Secret Places is an ongoing artistic and contemplative practice currently being undertaken as a two-year self-directed residency. It explores one question:
What is genuinely good, and how should a life be reordered around it?
The residency draws from contemplative theology, nervous system regulation, somatic discernment, psychology, visual art, poetry, and lived experience. No single discipline is sufficient for the question being asked.
Through four chapters: Hijack, Signals, Obedience, and Sabbath, the residency traces the movement from a life organized by unrest to one organized by truth and ordinary faithfulness.
The intended outcome is a body of work: paintings, essays, poetry, photography, and other artifacts that emerge from living the question rather than attempting to answer it in advance.
The two primary goals of this residency are;
- develop the artist
- make the strongest body of work possible
Secret Places is a self-directed residency by Wendy Sinclair (December 25, 2025 to December 25, 2027).
How the Residency Works
Secret Places did not begin a contemplative life.
It formalized one that was already underway.
At the centre of the residency is a hidden life with God. Scripture, prayer, contemplation, Sabbath, and ordinary attention are not subjects of the work; they are the conditions from which it emerges.
Rather than stepping away from ordinary responsibilities, the residency unfolds within them. Parenting, work, commuting, church, solitude, reading, travel, gallery visits, painting, and conversation all become part of the material.
The work asks what is revealed when the noise surrounding a life is gradually removed, and how that revelation becomes visible through behaviour, relationships, perception, and art.
Throughout the residency, field studies, reading, observation, reflection frameworks, silence, retreats, and creative practice are used to test ideas against ordinary life. The work is documented as it unfolds rather than reconstructed afterward.
The residency is also an investigation into cost and reward.
What does it cost to live truthfully?
What becomes possible when reality is no longer overridden?
What happens when a life is reordered around what is genuinely good?
The Residency House (Ashbridges Estate, Toronto)
Several days each week, I work from a small studio in a Toronto heritage house. This is where much of the residency becomes tangible. Paintings begin, photographs are reviewed, and ideas are tested through practice.
The Retreat House (Loretto Maryholme, Georgina, Ontario)
Several times each year, I return to Loretto Maryholme for longer periods of silence and retreat. These days are less about producing work than about gathering it. They allow me to notice what ordinary life has been teaching, to integrate what has emerged, and to return home with greater clarity.
Thesis Before Medium
Every project begins with a question rather than a medium.
As the residency unfolds, that question gradually becomes a working thesis.
The thesis determines what belongs in the body of work.
Some ideas become paintings.
Others remain essays, photographs, poetry, or field notes.
The body of work cannot be completed until the life that gives rise to it has been lived.
Start Here
For readers who would like to begin at the beginning:
- How Do I Know This Life is Real?
- Oh…My Goodness
- The Body Knew First
- The Illusion of Repair
- The Places Are Not Secret Because They Are Hidden
- The February Silent Retreat
Peruse the Field Notes here.
