, a surface I can turn archival, and natural light, and I’m ready. I can make a studio out of anything because the real studio is internal. The discipline, the instinct, the imagination they travel with me. Maybe that comes from how I grew up. I was raised in Spanish houses: high ceilings, wooden floorboards, large windows that breathed light during the day and fell into deep darkness at night. Those spaces shaped my sense of home. Even now, wherever I live, I recreate that feeling - simple, airy, uncluttered. No frills, no excess, no “girly” décor. Just space, light, and quiet. Except for two things. Wherever I go, I always carry one small toy, something palm‑sized, colourful, soft. I pick them up randomly from Kmart, National Book Store, or a flea market. Never planned. Never collected. Just one. Right now, it’s a tiny avocado and a tiny watermelon. They sit quietly in my home, the only playful objects in an otherwise clean, intentional space. And I always carry a children’s picture book. I’ve loved them since I was a child, the simplicity, the honesty, the colours that speak without explanation. At present, I have a book about feelings. My favourite page is brave, and its colour is orange. There is something grounding about that: bravery as warmth, bravery as quiet strength, bravery as a soft glow rather than a loud declaration. It mirrors the way I move through the world. People sometimes ask why my spaces are so simple. The truth is: my inner world is already full. I don’t need to decorate my home to feel like myself. My art, my memories, my childhood influences, they fill the room long before objects do. My work is not just something I make; it is something I carry. It is the one thing that follows me from place to place, the one thing that remains constant even when everything else changes. My art is my continuity. My grounding. My way of making any space feel like home. So here I am, in between paintings again. A simple room. A clean table. Tools scattered in quiet readiness. Light coming through the window. Laundry humming in the background. A tiny avocado and watermelon toy watching from the corner. A picture book about feelings resting nearby. Nothing fancy. Nothing staged. Just me - my art, my space, my process, my truth. And that is enough.

The Urinal That Confused the Art World By Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney — 10 August 2026 The first time I saw Duchamp’s Fountain, I didn’t react the way the art world expected me to. I didn’t stand there thinking, “How daring, how provocative, how conceptual.” No. My mind went somewhere completely different. I looked at that urinal and thought: This isn’t an object, it’s a vessel. A vessel where every idea, every concept, every attempt at meaning passes through. Good ideas, bad ideas, exceptional ones, moronic ones, all of them end up in the same place. And that’s exactly why the piece still hits harder than half the installations being pumped out today. Duchamp wasn’t trying to impress anyone. He wasn’t trying to be fashionable or clever. He wasn’t chasing trends or curatorial approval. He was making a statement about the fate of ideas themselves about how art, thought, ego, and intention all eventually dissolve. Nothing is sacred. Not the object, not the artist, not the institution. Photograph of Duchamp’s 1917 urinal artwork “Fountain” signed R. Mutt. The urinal that confused and reshaped the art world. The urinal is a reminder that the art world, with all its seriousness and self‑importance, can be flushed down to the same level as everything else. It’s humbling. It’s funny. It’s philosophical. And it’s grounded in real life, not in art jargon. Maybe that’s why so many contemporary installations feel hollow to me. They imitate the look of conceptual art but not the substance. They bend metal, fill rooms, create immersive environments, and then rely on a wall label to tell you what you’re supposed to feel. Duchamp didn’t need a wall label. The gesture was enough. When I saw Fountain, I didn’t see a urinal. I saw a challenge. A provocation. A truth about the creative process that most artists don’t want to admit. Everything we make every idea we think is brilliant or profound, eventually passes through the same vessel. Some ideas survive. Most don’t. And that’s okay. Duchamp understood that. The art world didn’t. And maybe that’s why they were confused. The Shame Behind the “Goal Keepers in Suits” And here’s the part that frustrates me: There are creatives out there who are genuinely clever, artists who actually have something to say about this world. Artists who can make you stop, tilt your head, and think, “What is that all about?” The kind of work that doesn’t just look good, but hits you with something profound. The kind of work that makes an audience spin their heads, question themselves, question society, question meaning. Work that makes you think, not just feel aesthetically pleased for a moment. But in the art world, so much depends on the so‑called “gatekeepers.” Or as I call them "goal keepers in suits." They decide who gets through, who gets shown, who gets labelled “important.” And it’s not always the artists with depth or substance. It’s often the ones who fit a trend, a network, a curatorial agenda, or a fashionable idea of what “contemporary” should look like. And that’s the shame. Because the artists who truly have something to say — the ones who can shake your mind, not just your eyes, often get overshadowed by installations that are decorative, trendy, or conceptually thin. Duchamp’s urinal confused the art world because it forced them to confront their own systems. Today, the confusion comes from something else: Why do the goal keepers in suits keep choosing work that says so little, when so many artists have so much to say?

Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney. 27 July 2026, a 1-minute read. Excerpt - This is a small look into my strange world, my roots, and how I understand beauty. A younger version of me wrote this. I still understand her. (2013) My Strange World and Beauty When I think about how my mind was shaped, it wasn’t by self‑help books or people teaching “life mastery.” I grew up in a time when people learned by living. You didn’t need someone online telling you how to breathe, how to think, how to be “your best self.” You just lived your life. Maybe that’s why Jonathan Pageau annoys me. He talks like everything must follow rules — art, beauty, individuality. He says modern art is ugly. He says individualism is repulsive. To me, that sounds narrow. It doesn’t match the world I came from. My world was shaped by three things: my parents’ indigenous practices, Jaime Licauco, and Dante’s Inferno. My parents practiced old traditions. Real ones. Rituals that were part of everyday life. I didn’t think much of it then, but now I see how much it formed me. Those rituals were full of symbols and meaning. They taught me that life has layers, that not everything is literal, and that beauty is part of how we understand the world. When I was young, I read Jaime Licauco. His writing about reincarnation and the unseen world didn’t feel strange to me. It felt familiar. It matched what I grew up seeing at home. Licauco didn’t teach me metaphysics — he simply put into words what I already sensed. Then I read Dante’s Inferno. I didn’t read it like a school assignment. I read it like a map of human nature. His circles, his symbols, the way he described people — it made sense. It felt like another version of the layered world I already carried inside me. This is why modern self‑help feels funny to me. I remember in the 1970s, Readers Digest advertised all kinds of “improve your life” courses. Now it’s Instagram and TikTok. Same thing, different platform. People selling advice as if life is a formula. I don’t need that. I lived life. I learned from real experiences, real people, real mistakes. And this is why Pageau’s views irritate me. He talks about art and symbols like they must follow strict rules. He talks as if beauty only exists in old forms. But beauty doesn’t belong to one era. Beauty doesn’t need permission. Beauty is simple. Beauty is human. Beauty is the only thing we all share. My creativity comes from the worlds I grew up with — the rituals of my parents, the metaphysics of Licauco, and the imagination of Dante. These things taught me to see meaning in small things, to notice beauty, to think in layers, and to trust my own way of understanding life. So, when someone tries to box in art or thought, I don’t take it seriously. My world is bigger than that. My roots are deeper than that. My creativity doesn’t come from rules. It comes from memory, culture, symbols, and beauty. Beauty is the only thing we truly have in common. And beauty is where my creativity begins. Thank you for stepping into my strange world for a moment.

Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney 18July 2026 a 1.5-minute read. Excerpts: Between brushstrokes, symbols drift toward me from places I cannot name, revealing themselves only when I am still enough to listen . When the Unseen Arrives, It Whispers There is a rhythm I’ve learned to trust in my oil painting practice. I don’t push. I don’t pressure myself. I don’t force an image to appear before it’s ready. I wait — and in that waiting, something quiet begins to move. When the next element unfolds, I listen and respond. That is how my paintings speak to me. For months, my 48×38-inch linen piece rested in the studio like a sleeping thought. Not unfinished — simply waiting for what had not yet revealed itself. I sensed the absence of a symbol, something that would anchor the story of cultural identity woven through the figure. But I never rush that part. Paintings have their own timing, and I’ve learned to honour it. A few days ago, while browsing without intention, an image flickered across my screen. A small spark — subtle, but unmistakable. I sketched the plant directly onto the canvas, trusting the impulse. It felt familiar, like something remembered from a place I couldn’t name. My hand moved before my mind understood — the kind of intuition that has guided me for years. The next day, on my way out, I changed direction at the last moment and passed a florist I rarely notice. And there it was. The exact plant I had sketched the day before — the same eucalyptus buds, the same pale leaves, the same quiet structure. Seeing it in real life felt uncanny, almost cosmic, as if the painting had whispered its needs ahead of time and the world simply placed the answer in front of me. “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats It was a moment of recognition: my Filipino cultural memory meeting my Australian landscape in a single symbol. The eucalyptus wasn’t random. It was the missing element the painting had been waiting for — the bridge between two worlds I carry within me. This is what happens in between paintings — the quiet spaces where intuition, memory, and lived experience meet. Where symbols rise not through effort, but through openness. Where the unseen steps forward when the time is right. Sometimes the painting knows before I do. And when it unfolds, I listen.

Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney. 5 July 2026, a 1-minute read. Excerpt: There is a scent I recognise instantly — that winter–summer mix of cold air and warm light. It settles around me the way familiarity does, quiet and unmistakable, the kind of presence that feels like home even before I name it. My Winter–Summer Scent Today the air smelled like winter–summer — that strange mix of cold air and warm light that always makes me pause. I stepped outside to bathe in its glory, to immerse my senses in the sun, the cold breeze, and the quiet greenery around me. The rosemary was warming in the light, releasing that deep, resinous scent I love. And in my mind, the moment opened into a wide meadow — lavender stretching out in soft colour, rosemary close by, the kind of place where the air feels both sharp and gentle at the same time. For a second I imagined myself lying in that lavender meadow, drifting off in the soft winter–summer light — until the practical part of me kicked in and reminded me, wait, what about the snakes and spiders? That little pinch of reality pulled me back to where I was, back to the familiar presence of my winter–summer scent. There was something familiar in the way the cold and warmth met. The way the greenery breathed out its oils. It reminded me of those moments where the world feels still but alive, like standing in winter with a hint of summer brushing past. © Ningjada Title: Unspoken Pathways. Soft Pastel on Textured/Layered Watercolour Pad As that winter–summer scent wrapped around me — the cold air warmed by light, the rosemary sharp and green, the imagined lavender softening the scene — I thought of an artwork I created months ago. Unspoken Pathways came from a similar afternoon. The eucalyptus trees were moving outside, the same scent drifting through the room, and I felt that quiet internal shift that always begins my In Between Paintings. Reflection first, then the process, then the work. The pastels followed the feeling, tracing that subtle current I couldn’t name but recognised instantly. Maybe this winter–summer air affects me the way it does because it carries something deeply familiar — the same warmth, the same quiet intensity, the same unmistakable presence of my winter–summer scent. The one I recognise without thinking. The one that settles me. The only scent I ever want wrapped around me. Standing there today, I felt that familiar shift I recognise in my creative process — the quiet internal movement that often begins my In Between Paintings. It was the same subtle awareness that shaped Unspoken Pathways, returning in the winter–summer air. Sometimes the smallest things — a scent, a breeze, a shift in light — open a doorway into reflection, connection, and the beginnings of a creative process. Today, my winter–summer scent opened it again.

