Drawn to Galiano

Art Exhibition

The Galiano Oceanfront Inn, 134 Madrona

July 2nd – August 31st, Opening Friday July 3rd 2-4 pm. 

What is it that pulls us here? What makes us stay, put down roots, raise families, and build our lives on this beautiful rock?

I painted Galiano in bits and pieces while visiting as a camper for more than thirty years. Whenever I told people about my adventures here, they would often “catch” my goosebumps. Before long, their eyes would sparkle with the same longing that had taken hold of me.

When I finally moved here full-time in 2013, I left behind a large home and community in Abbotsford for a 450-square-foot cabin on the beach. It was winter—both on the island and in my own life—but I couldn’t have been happier. I arrived with a question in my heart.

One day, I stood beneath the largest Garry oak on Dionisio Point and asked if the island had a message for my art.

As I held one of its great branches, I was flooded with a feeling I can only describe as wildness. Then, as I listened more deeply, I felt something else: joy. The oak’s branches seemed to dance toward the sky, and that same wild joy danced into my heart.

For the next year, I learned to paint that message.

Before then, I painted much like a photographer, trying to recreate every detail exactly as I saw it. But as I worked on the portrait of that Garry oak, I painted and repainted it many times while the tree seemed to whisper, “If you’re going to paint my portrait, you’ll have to find some rhythm. Wander outside the lines. Everything is connected.”

Little by little, my paintbrush learned to dance. The rhythm of wildness and joy became the rhythm of my work.

I believe that same rhythm lives quietly within all of us. It calls us to the forests, the sandstone shores, the windswept bluffs, and the sea. Perhaps that is what draws us to Galiano—not simply its beauty, but the chance to remember something ancient within ourselves.

These paintings are my attempt to capture that feeling and to share the places where I have heard its call most clearly.

Original Acrylic and Oil Paintings available for purchase.

 Original landscape paintings of Galiano Island featuring shorelines bordered by honeycomb sandstone sculptures and white shell beaches and vistas framed with arutus, Garry oak and Douglas fir trees.