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hello everyone thank you for joining me today my name is rachel bouchard and i will be guiding

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today’s conversation we welcome you to our from the studio series sponsored by epcor’s heart and

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soul fund as well as the canada council for the arts here at the gallery we embrace the teachings of tatawa a kree phrase

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meaning welcome there’s room in our house even the virtual one everyone is welcome before we dive into

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the subject i’d like to highlight that this is an interactive event and we’d really like to hear from you

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uh you’re welcome to use the chat window on the side screen uh to share your comments as as we

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discuss with lynn malin if a question goes unanswered at the

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time please know that we’re we will review all questions before we wrap up today’s event

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so i’d like to start by giving you a brief introduction to today’s guest lynn malin lynn received her education from the

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university of alberta and the university of toronto she attended many art residencies

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including the banff school of fine arts layton colony the artist directed residency program at

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the banff center emma lake artist retreat uh the emma carr college in vancouver

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the columbia ice fields residency the geshel studio in blairmore alberta

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the mohar spain artist foundation and the myers of munich foundation lynn has served as vice president and

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branch chairman of the alberta art foundation lynn works in watercolor and oil on both

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canvas and paper and on the flexible film lexan lin started as a landscape painter

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later including still lives and gardens her interest in aerial perspectives have

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informed her later lexan works she’s produced photo loops dealing with these aerial views

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from a helicopter and airplanes in her latest solo show at the art gallery of

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st albert she produced large grids and works on lexan and a photo loop of aerial views of the

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land which inspired the lexans lynne malen has been awarded grants by the alberta foundation for the arts

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in 1991 and 2001 an edmonton arts council project grant in 2011 and a

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travel grant from the edmonton arts council in 2014 collaborative public sculptures content

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at the terra building in edmonton recycles which is at beaver hill park in edmonton

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inside out human ecology building at the university of alberta and pinwheel which is at the prince

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charles park in edmonton she produced public installations like elemental which is

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at the cardinal cardinal collins composite school in edmonton fall approach which is at bethel transit

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station in sherwood park waterworks which is at the emerald hills leisure center in sherwood park

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and color play which is at the bridge tower uh the kelly ramsay building in edmonton

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and she was selected uh the winner of competitions from the alberta foundation for the arts arts and

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public places the university of alberta and the edmonton arts council

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since 1980 lynn has had over 30 solo exhibitions and she is currently represented by

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peter robertson gallery in edmonton her work can also be viewed on

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www.linmailen.com and at the p on the peter robertson gallery so please take this time uh with me to

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give a warm welcome to artist lynn malin welcome lynn thank you so much for

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joining us today we’ve had many lovely interactions over the years and i’m so excited to hear

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more about your artistic process so you’ll have to turn your camera on

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all right yeah if you could just turn your camera on lin

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there we go hello there we go can you hear me

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i can’t get the video on i can’t go no it comes on i can see you and i can hear you

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oh okay so um you’re gonna want to go to your audio button

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uh

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sorry we’re having technical difficulties here um let me just

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i’m going to

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text sarah to contact lin so that she can get her video and audio working here

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sorry everyone um

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so in the meantime uh i guess i can talk a little bit about

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lynn’s studio practice she currents currently has a studio uh where the dc3 gallery used to be

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and she she currently works and is living in edmonton

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but she’s traveled extensively which i think has really influenced her work she also does

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go to the same location every year for the past 35 years just outside of saint albert and

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paints that area and so it’ll be interesting to discuss that with her

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when she gets back online here

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i see she’s joined the room so i think we’re good to go

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i’m just gonna send a note to sarah

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hi lynn can you hear me

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i can’t sorry rachel i can’t hear you i i just can’t get in uh do you want to go to the chat

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oh there we are can you see me i can see you yes can you hear me no oh yes

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yes but up on your side to the left there’s a

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the audio button

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now i can’t hear you that better can you hear me now i can

