Acrylic and pyrography on board.

9×12″

Bucky Cat Fren was created as a gift and has sparked a few other pet portrait commissions which will be uploaded as they appear!

Acrylic on Canvas

8″ across

Available

Acrylic on Canvas

10×10

Available

Acrylic on Canvas

20×20

Available.

To ward off the cold wet days on the Northwest Coast, these lovelies were painted to warm my heart and remind me of warmer times ahead! Finding them on hikes in the Rockies was always a joy!

16×40, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, private collection

A small homage to a great big beautiful animal that I had the pleasure of witnessing on a small boat this summer in Work Channel.

10×20, acrylic on canvas, 2021

Acrylic on canvas, 8×10 (2x)

These small works are significant to me in that this is the first time ever that I have enjoyed painting pine trees! Upon my arrival in Prince Rupert I took a painting class over Zoom with landscape painter Gord Coulhart from Ontario.  He showed me a joyful process of paint application and tree creation that I will continue to work on in the future!

Acrylic on artist’s conk mushroom, 2021

This painting was created on a harvested Artist’s conk mushroom found on Malcolm Island in 2020.  The mushroom had to dry out for several weeks, and then was primed with three layers of gesso before the painting could begin.  This was the biggest mushroom that I had ever witnessed growing off the side of a dead tree and it gathered some attention around the Island! It was featured in an article in the North Island Eagle news, as well as Kerri Reid’s Window Gallery in Sointula, BC.

Triptych, 3×3 (3x) acrylic on canvas

A small homage to a newfound life on the Northwest Coast and newfound love of crabbing!

Diptych, acrylic mixed media on canvas, 10×20 (2x), 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 12×24, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 12×12, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 14 x 36

Diptych, acrylic on canvas, 24×24 (2x), 2019

This painting was inspired by the regeneration which is still happening after the forest fire that consumed the area around Medicine Lake in 2015.

Acrylic on canvas, 10×20, 2018

Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 40, 2019

The inspiration for this painting came from a photograph that was snapped by a guest on one of my wildlife tours in Jasper.  It was late in the season and we discovered a black bear hungrily munching away on a bush full of berries in preparation for hibernation.

I created this painting when I knew my time at Maligne Lake coming to an end.  Mount Sampson is a mountain i have painted numerous times, but not like this. 

I wanted to capture everything that I love about this mountain; the essence of this place, the history, the stories, the flora and fauna.  My heart is full and I am so proud of my work.

Mount Sampson was one of the first and one of the only mountains in Jasper National Park named for a Stoney Native man, Sampson Beaver, who aided in the discovery of Maligne Lake by Mary Schäffer.  Schaffer was credited with putting this lake on the map for JNP and for making sure that this area was protected for generations to come from corporate interests. The lake is not immune to the wiles of corporate interest but it will outlive all that the tourism industry throws at it. 

At 5pm in the middle of the summer, as you are coming through the Narrows to the docks and Spirit Island, the sun casts the shadow of Sampson Beaver’s profile onto the right side of the triple peak before you.  I remember the first time I saw it. It took my breath away and I felt that there was no way that Mary could not have seen that herself and known that this place belonged to him and the Stoney people.  Their spear is in the middle, as it is on Spirit Island, pointing to the highest peak around and denoting this as a sacred place. 

The flowers are Cinquefoil, Indian Paintbrush, and Purple Fireweed as the garland.  The fireweed will come after the forest is consumed by fire in a regenerative burn to bring back all the plants and animals. It was heartbreaking to see the mountain pine beetle had made its way to the lake last summer, and that soon the Maligne Valley’s trees would all die, as i remember being told during my first summer in 2008 that the elevation of the lake was too high to support the beetle.  Now the trees are turning red and their cycle is over.  This is about death and rebirth, as much as my time there has been the same thing.

Working at Maligne Lake was a huge and formative time in my life.  It was there that I learned or re-learned how to be an artist after a long dry spell coming out of Toronto.  My creativity exploded my first summer as a guide, as did my confidence, and my ability to share my passions with many many people.  My tour guide job paved the way for the courage to take my guitar, and then my banjo on stage, and to learn how to play with other musicians.  I can’t imagine a life before playing music and singing, but it was there, and I was there, scared and tentative in this vast old wilderness.  The birds are Yellow Rumped Warblers, who were so much fun to watch flitting about and grabbing Midge Flies out of the air.  I rescued a baby Warbler in my toque that had hit a boat window one day last summer.  I was able to gather it up and sit with it while it regained itself, before flying off to rejoin its little family in the pines. Along the base of the painting you can find fossil patterns from the ancient seabeds that were thrust up into mountain rock.  It still blows me away to find sealife fossils while hiking in riverbeds and at high elevations.

Finally, the little Dragonfly in the centre is for Michael Gagnon, who’s ashes were spread at Spirit Island in 2013. May you rest in peace friend. Not a day goes by where you aren’t in my thoughts.  Your connection to dragonflies and your patience watching and waiting as all of nature unfolded around you was certainly heavenly.

As I move on to other projects in life I will look back on this time as something truly special. It has made me the person that I am, and I know will do the same for many others in time.  I am so grateful for that time, and for my ability to convey it here.

Acrylic on canvas, 8×10, 2017

Acrylic on canvas, 2018, 24×24

Acrylic on canvas, 2017, 30×46

Inspired by the forest fire that happened on Mount Robson that summer, and the beautiful regeneration that occurs after mountain wildfires.  This is also a symbol of our own breaking down and rebuilding.