ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
TIDAL ART CENTRE
Lund, B.C.
MAY, 2025

For the month of May 2025, I have the pleasure of being an artist in residence at Tidal Art Centre in Lund, B.C. On the edge of beautiful Finn Bay, in an updated Forest Ranger’s house with comfortable accommodation, a sweeping deck overlooking the bay and best of all a large open studio. I’m painting, printmaking, and lumiéres all inspired by the beautiful landscape perched on the edge of the Salish Sea, and the doorstep of Desolation Sound.

To begin, I spent the first 4 or 5 days getting to know the place, walking down quiet gravel roads, hiking through forest trails, perching on rocks, wandering through boat yards and taking in the activity of the prawn fishermen and pleasure boats on the wharves.

In the studio I worked every day towards making loose, expressive landscapes that were more glimpses than full views and not as I had seen therm, but imaginary scapes I would leave to the viewer to interpret. I worked inks on paper - watercolour paper, mulberry paper and teabag paper.

What I’ve learned is that this is a small but mighty art community who are supportive of each other and their work evidenced by how they show up for each other of course, and artists like me whom they do not know. Opening night saw about 25 - 30 people who showed up to look at the work, ask questions and show interest in my work. They even brought flowers to make me feel welcome.

EXHIBITION - COMING OCTOBER 2025

I’m pleased to announce that I will be exhibiting new works with Georgina Montgomery & Louise Oborne at arc.hive artist run centre in October, 2025. WRIT LARGE is three distinct approaches to a textual investigation presented on large format paper. Arc.hive is located at 770 B Hillside Avenue, Victoria, B.C. Visit the exhibition website https://writ-large.art/ for more information.

For the past six months, I’ve been in a dark place coping with grief and loss after the sudden unexpected death of my dear husband, Glenn. Tragically, he passed away in October, 2020 after suffering a stroke at sea while he sailed our boat West Wind II five hundred miles offshore heading towards New Zealand. He was on the last leg of a journey he started in 2008, one that would take him single handed around the world, west about. Going Solo is a blog we created together to tell that story. My situation was made even more lonely during the Covid-19 lockdown without the ability to be with and close to friends and family.

After months of grief counselling, and many virtual visits and conversations with friends here and around the world, I’ve been taking small steps toward recovering and healing and have recently found my way back into my studio. The urge to make art continues to be strong. What is emerging through the process is an area of strong, bright light amidst a darker field. It seemed that every painting I’ve made wants me to see that there is light.

The first one in the series is called Go the Distance which initially was created with the intention of telling a story about finding space and freedom of movement and a way forward. The piece has layers of acrylic paint and ink and marks of various kinds that were mostly covered up by the process, except a few, and one in particular. While I was examining it closely towards the end of the process, I stared at one mark in particular that looked to me like a small sailboat (difficult to see except in real life) on a vast expanse heading towards the horizon and into the light.

I didn’t draw a small sailboat and yet there it is, to me it’s clear and present. I’m not going to speculate about why I see a sailboat, except that it’s me trying to make sense of my world that’s been turned upside down. It’s also about me thinking about where Glenn is and how he might be. And, of course, it’s also about observing oneself and the stories we carry within us that become part of our inner landscape and how art makes it possible for us to tell those stories.

Here’s a few more in the series.