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hear you yes can you hear me can you hear me no yes you can hear me yes good okay i can’t

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hear you oh okay okay um start presentation

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okay slide nun feed cancel edit start start

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hello again i just i hit the panic button with the hope that it will uh send a new link to lin because

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there’s a possibility that there was a glitch with her audio so i’m just gonna restart this

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i apologize we’ll just get this this thing’s reset and

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okay so let’s see if lynn will join us

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again

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i’m just gonna see if we can give her a

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call

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so in the meantime

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okay so sarah’s on it so we are going to have the um the audio functioning in no time

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there she is

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hello lynn there we go are you is it

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working i can hear you i can hear you now fine

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okay i’m so sorry okay we’re ready you know it’s all good it’s all good this is this is the thing with technology right

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this is thank you it’s wonderful to see you i’m

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wonderful to see you too and hear you this is good yeah wonderful okay

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good stuff okay so i was just saying before you you came on that that your studio is located next to dc3

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the the previous uh dc3 location and i was just wondering um

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i spoke a little bit about your extensive travels and i was wondering how that’s impacted your practice

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well i feel very lucky to have traveled i think it it opens your eyes in your heart and

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everything but one thing that i’ve done when i go away i take little squares of watercolor paper

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and i draw and paint and so when i get back i can integrate some

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of those ideas into my work and sometimes i make larger ones of the

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one of the work that i’ve drawn and painted but these little watercolors to me are

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just like a little uh treasure of where i’ve been so i really like them

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and i pay a lot of attention in finishing them and making them uh the way i want them to be and it does

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really uh inform my the rest of my work when i was

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in a studio residency in france in spain i um did a little watercolor

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every morning while i was having my breakfast and my collection and then um so i have

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all of those and then i turned those into larger paintings and into monotypes

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and it took me a whole year to finish all the work that i picked up in spain for one month so it was fabulous so they’re very very

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important now did you i’m interested in that process because watercolor is such a

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different process from oil and did you transfer them in was it an oil painting that you would

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produce from the watercolor yes sometimes from watercolors and also from other pictures and often they would

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um take on a different character in the oil and um but i just thought i just kept these

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as little they were better than pictures these little uh watercolors and it just

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brought everything right back so they’re very informative to me yeah especially i’m sure putting down

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the light and the shadows with watercolors yeah and getting the right color and the movement and

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they have to be fast and done clearly it’s very interesting yeah i’m gonna move on to

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the next slide here so these are some of your more recent pieces correct

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uh these are large the large lexans 48 by 48 so four feet by four feet oh wow

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okay and um i was work i was working on them um they’re part of this whole idea of um

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uh looking down on the ground looking down on the world and making it into um

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an image that uh could be from different places too so some are from say a desert and

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some are from water some are from the north but uh also i’m working on a man-made sort of

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the difference between grids that man makes and natural marks and i try to get the two of those served

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in opposition yet into one composition so that’s oh it’s really obvious like the

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cartography of it right you have that whole um the cartesian geometry right

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in them and and i really like what and when you’re looking at the land from

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from up above not these pieces so much but some a little bit later on you can really see that impact that

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we’ve had and and even the seeing the shelter belts that have been planted over the years to

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to help prevent soil erosion you can see the grids like the lines around the fields that have been created

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yeah it’s really it’s really interesting and i think the evolution of of um change and development on land

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is very evidence in in the marks that humans make and the marks that nature makes and they notice this even going up in a

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balloon and looking down um on lexar in egypt about how the

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fields were made and how they were all banked and how the houses fit in and just the whole

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um map of of that little area right so unique to the process of how it was

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used oh and i i appreciate that like the difference in did you see a lot of similarities and how it was done here as opposed to

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what it looked like in germany or in egypt sorry well it was quite different i found it very very

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different and sort of a lot of my images are much more prairie orientated because that supports where i’ve been up

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or landing and leaving on a plane like even the big planes as you just gradually get up you get these views

