An Artistic Process
“What about the everyday expressions of creativity that we can neither quantify nor monetise? That’s the creative arena traditionally inhabited by women.”
from The Creative Doer, by Anna Lovind
Inspiration board and landscape studies.
Going to visit a gallery show can be a daunting experience. Many people comment that they find it difficult to relate to some works of art and can’t understand what an artist is trying to communicate. At a formal exhibition, it can seem intimidating to ask questions that might betray our ignorance.
As I was preparing for the artist’s talk at last month’s exhibition, I wanted to share the nitty gritty of how I arrived at creating the pieces which hung on the wall, but I wasn’t sure how much of the rough drafts and imperfect parts of the process to include.
Recently, I was listening to curator Pennylane Shen speak about the value of doing studies in preparation for a bigger project. This was encouraging news for me since I seem to take a long time coming to a final product.
I hope you enjoy this post about the behind the scenes process I took to create the paintings from my most recent Inspired series.
Vision board with home design colour connections, Vivian’s sample works, and my own photographs.
My starting point was a slapped together vision board on which I collected ideas for colours and subject matter. The board was also simply a place to display the tiny pictures I had of Vivian Lindoe’s seriographs which were to be inspiration for the work I had agreed to create.
Arctic was my assigned piece and the miniscule photocopied reproduction wasn’t very informative, so I made an appointment to visit the work in person while it was being framed.
Initially, without other information, my response was to the visual aspects of the piece. The colour palette was muted and the shapes were simple and without 3 dimensional form. My family had just moved into our new home, so I had several home decorating magazines around. Flipping through the pages, I noticed a similarity between Lindoe’s colours and current design trends. Peaches, pale greens, cloudy grey blues and mustard colours were showing up on the pages, as were large graphic shapes. Surprisingly, Vivian’s pieces from the 1970s were echoed in the design trends of 2021.
Looking through the magazines had me thinking about traditionally feminine contributions to beauty in everyday life. Decorating may not be considered high art, but it is a form of art more often experienced by the average person through furniture, textiles, wall colours, etc. Both home decorating and the work of Vivian Lindoe have perhaps not been given their deserved recognition. Lindoe’s work seemed to be prophetic in its use of pattern, simple form, and colour.
Local waterfront trail in Salmon Arm with Mt. Ida in the background.
In the Spring of 2021, while I was thinking about Lindoe’s work, my family took a walk along the water front trail in our town. The muted colours of Spring emerging were so striking. Verdant greens were breaking through ochre coloured dry brush. The pale blues, mustards and peaches of the shoreline, and greyed phthalo blues of the distant mountains were all the colours of Arctic.
From this excursion, my next step towards actual artwork, was to experiment with a palette similar of Lindoe’s through the subject of waterfront landscapes. The view more often than not, showcased Mt. Ida proudly in the background. This was the same mountain, at the base of which, Lindoe had built her Salmon Arm home with her own two hands.
At this point I became fascinated with this woman’s life and took to the internet only to find that little had been recorded about her, yet she had participated in some significant exhibitions and arts groups. Some of her work is held in collections across Canada, perhaps most significantly, at the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. It was exciting to hear from Lois Higgins, a friend of Vivian’s, who attended the opening for this exhibition. By her account, Lindoe was a quieter person who perhaps wasn’t interested in being in the spotlight.
The final stages of creation for the pieces that ended up on exhibition are recorded in the previous blog post if you haven’t already read it. The six landscape studies are for sale at $175 each through Wildwood Flower Emporium in Salmon Arm. I’d be happy to package and ship one for you if you aren’t local.
I hope that you found something of this process interesting, and enjoyed the learning some of the thought and practice that goes into any piece of art you see officially hanging in a gallery wall.
As Spring emerges again, I’m looking forward to hosting more creative workshops, so stay tuned for information on those.
Until then,
Sara
Sara Wiens is an artist currently based in Salmon Arm who works in oil, acrylic and mixed media. She has her BA in Studio Arts and Bachelor of Arts Education from UBC, Vancouver. She has shown her work at various galleries in her home province of British Columbia, taught art for many years, and contributed to several community art projects.