Cheryl Quejada Canning|Ningjada Sydney, 6 April 2026 Excerpt A look at the quiet space between artworks — the pause where intuition, memory, and meaning begin to form. 🌿Why I Choose to Remove Rather Than Add There are things we strip away in order to feel more like ourselves. For some, it’s noise. For others, clutter. For me, it has always been scent. I’ve never been drawn to perfume or fragranced products — not because of sensitivity alone, but because they feel like something placed on top of what is already true. A layer that alters rather than reveals. Over time, I realised this instinct shows up in my work as well. When I paint, I’m not trying to decorate a surface. I’m responding — to material, to memory, to something internal that doesn’t always have language. I build layers, yes, but not to embellish. I layer to uncover. To arrive. A barefaced portrait of the artist wearing an accent necklace made of organic materials from the Philippines — a piece she has owned for over a decade. Behind her hangs Earth Mother, an early oil painting that reflects her connection to land, memory, and quiet strength. Often, the most important decision is not what I add, but what I remove. There is a moment when too much becomes noise: too many marks, too much colour, too much intention. That is when I stop. Or scrape back. Or let the work breathe. The space between decisions — that is where the painting begins to speak. In Between Paintings is about that space. The pause. The adjustment. The quiet knowing that something is either true or not. Choosing to remove is not about emptiness. It is about presence — the kind that allows the real thing to reveal itself. For now, this is where I pause.

Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney 1 July 2026 a 1-minute read. Excerpt: A creative thread has run through my family since childhood — shared by my sister Rosalie, my brother Sau, and carried from our Ilokano roots. We took different paths, but creativity remains our common language, steady and unspoken, shaping everything we do. 🧵 Weaving Our Family Creative Heritage This is Rosalie — the sister I’ve shared a creative link with since we were children. Our youngest brother, Saudi (Sau), carries it too. The three of us grew up with the same instinct to make things, to imagine, to shape the world with our hands, even as life pulled us into different directions. Sometimes I think that thread comes from much further back — from our forefather Pedro Bukaneg, the father of Ilokano literature on our mother’s side. It feels inherited rather than learned, a way of seeing that has been passed quietly through generations. It’s a quiet family creative heritage that continues to shape how each of us sees and makes things. “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” — Kahlil Gibran With Rosalie — my lifelong creative companion, adviser, and the one who always shows up for the work. Rosalie once planned to become a doctor, went through nursing school, and then moved into education. She’s now a Master Teacher with the Department of Education in the Philippines, and an art teacher who recognises potential before the student does. Sau studied Architecture and eventually found his way into art restoration, working with an international cruise ship crew, caring for artworks from all over the world. Somehow, I’m the one who ended up doing this full‑time. But my practice has never been solitary. Rosalie and Sau have always been my best critics and advisers — honest, direct, and deeply attuned to the work. Sau brings me brushes and paints from wherever he travels, always choosing the good ones. Rosalie would drive me anywhere in the Philippines just so I could exhibit my work. They understand the rhythm of my practice, the way ideas need movement, space, and support. We took different paths, but the thread is the same. Creativity is the language we share — steady, unspoken, and carried from childhood into everything we do now. Sometimes people think art is a solitary or even selfish pursuit, but my experience has never been that. My creative life is sustained by the people who choose to walk beside me — those who understand my rhythm, support my work, and enrich my days in ways that steady me. Some companions arrive early in life, others much later, and their presence becomes a quiet catalyst, shifting the work in subtle but meaningful ways. My practice grows because of these shared moments and the steady influences that make the path feel lighter. And this thread continues in the work I create today.

Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney 26 June 2026 a 2-minute read Excerpt: My art began in the pages of the books I read as a child — stories of courage, metaphor, memory, and meaning. I still paint the way I was taught to read: slowly, carefully, with attention to what lies beneath. Cartographies II (Artwork No. S01584) Exhibited at the Incognito Art Show, Carriageworks 24–26 June 2026 (Exhibition) 27 June–5 July 2026 (Sale) 🖤The Stories That Shaped My Heart I didn’t realise it when I was young, but my life as a painter began long before I ever touched a brush. It began with books — heavy, complicated, symbolic books that shaped the way I think, feel, and interpret the world. My mother, a schoolteacher and an English literature teacher, believed that children should read stories that build character. She didn’t hand us fairy tales. She handed us lessons. She believed reading was a form of training — a way of learning how to understand people, choices, consequences, and the quiet moral threads that run through every life. At school, we were drilled in reading comprehension. Not the simple kind — the deep kind. We were taught to break down paragraphs, identify themes, understand tone, and follow the emotional logic of a text. Because of that, even at twelve or fifteen, I could understand what I was reading. I wasn’t intimidated by long books or complex ideas. I was trained to enter a story and find its meaning. When I was twelve, my mother bought me War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk. It was the first serious book I ever read. I didn’t grasp everything, but I understood enough: that stories carry weight, that human decisions ripple outward, and that literature is a mirror that shows us who we are and who we might become. Around the same time, she also bought me and my sister Edgar Allan Poe’s Great Tales and Poems. We were far too young for the darkness of it, but we loved it anyway. Poe taught me something different — that atmosphere is a character, that emotion has texture, and that the human mind is its own landscape. Even now, when I paint shadows or quiet tension, I can feel the echo of those early readings. I had the privilege of being schooled by my parents in a private school where literature was treated as a serious discipline. We didn’t just read stories — we interpreted them, dissected them, lived inside them. We studied José Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, learning how satire, symbolism, and moral courage could be woven into a nation’s story. We analysed Florante at Laura by Francisco Balagtas, where metaphor and emotion were crafted with precision. We read Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Biag ni Lam-ang by Pedro Bukaneg — the epic of my own ancestors — and Paradise Lost by John Milton. These were not optional readings; they were part of our formation. They taught us to read deeply, to question, to interpret, and to understand that literature is never passive. It demands attention, empathy, and a willingness to see beneath the surface. By fifteen, my curriculum had me studying Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Dante’s Inferno, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. But we weren’t just reading them. We were taught to interpret them — to break down stanzas, trace metaphors, identify symbols, and extract moral lessons. We learned to ask, what is the author really saying, what is the symbol doing here, what truth is being revealed, and what moral tension is unfolding That training didn’t stay in the classroom. It became the way I saw the world. Every moment became a stanza. Every memory became a metaphor. Every experience carried a lesson waiting to be uncovered. I didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning of my artistic process. Today, when I paint, I still think like that fifteen‑year‑old girl reading Homer and Dante. I look beneath the surface of things. I search for the emotional architecture of a scene. I ask myself - what is this painting really about, what memory is speaking, what truth is hiding here. and what moral or emotional thread is present. A flower on the ground is never just a flower. A colour is never just a colour. A moment is never just a moment. Everything carries a story. Everything carries a symbol. Everything carries meaning. This is why my paintings feel like narratives, and why my blog reads like quiet reflections. I paint the way I was taught to read. I write the way I was taught to interpret. My mother’s voice — “Anything you think of you can do when you put your mind into it” — still sits at the centre of my practice. She wasn’t just teaching discipline. She was teaching me to trust my inner world. The books of my childhood didn’t just entertain me. They trained my eyes. They shaped my thinking. They taught me how to see. And so, in between paintings, I return to the same quiet practice — reading the world the way I once read those books. Slowly, carefully, with attention to meaning. It is the same habit, just a different medium now. And so, I return to the canvas carrying all of this with me — the books, the lessons, the way of seeing. In between paintings, I keep learning how to read my own life a little more clearly.