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and the helicopter rides they’re just amazing for breaking down and that’s one i took

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up to devon and all the way back all around edmonton was um was very informative it was really

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beautiful interesting to look down like that like a bird yeah yeah it’s such a nice perspective

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it is yeah and so this is more of this this is the same work at

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the same time body work and and um some of them this is where when i was working on a lot of water

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imagery you can see more on the left when i was doing that um uh

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we’ll see later the installation and emerald hills aquatic center right where um i did 21

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of these panels um and they’re mounted on the walls two inches up from the wall so the water

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the air can go the light can go through them become translucent not necessarily so yeah i put them up in the wall you

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can sort of see a little bit about them but when they’re two inches out from the wall

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they really have um incorporate the light within the work oh and they would change with the

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changes of the light throughout the day absolutely the light just completely

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changes them yeah so and this is one that was in land

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watch that was a show i had at st albert okay in the uh and at the art gallery of

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saint albert and it was uh they were um these were a series of nine

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grids and they were all sort of green sort of as as um they were done

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from summer books and you can see they have um lace uh imprints of lace different type

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of grids on them and um uh so this is one of the green ones in

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that and i’ve they stand on their own but they also i think are interesting

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put in a group i i’m interested in how you have there’s such a layering process

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here but yet they’re still so translucent how are you achieving that yes and layers and being very careful

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not to overdo it right which is so easy to do to do too much

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and um but uh it is uh it is done a lot of the color will go on

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first sometimes and then the imprint of you can see where the block is usually

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all done with some graphite oh i love that with the carbon yeah yeah and and so that’s worked into

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the into the grids and um and then they’re layered and some at the end have

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a bit of spray through a grid so are you playing on the fact so when

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you’re using carbon in it and it’s a landscape are you playing on the fact of you know the or the idea of carbon

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retention in certain areas or or just or do you just automatically want to put it into the landscape

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because of the the effect that it has in the piece yeah i think it’s the density that you can get from it and it seems so

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natural too even when it’s mixed with the oil paint and rubbed into the oil paint it creates marks and movement and

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um so how are you rubbing it in is it is it a flattage that you’re doing on the surface with

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there is some of that um there’s some grids underneath that i rub on top

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through the lexan so it appears okay yeah and that can be done with graphite or

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with pastel and you can see some of these how they’re sort of very layered

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the graphite on the top left and the bottom right is worked right into the oil paint and then grids are imposed on top

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okay so there’s that process of adding and taking away throughout the

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whole piece and it’s very layered in many ways you can see things the closer you are to it the more you see

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and they do change with the light yeah and i love again you can see that grid your grid

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um it comes up through the the bottom left corner really apparent there and then it

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just kind of dissipates throughout the piece so the connection between all these

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different um uses of the land actually i think

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yeah yeah so this is one of the red grid this is one i did with uh

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elizabeth beauchamp it was beginning of the whole transition into the lexan integrates and i’d done large

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um lexan paintings that were sort of four feet by seven feet six feet and i put them um

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sometimes i put them in the back of my car um with the van put the lid up and i just

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bungee them all there on a on a heavy white kind of um foam core and then i take them out

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and i paint the whole thing and then um just from the marks that i see and everything like a landscape

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um which is maybe small sky at the top and mostly the ground looking down across the land so then what

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what i did is i said well betty and i were talking about it we said why don’t we just

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cut some of these up and put them together and put them in a grid and rearrange them because we were talking about oh yeah

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having a rearranged wall so this started it and so i said well i’m not cutting them up you cut them up

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and and some and we had to put some of them together because the cutting didn’t work and also sometimes we had to work back

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on top of them i had to put more marks on top or whatever and then these are they’re smaller they’re 24 by 24 so two feet by two feet

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and then and they’re pinned uh they’re done with the nail two inches out from the wall it was put

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in a harcourt house i had shown harper okay and um they’re they look just like a

