Orel Lake

Recording the ‘here and now’ has always been the artist’s primary task. Our moment in history is riddled with violence, pestilence, monumental disasters. Much hurt and pain. And yet to look up from my work and glance out the window always offers a momentary pause, joy in its most basic form. We need more joy; it is the cure for the pain, even if only for a fleeting moment. A friend once said to me that my work records the way things were, I think of it as an indulgence, my need to share the truth that there is still much to celebrate, much to believe in. A Momentary Pause is a collection of works in gouache inspired by just a step outside my door. It is simply about offering a moment of peace and joy to others, a sanctuary in the day-to-day hubbub of today’s here and now. And that is a task I take very seriously. Enjoy.

Place of Meditation

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Fall Chill, rain drops in the rippling reflections on Orel Lake. The trees on the edges of the foreground shelter that point of view where you sit on the bench in this place of meditation.

Watching the Night

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

A challenge, how to create the sense of minimal light and still make an interesting composition. Many nights were spent watching, searching out that ochre line, the intensity of a snow clad mountain. And really, just how dark is the water once the eyes learn how to see? The little racoon tracks across the bridge tell of others who travel and watch the night.

Momentary Pause - Sanctuary

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Behind my studio, a bench, sanctuary from the heat of summer wildfire smoke. This is a study of hope, looking out from the nest of trees along the edge of the lake and seeing a promise of strength that goes beyond the now.

Awaiting Morning's Song

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Good morning, every morning. When I walk down to my studio and pause I see the magic of one more day of living on this little Orel Lake above Black Creek.

In the Midst

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Cold and frozen, Orel Lake in an extraordinary year. Still and silent, the path is the only trace of the movement in the crisp white. Everything caught, bent, struggling in the midst of winter.

Dying Light

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Roughing In The Wind - nothing is ever still

Medium: Gouache Size: 16x 20 inches. SOLD

While out sketching the beginnings of another work, the wind came up so I ducked behind the studio for shelter and stood watching the alders roughing in the wind. The water, the grass, the trees, the leaves on the trees-everything was in motion. The image was there; I put the other piece aside and started on that darkening sky. A journey for sure, a challenge to create an image that does not stay still.

Ghosts From Snake Rock

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Down from the Studio

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Round the Corner

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Shattered Black

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

Still Beautiful

Medium: Gouache; Size: 16” x 20” Available through the Federation Gallery - sales@artists.ca

A garden after the harvest is done, the last of the golden leaves, the brush in my elderly hands, even as the vitality fades and colours shift to greys, so much is still beautiful.

Towards Peace

Medium: Gouache; Size: 16” x 20” Available through the Federation Gallery - sales@artists.ca

My sister, Jean Lindgren, wrote a poem for this painting:

Towards Peace

I have never been here. Yet

I feel serenity

in the fragrant softness

of the cedars, in the quiet

tumble of stones along

the path, in the flutter

of the water along the shoreline,

in the cushion of the moss,

and in the hidden strength

of the leaning tree.

Walk here, it’s nice.

Jeannie, Dec 2024

Static Flow

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches. Available through the Federation Gallery - sales@artists.ca

A static state, things in equilibrium, balanced yet always changing. A flow of living and dying, like white noise, so intense in movement as to seem still.

Waiting For It To Appear

Medium: Gouache Size: 16×20 inches

Sometimes it's just taking the time to wait and watch, to join in the moment when all things are suspended.

Bear Creek & More

The movements and lines of the dense foliage of the Island's deep forests are very elusive compared to the open flow of the Interior's mountains. After four years of study and contemplation, I am just barely beginning this new journey of form and colour. I am still searching for a compromise between my discernment of things simple and the intensity of life in this special place.

An Anomaly of Depths - A Glimpse Into A Soul

Medium: Gouache Size: 16 x 20 inches

A quick glimpse through the trees and an image was formed to be captured later in paint. One of many little waterfalls in the Comox Valley. The anomaly is in the lights and the darks, in the living and the dead, and the constant flow through time.

A glimpse into a soul. Do we reach past the darkness to find light or is there just depths?

Chosen for the Federation of Canadian Artist’s - Nanaimo Chapter juried show - 2024.

Beginning's End End's Beginning

Medium: Gouache Size: 30" x 20"

Chosen for the Federation of Canadian Artist’s juried show - Sept 2024.

Dark Reflections

Medium: Pencil Drawing, Size: 38 x 50 inches

A large pencil study capturing the mystery of dark water as the path carries on through Bear Creek Park. This work reflects grief and loss. It is about the darkness of things which cannot be changed, and yet even in the dark reflections there is light. The path carries forward across the bridge into a future undefined yet always there. Being an artist is like that, you feel the pain, reflect on it, and then move forward towards creating something more.

The Walk - Oyster River

Medium: oil based pencil Size: 8.75 x 10.75 inches

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Orel Lake

Bear Creek & More