Cheryl Quejada Canning|Sydney 04 May 2026 — 2‑minute read Excerpt Art has never been about decoration for me. It is the place where my inner world becomes visible — where memory, duty, culture, sacrifice, and love gather into colour and form. My canvas is where I speak the truths I cannot always say out loud, and where the complexity of my life finds clarity, honesty, and meaning. Art as the Language of My Heart There are many reasons an artist chooses a canvas, but for me, art has never been about decoration or the glitter of money. I didn’t come to painting to produce something pretty, or to please the market, or to chase trends. I chose art because it is the only platform where I can express concepts that live beneath the surface — ideas I hope people can visualize, relate to, and share. Some of these ideas are not popular. Some challenge comfort. Some ask people to look at themselves more honestly than they expect. But I would rather create work that carries meaning than paint a scene that is visually pleasing yet empty in its content. If money were my driving force, I could confront the canvas without thinking, produce something nice, and call it a day. But that has never been my path. Title: Uncomfortable Truths, 2019 © Ningjada, Acrylic on Canvas, 12 x 16 inches. A work created during a period of exploring ideas beyond aesthetic comfort. My art is the language of my heart. It is where my inner world becomes visible. It is where I speak truths I cannot always say out loud. Every piece I create is shaped by lived experience — memory, duty, culture, sacrifice, awakening. I paint from the places inside me that have been stretched, broken, rebuilt, and transformed. I paint from the parts of myself that learned to survive through responsibility, and the parts that learned to feel again through love. Love was the catalyst that brought my art back to life. Duty is the container that holds my life together. Art is where both truths can exist without contradiction. When I paint, I am not choosing between the two. I am integrating them. I am honouring the complexity of a life shaped by responsibility and awakened by feeling. I am giving form to the things that cannot be spoken, the things that live in the quiet spaces of the heart. Art is not my escape. Art is my clarity. Art is my truth. And as long as I have a canvas, I will continue to create work that carries meaning — work that reflects the depth of my inner world, the courage of my choices, and the honesty of a life lived between love and duty. There is more to say, but that is for the next canvas.

Writer: Cheryl Quejada Canning | Sydney, May 2026 — 2‑minute read Excerpt I’ve always turned small moments into stories. Even now, a fallen flower on a footpath can open a whole world in me — and sometimes, that world becomes a painting. Marahuyo is one of those moments, born from noticing, remembering, and being quietly enchanted by life. An Artist Can Turn Anything Into a Story I’ve always believed that artists are born with a strange little gift — we can turn anything into a story. When I was a child, I made up narratives about everything I saw. If a beautiful bird landed near me, I instantly imagined where he came from: Ahh, he flew here looking for a butterfly, they talked, and then… My imagination never needed permission. It simply lived in me. I thought I would outgrow that habit, but here I am at 57, still doing the same thing. I see a dog barking at someone through a window, and suddenly I’m creating a whole backstory about their relationship. A picture, a moment, a tiny detail — it’s enough. Maybe that’s why I paint. Or maybe painting is just another way of telling the stories that never stop forming in my mind. When I travelled to Sea World with my sisters, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the corals. They were alive, glowing, breathing — and I felt a sudden sadness remembering the corals from the coastal area where I grew up. The ones I saw in aquariums later in life were lifeless, bleached, no longer part of the world they belonged to. That sadness stayed with me. Maybe that’s why I never liked receiving flowers. I love them, but I want them to live their full life in their own element, not cut short just to decorate a home or become a gift. Beauty deserves to breathe. One day, while walking along Glebe Point Road on my way to the library, I saw a tiny orange flower lying on the dirt. It was so small, so delicate, and yet it stopped me in my tracks. I picked it up gently — not plucked, not taken from its life — just found. And that little flower became the genesis of my painting MARAHUYO (2023). “To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wildflower.” — William Blake © Ningjada — MARAHUYO, 2023 Oil on Canvas Panel, 61 × 92 cm Named after a Tagalog word for the kind of enchantment that arrives in small discoveries, in learning, and in unexpected moments of falling in love. Marahuyo is an ancient Tagalog word meaning magic or fantasy, but it also speaks of being enchanted by discovery, by learning something new, or even by falling in love. That single fallen flower carried a whole story inside it, and that story became colour, movement, and memory on canvas. Maybe that’s the truth of who I am: someone who finds stories in small things, who listens to the quiet details of life, who believes that even a fallen flower can open a doorway into wonder. In the end, maybe this is what my work has always been about — the stories that rise from the smallest things, the quiet enchantments that wait in ordinary moments, the way a single fallen flower can open a doorway into colour, memory, and meaning. These are the spaces I paint from, the in‑between places where life whispers its magic before I even realise I’m listening. Somewhere in the in‑between, another quiet story is forming. I’ll meet it when it arrives.