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skin of the earth they’re quite fabulous and i’ve always wanted to show them again but i’ve never

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had the opportunity because they are just the beginning of all these

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that’s what i’m doing now so so um we have a question how long

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would you say each piece takes to complete because an oil i have to let it dry in

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between so i’m usually i’ve often work on two or three at the same time and probably

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um at least two weeks but if i’m working on other ones depends the smaller ones maybe a little

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faster i can work on but um yeah it takes that long

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you have to just yeah the drying time which is that it offers you the opportunity to

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look at them um while it’s still wet and maybe play with it a little bit revisit it

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that’s right revisit it and also um to re-look at it now the this is i’m

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very interested in public art and i was very thrilled to get this on this with elizabeth beauchamp and i got this

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together it’s hanging in um at the university in the human ecology building oh

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and um it we were asked to do a sculpture that uh spoke to what human ecology was

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and so this one is called inside out so their feeling was they do whatever is

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within the human a human person and then everything that touches them like

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how they wear what they eat where they are the materials they use to build things

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where they live i mean that’s sort of the progression and then out into the community and whatever but um

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so we asked all the uh people in this first year thing what do you think human ecology is

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what do you like about it why are you here and they gave us all these answers so we wrote them all out one person said um

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uh physics was full i thought that was the best it’s like why he took the course and i

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loved it and i thought well maybe he just took it because he had a friend here but no he said no this is just close this is the next best

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thing but so all of these panels are are uh four they’re four feet by

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four feet it’s a great size and um they have holes punched in them sometimes they’re all of different

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materials there’s glass is there text as well uh there’s

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text written on it and uh in in um printed on with through um

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what do you call those things that letters you kind of stencil stencil writing and there’s grids on them and and then

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there’s screens in front of them that move back and forth and it goes between two stories in the

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wall in the hallway and it’s slid from behind as well as in front it’s an exquisite piece i don’t know how

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many people see it but everybody that goes to human ecology or or

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the professors there and everything they love it because it it is manipulative like people can go and move

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it when they want yeah and they can slide the screens across

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is there a lot of light is it well you said it’s lit from behind yeah there’s some lights behind it we

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had some lights put in behind us so the lights can come through the screens as well as lights on it so it is quite

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an interesting piece i’m very proud of it it’s like about 15 feet

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wide yeah okay oh and this one is really

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playful yeah what is this one called this is called recycles it’s all about biking

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and recycles recycles so every a lot of the everything in this is something from somewhere else

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so one is a bit stead one is a great um one is a radiator you know those

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radiators and they’re all built into bicycles and we’ve um found had people find things we found

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things that that could be used as a wheel or a

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basket on the front or something on the back and um it’s it’s quite a wonderful

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piece in beaver hill park it was put beautiful when it was painted but as time went on being powder coated was

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faded so we wanted to get it spray painted again but the city hasn’t come up with

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um but we will we will get it done it has been up for 20 years or 21 years so

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that’s a long time and it does need a little pick me up so what is what are the little flags like

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up at the top it was supposed to be a festival a place to draw people in to play with

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kids especially and people to use it so all the petals move and as the petals move

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the whirly gigs at the top move and the whirly kids are are people juggling and they’re all sort

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of like street um performers yeah so that’s what it’s about it’s about um

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looking at the street performers and coming in and using the things so it’s yeah often people would sit on it and

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pedal it and things i think it’s yeah it’s fun it’s really fun thank you yeah

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yeah and this is a great um this is kind of the in between the

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aerial work and the um the work on planet right like the landscapes yes

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yeah so this is very well very much um from the land these were images that i

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took uh from going north to um

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and we flew around on a plane up there we went to fishing lodge and things so i took lots of images from that

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and um you in the one that’s closest the one on the right hand side you can

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see the water and you can see the pink um gra

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granite it’s on and then it’s the trees and everything so it’s just it’s really

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a view from the north and um and it’s

