Pacifc Rim
From the voice of the Artist:
My career as a professional artist did not begin until I was in my seventies. Until that time, my life’s work was totally dedicated to building an Art School and an Art Community that would support it, in Haliburton County, Ontario , Canada. Strangely my first Paintings were about the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet ,BC. It was the waves and rocks of the Pacific Coast that inspired me to once more take up a paint brush that had been abandoned for 25 years. These are the pictures.
Animals of the Great Bear Rainforest
Rather than paint landscapes of the Great Bear, which are magnificent, I have chosen to show the animals that are threatened not only by the ecological changes, but more immediately by man encroaching into habitat. In these compositions of animals, they are telling their stories through human-like qualities. It is up to the viewer to interpret the message. To do this, I was able to use the information from photographs from Ian McCallister from https://pacificwild.org
A River Runs Through
Haliburton Forest asked me to paint a huge protrusion that jutted out of the tip of a hill on their property. The ridge was located on the watershed divide between Haliburton and Muskoka Counties just north of Kennisis Lake. The resulting paintings (10 of them) record the change in topography from the start of the walk up to the top of the “mountain” culminating with the cliff that I was to paint. The first 3 pictures show the wonderful, sunlight world as it is at the bottom of the hill. To give a sense of a journey I chose to change the size of canvas as you proceed up the hill from small to huge. The whole show was presented in 2 public art galleries before being sold.
Minden White Water
This was a show completed for Rails End gallery( the gallery I founded) in Haliburton. It was also shown in the Lindsay Gallery, a town in the Kawarthas. I wanted to paint this area to give it some notice. At the time of completion there were many who lived in Ontario who had no idea where the place was or what it was all about. It is a world-class natural Slalom Kayaking course that has hosted 2 Pan Am Games outside Minden Ontario. At the time of painting, it was even difficult to find it. Almost no signing exists along the roads to lead you to it. These paintings and the subsequent Pan Am Games for which it was painted, did help to make it become more known for its beauty and its place in the sport world. Keeping the dam is critical to its existence. It is owned by a private company. In these paintings, you are following the kayakers path. When the show was launched the Gallery posted a picture of the painting along each location on the river.
