"It's not just a daydream if you decide to make it your life" - Drops of Jupiter, Train
I was invited to submit a few pieces for a mini exhibition at the ACT Gallery store in Maple Ridge. On Tuesday morning I wrapped a dozen paintings in brown butchers paper and stuffed them in an over-sized suitcase with a quilt tucked around them to keep them safe and I drove them out to the gallery. I had to write "a brief bio" forthe show; not an easy task as I have never had to refer to myself in the third person before, it felt a bit pretentious. In the last year I've sold 6 paintings and hundreds of cards, I've placed a couple of pieces in 4 shows and I have 2 more exhibits coming up this Spring. Sometimes it feels a bit surreal, this business of painting pictures.
When Peter and I were first married we lived on Galiano Island at Sturdes Bay. Looking back 36 years it was idyllic, but we were too young and stupid to really grasp exactly how lucky we were. A typical morning for us was a walk along the beach to Bellhouse Park overlooking Active Pass. We often passed and chatted with a guy called Denny out walking his husky. Once he invited us back to his studio and showed us his watercolor paintings. It seemed a pretty magical existence to live by the sea painting pictures.
Fast forward to the summer of 2005. My first kayak trip to Clayquot Sound. On a daypaddle from Whitesand Beach on Flores Island to Whaler island we came upon an artist who had snugged himself a little campsite out of the wind. He was scruffy ( so were we) and bearded and wore a hat that Van Gogh might have worn. He still had both ears. There was a part of me that admired his solitary determination to be there and paint.
I know the exact moment that I decide that I would paint; it was on the ferry from Nanaimo. I was coming home from a kayak trip and met my parents coming home from visiting my aunt. They had been shopping in a local book store which was closing out and had bought me a book about local beaches of Vancouver Island. Sitting beside them on the ferry I glanced through the photos and was struck with the idea that I could paint them. The next day I pulled out abandoned paints, brushes and paper from previous failed attempts and completed 3.
I decided to make the daydream my life.