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four four by six feet and it’s in a box a light bulb okay i was gonna ask because of the rays the profile makes it

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feel like it’s a canvas oil on canvas but okay it is electron and it’s put where

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there’s plexiglass in front of it and the lexan and then um

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a white um acrylic panel behind it and adhered together then with lights behind

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it yeah so and it’s a box it’s a light box about um i think it’s about two and a half to

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three inches deep wow and you can turn it on or off and inside there’s the

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area it’s in the hospital um in the hui center in the royal hospital complex

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right and um it you can people can have it on at night if they

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wanted they can have it off at night you can direct it inside of the mechanical room that’s right beside where the nurse’s

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station is yeah every time i’ve gone there you see it it’s been lit like this

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but sometimes they turn it off i guess and it’s just as nice off as it is on i think yeah it would be really

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beautiful and uplifting with the lights on i would think just to get that yeah

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oh this is lovely too now this is um you said that the pieces on the

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left i if i’m if i’m correct this was the piece we discussed that was in the studio but that’s too

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that’s simple that’s water right correct this one is um this is from a show that i did at

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the banff center and at the white museum the white museum and i did some of these images from the

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banff center but anyway this is the the show was called in light of winter and it was on for about three months

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in in the white museum and this is one piece of it and this one is called what’s called winter sky and so it goes

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from the dark to the light so it’s images from the sky it’s all done unless it definitely has that

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cosmic feel because when when we were talking about the second slide and you were saying that it was water because it

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was at the aquatic center i was thinking i was way off because these ones like especially the top the

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top left it has that real um you know cosmic very dark sky yeah yeah

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it’s beautiful yeah and they’re they’re very um they’re very light filled it looks they

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look very dark but you have to get to see them see so much information inside of each one

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yeah and um the idea was um so this was the winter sky and then i did one

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uh fire because in the winter we have to keep warm so one was a hot one grid was all of fires

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in the winter and then there was glyph glaciers and lots of other images too in the show it’s quite a big

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show and um these ones are the size of these are they’re two feet by two feet so

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um the whole size is quite big because there’s about four inches in between each of them

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and how are they mounted they are on like sun like all the ones are i put

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them on okay i put the lexan on an acrylic panel and then there it’s just flat and then

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there’s a a strip on the back that i hang them on a hanger or it’s a mount it’s a french

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cleat is what it’s called really but i mean it’s a you you put this mount onto the wall and acrylic and then you hang this image on

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top so you when if you walk from the side you can see that it’s just a very flat surface close to the wall yeah and just and it’s

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two inches up from the wall and so it also allows shadow from the image themselves put a shadow on the

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wall and as you walk by it they slightly change because of how the light hits them so it’s

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they’re very um active yeah i love that

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i love the way the color from left to right goes from dark to so light and

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it’s beautiful like the changing of the day yes yeah yeah from the night to the dawn yeah

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yeah and now we have another question do you have a preference for large or medium scale works

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oh that’s really hard i i like them both i there is a thrill

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i have to say about doing a very large piece and getting it all to work which is a thrill but

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little ones small pieces are are just as interesting and very complex i think the

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impact of the big ones is wonderful and that’s why when you put the small ones like two feet by two feet together it

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has a huge impact whereas one has a little less of a

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okay so would you say that the smaller pieces are more gestural and quick and are they

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looser than a larger piece do you feel like you’re more um focused on on

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the details in a larger piece or is that i think it’s more the reverse in a way

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okay yeah i think there’s more um the little ones can become very

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um perfect and complex and you’re right on top of them whereas the larger ones you can use bigger brushes larger

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strokes you can be a little bit more gestural yeah okay i think

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i like them yeah this is this is beautiful too where is

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this one located well this is a maquette that i did for um i was shortlisted for uh

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a show with at the arena at the arena the ice arena i was shortlisted for one of the sculptures or

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installations and um i didn’t get it but this was the maquette forward and it was

