Back in Winderland

I was thrilled when Win offered to teach me how to make painted papers.  Oh look it involves finger painting!

July 12th to 16th; Bill and I were delighted to be welcomed back at Win and John's home in Creston, B.C. John's passion for gardening meant gorging ourselves on fresh raspberries, strawberries, peas and tomatoes. 

And naturally, there were many hours spent in Winderland, although this visit Win and I were more moderate over the time we spent in her studio. This enabled us to take in some of the local offerings, including visiting the above winery and Creston's Saturday Market. We also drove north along the east side of Kootenay Lake to Crawford Bay where we had a fabulous lunch and toured the amazing and assorted artisan's studios there.

Our combined efforts after three, part-days in Winderland

There is excessive laughter while we work side by side (or when we're just gadding about).  I wish everyone could know the joy this brings. It spills out in the colourful work we produce ... 

Win's LOVE LETTER TO GAIA (her real title)

FLY AWAY   8" x 6"   (mine)
Multiple palette paper transfers, rubber stamp and feather on Stonehenge paper

WINE SONG   6" x 6"   (mine)   Palette paper transfer, rubber stamps, hand painting, Japanese Maple "keys"

Win's ALIEN PARTY TREES

Win's SENTINELS GUARD SECRETS KEPT BEHIND THE DOOR

In her pieces, Win will need to explain what techniques and materials she used and their real titles! 

WE'LL SING IN THE SUNSHINE   12" x 9"   fiber paper, metallic leafing, rubber stamps
and dried flowers 

I suggested we interpret the same subject. Without any discussion this happened quite randomly; guess who did what!

We experimented with distressing photographs and playing with copper!  Ah, copper ... since we are in the very early stages of learning how best to employ it, I'll save talk of that for another day!

To see the complete photo essay of our Creston visit please click here.

The Big Ones - Part Five

In October 1996, Bill and I had the good fortune of trekking, with 17 others, in the Khumbu region of Nepal.  We were "support hikers" for a Canadian climbing team making a bid for the summit of Mount Ama Dablam (elevation 22,494 feet). After assembling in Kathmandu and a short helicopter flight to Lukla we began a 12 day trek on the Everest trail with Ama Dablam's base camp our destination.

After such a rich cultural experience and seeing the magnificence of the Himalayas, I was eager to paint my impressions. For the month of February 1997, Bill and I had a residency at the live-in the Gushul Studio, in Blairmore, Alberta, a former photographer's studio now administered by the University of Lethbridge. There I created the work for our first exhibition together - The Alice & Bill Show.  

PRAYER FIRES   oil 3.5 x 4.5 feet   completed February 11th, 1997   Collection of Laura and Adam Koebel, Canmore

Beside us at base camp (elevation 15,100 feet) there were groups from Holland, Austria, Britain and Ecuador; each focused on their turn to attempt the summit. There didn't appear to be any interaction between the teams. On the morning which I depicted in Prayer Fires our Canadians were the first team on the mountain making for the summit. Folks in all camps were diligently tending fires. Unaware of the tradition, I queried our lead Sherpa who explained that the fires carry prayers of safety to the climbers; I was so impacted I burst into tears. This painting may have sold countless times but it was one I insisted on keeping ... until Laura signed on with Adam as co-owner of their Canmore home.

AMA DABLAM    oil 3.5 x 4.5 feet   completed February 18th, 1997   Collection of John McIsaac and Cathy Ann David

Ama means mother and Dablam (the snowy bulge just below the summit (a hanging glacier) means charm box; the ornament Sherpa women wear around their necks. I painted the stand alone mountain as I first saw it with her glorious, sweeping arms dripping in brilliant, lacy snow and ice patterns against a crystal clear blue sky.

After the trek, we spent a week resting in Bali. Our joint show featured Bill's photographs, my artwork plus artifacts we'd collected from both places. We were thrilled with how well the show displayed in the then new gallery space which the Canmore Artists and Artisans still maintain at the Canmore Public Library.

THE ALICE and BILL SHOW; Impressions of Nepal and Bali, at the CAAG Gallery March 14th to 23rd, 1997

Speaking at the opening reception, March 14th

Our hearts swelled at the response from the community, our trekker pals who traveled from afar and the support of friends who turned out for the opening and the show throughout it's duration.