Cheryl Quejada Canniong, Sydney 7 June 2026 Excerpt: Between paintings, there is always a pause — a quiet space where hesitation and possibility meet. I linger before every new canvas, feeling the weight of the first stroke long before it touches the surface. This waiting is part of the work. This stillness is where the next painting begins Title: First Stroke © Cheryl Quejada ‘Ningjada’ Canning, 2024 — soft pastel on A3 watercolour paper ". Created in the space between paintings, this work reflects the pause before creation — the quiet negotiation between hesitation and possibility that becomes the first stroke. First Stroke There is always a moment before a new painting when everything inside me goes still. People often imagine that artists begin with confidence — that we pick up a brush, choose a colour, and glide into the work as if guided by instinct alone. But the truth is quieter, slower, and far more human. The beginning is never easy. It is a negotiation between hesitation and desire, between fear and possibility. My poem The First Stroke came from that space — the long pause before creation, the breath held between what I imagine and what I am brave enough to begin. I linger. I wait. I circle the canvas like someone approaching a memory they’re not ready to touch. Sometimes I hold the brushes just to feel their weight. Sometimes I pick colours without knowing why. Sometimes I sit in front of the blank canvas until the silence becomes a kind of companion. This is the part of painting that no one sees — the part that happens in between the visible work. The part where the artist is not yet creating, but already changing. I’ve learned that beginnings are not about confidence. They are about surrender. The first stroke is not a mark on the canvas. It is a decision: to trust myself again. It is the moment I stop negotiating with fear and allow the work to pull me forward. It is the moment I accept that the painting will become what it needs to become, not what I try to control. And so, I wait — not out of uncertainty, but out of respect. Every painting deserves a thoughtful beginning. Every beginning deserves time. This is what it means to be an artist living in between paintings: to honour the pause, to listen to the silence, to let the next work arrive in its own time. Because the first stroke is never just the start of a painting. It is the start of me — again and again. Every pause has its purpose. I’ll meet the next one when it comes.

Writer: Cheryl Quejadas Canning, Sydney. 25 May 2026 a minute read. Excerpt: Some paintings begin with clarity, others with a feeling that refuses to leave. Salamisim grew from that quiet pull — a word, a poem, and the fragments that surfaced when I finally stopped to listen. SALAMISIM (2023) Some paintings begin with a clear direction. Others begin with a word that lingers long after you’ve read it. Salamisim was one of those — an Ilokano word for reflection that felt less like a definition and more like a familiar state I had been moving through quietly. Around that time, I was reading Burraga Gutya’s “The Way It Was and Shall Ever Be.” The poem didn’t give me an image. It gave me a shift — a subtle returning to something I thought I had already placed somewhere else. That’s usually how my process starts: not with a picture, but with a feeling that refuses to leave. Part 1 series of fragmented oil paintings based on a fictional character of the poem "They Way It Was and Shall Ever Be", in the book Yimbama by Burraga Gutya - a poem about love, hope and the cycle of life. Salamisim, 2023 ©Ningjada. Oil on Canvas. I found myself working in fragments. Not because I wanted to break anything apart, but because that was the only way the feeling arrived. A piece here, a gesture there, something remembered, something unresolved. The story behind these images is neat and close to my heart, but it doesn’t need to be told here. It lives inside the work, and that is enough. The accompanying collage is simply a trace of that moment — the way the paintings formed while I was sitting with the poem, the word, and the quiet that followed. It isn’t the subject of this entry. It’s just what was beside me while the process was unfolding. Salamisim reminded me that some paintings don’t begin with clarity. They begin with a quiet insistence — a feeling that returns until you finally give it a place on the canvas. There is more unfolding in the quiet — but that belongs to the next chapter.