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they were going to be four four feet by four feet lexan panels they were all taken from the images of

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going around looking down around eddington and and um the land so

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it was sort of that i worked on it i think it’s beautiful what i’m doing now is i’m taking some smaller ones that are four

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inches by four inches and i’m going to make some grids like this with

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with them to put so would it be would it be a collection of them in one

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or you’re talking about taking one and trans translating that on a larger canvas like

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no i would just i would get all of these like i did this they were four inches by four inches to put together and i because i’ve always

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liked it i thought i don’t know why i just don’t do some more of them yeah and and put

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them on so the whole thing would be um say you know 36 by 36 or 40 by 40 when

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they’re all put together and have the revision of the colors i think i think it might be fun so i’m working on some of those now

34:22

oh they’re beautiful yeah the work becomes sort of a big circle you know you go back to things

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and then go forward a little bit and then go back yeah what’s the longest you’ve had a painting

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in your studio uh before you let it out like sometimes people will work on a painting for eight

34:40

years ten years and they’ll all of a sudden see it again and they have an idea of how they want to finish it

34:46

yeah have you had that happen i uh yeah some some things that’s true happen also

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sometimes my problem is when i get mad at them and they’re not working for me i paint over them and then i kind of get

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i feel that i shouldn’t have because when i look at pictures of them i took it earlier i thought you know actually that wasn’t so bad maybe i should have

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just kept it but yeah it depends on how you feel but i usually do um i think it’s a good idea to keep

35:14

things longer because you let them go too soon sometimes you’ll see them and you’ll think i should have maybe not let it out so

35:22

fast yeah yeah so would you say that how do you let everything out or do you

35:28

because there a lot some artists say they only actually allow a third of their work to leave the studio is that the case for you

35:35

uh no no it isn’t i honestly i have to run i have to run

35:41

this my studio have to pay for my materials my video and everything this is so i’m

35:48

not i don’t teach anymore i just this is what i’m doing and um financial things so i said i sell everything

35:55

and that i can you know i won’t and there’s a lot of things that i should have held back some things i feel badly about

36:01

leaving but i just find that um i don’t want to be in a conflict

36:07

with um you know my the family the husband everything else that hey you

36:12

know this is i’ve got to contribute and i can’t take too much from that other section of my life so i i

36:20

am i let it go yeah and repurpose some of them as you said i

36:26

redo them i chop them up i get words out of them do a lot of things i make collages out of some of them yeah

36:33

it’s a it’s so much fun rachel i agree

36:39

i paint myself and it is we go into a whole different zone it’s it is the whole thing

36:46

um and i have another question for you uh do you have any advice for emerging

36:52

artists oh i think just stick to it

36:57

just do it yeah because um i think your ideas change to grow but i

37:03

think it’s really good to keep doing it and not give up because um it’s such an

37:09

interesting and expanding um knowledge

37:14

and uh experience that you have just by doing it so i just think for emerging artists don’t give up and because emerging

37:20

artists are so smart they all know how to use that you know with the social media and yeah and all that but they’re much

37:26

more they could be giving me a lot of advice in fact i’ll track one someday and get them to tell me how to use it

37:33

yeah you can you can feed one another yeah exactly you know it takes me back to what you

37:40

just said which i found interesting about regret over letting some of the work out however

37:45

at what point emerging means you have to have the confidence to actually emerge into the market and

37:51

without actually letting the work out and growing within your practice

37:57

you have to sell to create for me i do some people are lucky and they

38:02

don’t have to necessarily be so much like that but i find it

38:08

for me it was very important that i did i contribute so i do sell so this is a piece that’s

38:15

the piece the water piece in the emerald hills aquatic okay yeah and i have a question about

38:22

that um what was your inspiration for this piece the uh the attendee says i love your work in emerald hills

38:28

what was your inspiration for the piece oh that’s so lovely well it was water and um you know even