Husband and wife climbers, whom we never did see on the mountain because they were at advance camps, honoured me when they purchased three of the paintings from the show including ...

AMA DABLAM installed at Cathy Ann's and John's home, March 31st, 1997.

Snaps shots from the trek

October 7th, 1996, hiking in a skirt along side a mani stone wall on the Kunde trail. Mount Tramserku

October 10th, me and Bill with yaks at base camp. Mount Taboche

The Big Ones - Part Four

THE CAVELL POND (at the foot of Mount Edith Cavell, Jasper)   oil 12" x 24"   June 19th, 1995   My collection 

Forced to work in the tiny art room at the Icefield on yet another rainy day my painter pals were all irate with cabin fever. I tuned out their bickering and created the painting above which I instantly fell madly for and still love. Not wanting to part with it, it has only ever left home once; to hang alongside the large studio piece of it as part of my retrospective show, in 1997, at The Whyte Museum, Banff.

With no large studio prospects on the horizon and itching to paint another big one, I took the legs off of the dining room table and stashed the lot under our bed. I found room for the chairs in the third bedroom, which was my small, home studio, and set up shop in the dining area of our Canmore house.

Working on THE CAVELL POND, April  17th, 1996

April 24th, 1996 the completed CAVELL POND   oil 3 x 6 feet   Collection of George Irwin, Edmonton  

With the above finished, full of ambition and good intentions, I launched into this 4 x 6 foot oil of Lake Louise ...

The living/dining room turned studio, April 29th, 1996

With summer coming on, and the pending trip to Ontario, I opted to put our home back together and the above was shelved until late in 1997.

Although this story is somewhat off topic I simply cannot resist. The family went to Toronto specifically to go to Central Technical School's annual open house and exhibition of student's work. Denise was attending the post secondary art program there and ... as I did in my time ... she had Canadian icon, Doris McCarthy, as one of her instructors. A week later we all went to Doris' for dinner. I was so proud of my family for their silence (although the look in their eyes did not escape me) when they watched to see just what I would do when the baked Spam was placed before me. I ate it. How could I not? And I washed it down with the Grand Dame's excellent, home-made dandelion wine!

My first visit to Fool's Paradise (the home Doris McCarthy built herself) May 16th, 1996  

The Big Ones - Part Three

My application for a second Leighton Artist's Colony studio resulted in a six week residency, early in 1995. Much of my time was spent creating commissioned serigraphs for The Gallery at Jasper Park Lodge (now Mountain Galleries). Two editions of 200 prints each, 11 colours each, but that is a story in itself for another day.

Standing on the summit of Mount Athabasca presented an entirely new painting perspective. Looking down to valleys below and out across to other peaks gives a God-like sensation which spurred a summit series of small watercolour paintings. I brought these two to the Banff Centre as studies for large oils ...

1994, 7" x 10", watercolours with the same titles as the 4 x 6 foot oils, below.  Both in my own collection 

THE ATHABASCA - ANDROMEDA COL oil   4 x 6 feet   sold through Wallace Galleries, collector unknown 

THE CURVE OF THE SUMMIT (from the Silverhorn)   oil   4 X 6 feet   Collection of Denise Scammell

The Curve of the Summit is somewhat abstracted and perhaps a difficult perspective for folks to comprehend. It did the gallery rounds and was never sold. In July 1997 a guide, whom Denise was dating then, took us and Bill up the face of the Silverhorn (the meringue shaped peak to the right of the actual summit). Standing on the vantage point of the painting I pointed out this perspective to Denise and she understood it completely. It was clear the painting ought to belong to her.

The day before I moved out of the studio I had a most unexpected visitor. He'd been in Banff, unaware that I was there, and had driven on to seek me out at the Mountain Avens Gallery. Owner, Arlene Curry, explained the situation and when he departed (supposedly for Calgary) she telephoned me. I remember willing him to turn back; to return to Banff. When he arrived at my Leighton studio he told me that he felt I had put a hex on him; he'd accidentally turned west, not east, after leaving Canmore. His flight back to Toronto was late that night and so we were able to spend the remainder of the afternoon and evening together.

