"I thrive on painting every day and presume that I always will," proclaims Linsey Paterson, the full-time folk artist and extremely full-time mother of four, whose passion for art might be described as delicate fervour.
This month, the walls of the Foyer Gallery are active with fanciful paintings, scenes of heavenly gardens and watering cans - pleasant and effortless.
Paterson is empowered by life in Paradise Valley.
"I love the West Coast and feel lucky to live here and experience the things I do," she said. "In my art, I am inspired mainly to capture the simple things in life and community in a folk art style. My work is geared to be accessible, whimsical, light, happy and pastoral."
Paterson's sometimes quirky paintings are filled with fluid brush strokes of contrast and light often framed in rustic old windows or weathered barn boards gathered from the farm.
Her passions beyond art are exactly the subjects that she decoratively paints - spending time in the country, her garden and with her children.
If folk art expresses cultural identity by conveying shared community values and aesthetics, then Paterson is simply a true folk artist. To contact Paterson call 604 898-4258.
In the Foyer Gallery's cases, Dee-Ann LeBlanc celebrates the beauty and variety of natural stone through instinctive beaded and wire jewelry pieces with contrasts and compliments in colour and texture.
Inspired by the materials themselves, LeBlanc revels in the fact that there is such a broad range in supplies out there for making jewellery.
She is currently studying the diverse variety of naturally formed minerals and is amazed at the existence of hundreds of types of stones like her favourites, agate and jasper.
In this series, Playing with the Unexpected, LeBlanc has created mini-collections of pieces focusing on different stones.
Her developing signature collection, aptly named Sea to Sky, is a combination of sterling silver, various types of granite with accent stones that evoke local colouring.
A necklace, earrings and bracelet involve a silvery flecked granite inflected with sea-green amazonite.
"Ultimately, when I'm making a piece, I'm looking for the right visual balance," said LeBlanc. "It's hard to describe what that is off hand, but after staring at it for a bit I might decide that the colour is too overwhelming and it needs more metal to break it up, or it needs an accent color for contrast."
Since childhood, LeBlanc has enjoyed arts and crafts, from participating in group murals to writing fiction, singing in glee clubs, and taking tap dancing classes.
At university, she realized that she was miserable doing mainly math and science so drawing, painting, stained glass, mosaics and now jewelry work have all become part of her life curriculum.
LeBlanc, a serious day job freelance writer, considers herself an experimental artist, playing, testing and trying new things. She describes, "I'm not necessarily trying to do something radically new and shocking and different. I'm trying to make something beautiful, or at least interesting."
Having recently caught the jewelry-making bug, LeBlanc's goal is to eventually work up to silversmithing, precious metal clays, and other techniques where she is making more of the raw materials and allowing her to use her father's handed-down stone-cutting equipment. LeBlanc admits that she has a short attention span so, as in the past, I'm sure that her work will rapidly evolve.
Contact: [email protected].