38:36

deciding how light moves through water and how if you see a pattern underneath it like the tiles on the floor and everything how it

38:42

wiggles and how it moves my idea was to make this reflect

38:48

um how people see and when they’re in the swimming pool so where we’re sitting this side yeah

38:56

there’s a whole glass wall and there’s all the pools and you could swim in the pool and look over and you can see these things on the wall and i

39:02

wanted them to uh reflect the the colors and the joy and the movement

39:10

and the splashing and everything else of the water and right so it’s supposed to be um about water

39:18

and and it’s i think it’s called waterworks i think but anyway it’s um supposed to

39:25

give that impression of fun yeah and i like the way it’s the it has

39:31

the um the line of the the wall and the ceiling that work with it as

39:37

well yeah that was a really a difficult thing to figure out for me um but you

39:44

know i think when you see it it works so well in the building so i’m glad that i personally think it’s natural yeah yeah yeah it’s

39:51

lovely thank you yeah oh yes and this one is this is fantastic

39:58

too uh uh where is this one this is located at the old hilt renfrew right yeah it’s

40:05

well you know when you walk from the old halt run through across towards the new enbridge building it’s it’s at the end of the walkway okay

40:13

and uh so it’s really in the enbridge building and it’s um and it used to be it was joined to

40:19

the cali ramsay building which was was an old brick building that used to be

40:24

yeah what is the name of that street it’s called um that’s right behind it it’s sort of like

40:31

a half street anyway i can’t remember and i think artworks is downstairs and that now and

40:37

then there’s a coffee shop at the bottom but this is on the second floor at the end of this um

40:43

walkway and yeah this one is also is this sun lexan as well it’s lexan

40:50

and it’s on plexi and the same way are the acrylic panels and it also mounted two inches up from

40:56

the wall and it has um it’s supposed to refer to um

41:04

uh art deco glass and color and the light that comes

41:11

because the old building was um kelly ramsay was built sort of at the time when people were decorating things

41:16

with arctic coal and and we’re using glass as a as some

41:21

images of nature in the building bringing sort of the outside in the light in and

41:28

so this idea was so people could come to work and look at this um these colors these bright colors with

41:34

the patterns and it would be joyful yeah colorful and that’s what i want people

41:42

to feel good about walking into the building it really is it’s uplifting isn’t it i hope so yeah

41:50

yeah and we oh so we have another question how much involvement do you have in the installation of your public

41:55

works well um you know all of it because

42:00

it you have to make sure that it’s the way you want to and there’s lots of rules about it like

42:06

that there’s it has to be engineered properly and it has to be so there’s lots of hoops that you have

42:13

to go through but basically you have to you gotta have to get someone to install it for you

42:19

and um which is uh and it has to be done perfectly and it’s uh the biggest problem often is

42:27

the lights and the place because designers have an idea of where they want things sometimes

42:33

it’s hard to to get the artist are you for public

42:38

installations do you are you present are you always present when it’s being

42:44

installed yeah yeah yes i think yes yeah we have thumb and install it

42:49

but you want to be there just to make sure that everything works out and it’s always a panic

42:57

it in it’s very you’re just so nervous it’s not going to look perfect

43:02

yeah i’m sure i’m sure because it’s yeah the big thing you want it well

43:07

represented exactly um so we have a comment um

43:12

that from a lady who has a large and little piece from you oh nice yeah she’s just checking in oh

43:20

isn’t that lovely well thank you

43:25

oh and where is this this is um it’s called charlotte’s view it’s a it’s a view from

43:31

a ranch just um west of devon and

43:37

so it’s just a painting from there yeah i love the palette that shows the

43:43

choice with the purples yeah yeah and it’s the spring it’s the spring late

43:49

spring so cut there’s flowers coming up and all the greenery and everything so it’s um

43:55

it’s from that area and of course my paintings aren’t very true to what’s really there because i

44:01

sort of add a few things every once in a while change them yeah as they work create a