With former Central Tech art teacher, Paul Summerskill, February 28th, 1995

This was the first time we'd seen each other since our art class' 20 year reunion in 1986.  He wrote these precious lines in my journal: Thanks for the happy visit. After all these years you have become the teacher and I have become your student and for this I am thankful. A decade later Bill and I would join him and his wife, Tina, at their retreat in Newfoundland.  A 100+ year old fisherman's house, at Twillingate.

Athabasca expedition snap shots

With Bill the first time I stood on the summit of Mount Athabasca, July 25th, 1994

Bill and me climbing the Silverhorn of Mount Athabasca, August 25th, 1997 ... I 'm somewhat terrified, does it show?

With Denise on the Silverhorn, the curve of the summit behind us, August 25th, 1997

The Big Ones - Part Two

May 26th, 1994   working on SOMEWHERE TO ANYWHERE   oil   combined panels 4 x 12 feet

My fascination with Mount Athabasca began in September 1992 on my first stay at the Columbia Icefield. Brewster Transportation, who operate the glacier tours there, generously gifted week long stays (in the as yet under-utilized staff accommodation - The Ice Palace) to artists and researchers. This included accommodations and meals, asking nothing in return. Over the next seven years I had eight remarkable residencies there. Certainly the most electric of them was in August 1993 when Katherine Lipsett, curator of art at the Whyte Museum, Banff, invited ten artists to spend a week together. In a summer of rain this was the only clear, beautiful week. The expedition was an opportunity to create plein air works and inspired studio paintings for a grand exhibition, REFRAMING THE LANDSCAPE held at the museum, June 4th to September 5th, 1994.  

Competition ran high both on the expedition and in the studio. My goal was to create the largest studio piece and, although it didn't guarantee me centre stage placement in the exhibition, I succeeded. SOMEWHERE TO ANYWHERE was painted in 14 days on my first residency at the Banff Centre's Leighton Artists Colony. In addition, I also created the bulk of the paintings for a solo show. On May 14th, at New Image Gallery, Calgary, ALICE IN BADLAND opened - right in the middle of my residency,.

SOMEWHERE, MOUNT ATHABASCA   left panel of diptych   oil   4 x 6 feet

ANYWHERE - MOUNT ANDROMEDA   right panel of diptych   oil   4 x 6 feet 

1994 was a year of exceptional thrills. I was back to the Icefield for a week in June. In July I realized a dream by climbing (it was actually a very long walk up the 5000 foot elevation gain) to summit Mount Athabasca. It was a summer/autumn of other bagged peaks, several trips into Lake O'Hara and my first trip to Mount Assiniboine. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in September and the Mountain Avens Gallery, Canmore, hosted MOUNTAIN INTIMACY, another solo show in November. But the crowning glory came December 30th the day we took my diptych into Calgary and waited for a decision. A Calgary art placement firm had recruited it along with paintings by David Pugh (1946 - 1994) Alan Collier (1911 - 1990) and my former art teacher Doris McCarthy (1910 -2010). It could have been that mine was the largest or that as the junior artist it was priced well below the others, but I prefer to think it was the painting itself and how it filled the boardroom that prompted Alberta Energy Company to select SOMEWHERE TO ANYWHERE. Imagine my delight! 

Snapshots from the Whyte Museum artists expedition

August 3rd, 1993 -  ON THE ICE - Athabasca Glacier, with Barbara Milne, David More and Peter von Tiesenhausen

Members of the Columbia Icefield Expedition, August 5th, 1993 

Back Row:  David More, Red Deer, Catherine Perehudoff, Saskatoon, Carol Perehudoff, Korea,
Dan Hudson, Canmore, Peter von Tiesenhausen, Demmitt, AB, Laura Millard, Calgary
Front Row: Greg Murphy, Toronto, Michael Cameron, Banff, Barbara Milne, Calgary, and yours truly

The Big Ones - The First One

Last week, Bill and I had a wonderful time staying with a recently, re-acquainted friend from our past.  In a lovingly restored log cabin Wendy lives right beneath the beautiful Livingstone Range in southwestern Alberta (see the photo essay here). Being there presented me with the opportunity to seek out the site of one of my large canvases; and that is what prompts me to tell the story of my Big Ones.

PEARY the CARIBOU   1993 oil   5 x 7 feet

At the time I was asked to do this prestigious commission I had never painted anything larger than 2 x 3 feet. The prospect had me somewhat terrified. I had to remind myself that I'd been painting for 25 years. Other than the fact that I didn't have a work space big enough, surely it couldn't be that much more difficult to go that big? 

