More Events!

Much is happening. I've finished two new paintings for the Art About Finn Slough show and will be taking them over next week to the lecture hall in Richmond Arts Centre. The reception will be on Friday evening, April 9th, from 7 to 9 pm. A lot of planning is now going in to the Federation of Canadian Artists Group Show in which I am to be one of seven selected artists. We are: Bob Araki, Sharleen Hartfiel, Etsu Inouye, Michael Knox, Larry Tillyer. David McHolm and me, Loraine Wellman. We are calling it Brushwork Variety. This will run from April 2oth to May 2nd in the Federation Gallery on Granville Island. We are having a reception on April 22 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm when the artists will be there and there will be refreshments in abundance. Bob is bringing sushi and I'm making butter tarts - and there will be lots more! ... and May will start with DoorsOpen May 1st and 2nd from 10 am to 4 pm, when I will have an Open Studio... more on this later. Last blog showed a Finn Slough painting- so this one will show one from Granville Island - not one in the Group Show, but one that is currently up at Omega Gallery.

Finn Slough

Right now, I'm working on two new paintings for the Finn Slough Art Show, which will be April 8, 9 and 10th - with the reception being on the 9th from 7 to 9pm at Richmond Art Centre in the Lecture Hall. The one I did last year is "Finn Slough Spring" and is one of the five paintings up at Omega Gallery.
Finn Slough is one of the few remaining pieces of natural near-wild riverside environment. It dates back to the early 1890's when a group of Finnish people arrived in south Richmond. That, of course, was before the area was even known as Richmond. Because of flooding - hand-built dykes did not really keep the river off the land- a lot of the houses were built on pilings. The settlers were mainly fishermen and needed a safe harbour for their boats. Today, there are still fishermen, fishing nets and fishboats but many of the people living at Finn Slough are active in the arts- painting, design, music and so on. They have a society which is endeavouring to preserve and maintain the heritage values of Finn Slough. For a painter, the place is a "natural". I wonder how many paintings and photographs there are of the "Mermaid III" ? I was sorry when the old net loft collapsed into the river as it was lovely to paint- with the interesting shadows created by its boards. Every painting I have done of the "Eva" has sold - but, no, I'm doing something different this year.

Lanterns at Omega

I was up at Omega Gallery today - and noted that traffic definitely seemed lighter. Could it be that more people decided that the Canada Line is the way to go? It certainly makes it easy if you are going downtown but it doesn't work for going to Dunbar with canvases in the trunk! Tien Ching decided to keep five for now. One is "Blink" from a couple of blogs ago and one is "Lanterns" which I'll post here. The miner's lantern is a real one that was actually used by my Dad at Coleman, Alberta. Later, he wired it so it could be used as a lamp. I don't actually use it but I'm glad to have it as a bit of history with a personal connection. Tien is not displaying these paintings right now but a person can always ask to see them! This was interesting to set up - first I had a lighter background because I liked the cast shadows of the lantern plant (Physalis alkekengi ) but then it didn't seem right to have a miner's lantern sitting out in the light, so I re-draped the stand and settled on the darker background. After adjusting the light, I was fairly pleased as I felt it captured the glow that lanterns provide.