Our then neighbours, Pat and Baiba Morrow, were generous in providing me with resource material from their extensive slide collections and their time spent with the caribou in Canada's north. 

Being that it was only open at weekends the Canmore Artists and Artisans Guild graciously permitted me to work, mid week, in the gallery space they occupied at that time.

Signing PEARY the CARIBOU, April 16th, 1993

Sadly, I painted over the original maquette.  It originally had a blue sky; I had painted the scale model in the way I envisioned Carl Runguis would have. To please the designer, I had to change that; he insisted that the sky match the colours of the lobby decor.

The maquette with a blue and then peach sky,   oil 15" x 21",   it remains in my collection 

PEARY the CARIBOU installed in the lobby of the Banff Caribou Lodge, April 26th, 1993

It amazed me that I completed the canvas in 21 days, And, other than working with the designer, it wasn't really difficult at all. In fact it was exhilarating! And thus was born my desire to create more, large canvases.

Less than a year later I would bite off the biggest painting I've ever done. Stay tuned for part two ... 

A Long Time Ago ...

... in a land far away ... but, this is no fairy tale. It has taken years for me to muster the courage to publicly let this skeleton out of my closet!

Painting in the light of the only window in our one-room flat, summer 1970

On September 13th, 1969, Bill and I were married and the following day we promptly ran away from home. With one-way air fares and for three glorious months (until the money ran out) we had an absolute blast touring Europe in the "Sleek Machine" an old Renault we purchased in Germany ... that's it I am leaning against in a photo below. Speaking only English we had but one choice for survival. Fate took us to Brighton where several months into our almost one-year stay in England we both quit our day jobs to concentrate on where the real money came from ...

My art on Bayswater Road, London, summer 1970

http://www.bayswater-road-artists.co.uk/  

Since the 1960s, on Sundays, the railings along the north side of Hyde Park have displayed art for sale. In my time it was a complete free-for-all but shortly afterwards the licencing of spaces came into effect and today you must apply for a "pitch". 

John Branch (grey hair) - sure would like to find him!

We have to thank Stuart Ring for introducing us to John Branch who was not a painter himself (although he would pretend to be if it was going to cinch a sale) but a brilliant entrepreneur/salesman. He would arrive before dawn to secure his own "gallery row" and, for a pound per person per week, he'd save spaces for upwards of a dozen people, ourselves included. It was money well spent for he was terribly effective at running off interlopers!

Yours truly and her art (all but the red one - scroll down for that story!)

Me at the end of a particularly good Sunday

Look closely at these hot sellers

Yup, most of my paintings were on velvet! The Life Guards, Beefeaters and Busbys sold well, as did the wild cats, puppies, flowers and an occasional nude ... but outselling them all were my domestic kittens!

The only painting I kept - Siamese Kitten oil 10" x 8" 

Up until this point I'd been a commercial artist but it was here, on Bayswater Road, that my fine art career was launched. We'd drive to London, and back home to Brighton, every Sunday. Ultimately the sales from these Sundays enabled us to quit our day jobs and save the fare for our passage home. We sailed October 3rd to 10th, 1970 aboard the Empress of Canada, a Canadian Pacific ship. The on board, prearranged display of my paintings was my one and only sell-out, solo exhibition.

Facts and figures;
 21 Sundays from May 10th to September 27th, 1970
A total of 234 paintings sold = 863 pounds - average weekly sales 41 pounds
Our day jobs paid 10 pounds/week (me) and 25 pounds/week (Bill) 

Our rent was 5 pounds/week
At the time a pound equaled $2.50

Bill posed as though he had parked that London cab!

Our extended honeymoon (Europe, England and Bayswater Road) has left us with some of our richest memories. Like the time Bill spent an entire week painting his Red Sunset and, the very next Sunday, sold it (for 5 pounds) to Canadian girl who never suspected we weren't British!

  

Everyone is an artist ... if only they'd try!

For a very short time after returning to Canada I painted a few more "velvets". Below are the two I still possess; they're stashed in a box, in the basement.

Lynx oil 14" x 18"

Ocelot oil 14" x 18"

Some of you will be appalled.  Some of you may say kudos that I did what a gal has to do.  I'm just grateful I never used glitter!