44:06

license artistic license i should say exactly

44:12

yeah yeah i can play god [Laughter] yeah yeah this is lovely too so bright i

44:20

like the thank you both of these are very much

44:27

um looking for at the beginning all the way across the land so they’re very

44:33

um it’s not straight down on the land like the right the land watches but these are

44:39

sort of um views foreground middle ground background gets sort of flattened as it

44:45

goes out yeah and prairie is lovely

44:54

are these all from the same location then no all different different locations the other two those two are canvases

45:01

the last three ones were canvases this is a a lexan and um you know maybe you don’t

45:07

notice but there seems to be sometimes often in these elections a little more drawing right you can see the graphite drawing

45:13

in the grids in this and um also a lot of light will come through

45:18

it more because of its transparent lucency transparent so yeah it’s a fall it calls it’s called

45:25

fall from above and this is the one that i’ve done a

45:31

hundred of these okay one it’s a large lexan piece

45:36

and um it was in the show in st albert and i wanted it in that show this is the last time that i could do anything from that area

45:43

because i’ve been going out for about 30 years this one place on a hill at the end of

45:48

the corner yeah i have a farm yard and i looked down on this field and i used to paint it that was actually more

45:55

uh the regular way you know little more likely look at things foreground me to go back on on regular traditional right and as time

46:02

went on it became more looking across it and then more like a bird and this one

46:07

is the trestle bridge is right in the top right you can hardly see it there sort of it’s got a red line across in black it’s

46:13

drawn in with graphite and yeah it’s um i was at the corner of this field um one day working and

46:21

it’s on the top of a hill and i can pull my things up from the car and get it all ready and then start

46:27

painting everything and anyway this man came up and said what are you doing here a loud voice that i just about

46:32

dropped off the edge of the hill and um i said you know well i’m just painting

46:37

said well you know there’s so many people come out here and they just leave all their junk and blah blah and he said no no i’m just coming over to

46:43

take everything away don’t do anything and i just i just want to paint this view because it’s so beautiful

46:49

look at this where you can see this and look what that is and i talked to talk to him about both of you yeah you can come back here any time man

46:56

i’m sorry about you so that’s 35 years later yeah but then then uh some it

47:02

now it’s a all uh developed into a bunch of houses and things so let me just broke my heart that one

47:09

but i i wanted to do one more piece of that for that show yeah that so this would

47:14

have been how long ago was this one done this was done um [Music]

47:20

two years ago two years ago okay just from today but i mean it was in the show last year so it was only about one and a

47:27

half years old when i put it in but i was i was working on it because i wanted that last

47:34

the last images before that got wrecked so so you said that um with the passage of time there’s been

47:40

development how are you removing that from are you working from an old image because you’re still going

47:47

to you’re working up the net right so you’re still going to the location

47:52

is that to get the light and the color and i can’t go to this location anymore because it’s gone

47:58

oh yeah completely because it’s all powered up and everything the trestle bridge may be there i don’t

48:03

know but the roads are all changed and you know i got disorientated so i’ve

48:08

sort of never been back but um i do go to lots of places again over and over again

48:14

but this one i have done in watercolor and oil and canvas and oil and paper and lexan i’ve done this

48:20

many different ways this one scene and um

48:25

it is a and i’ve taken lots of pictures of sometimes i go through the pictures and maybe do a smaller one

48:31

from a picture but right yeah it is it’s a goner and your florals

48:39

yeah these are it was interesting to me that you work on florals as well as the landscapes

48:46

from the aerial view because it’s kind of the florals are kind of a micro view and then the um

48:54

the aerial view is such a monumental view of the landscape

48:59

and then you have uh i find it interesting because you have cut flowers and then you have

49:06

um flowers in there in in their um natural environment

49:13

mm-hmm and so do you play on that at all like i’m just thinking of the whole

49:18

daridian thing you know that um the quote uh i i

49:24

have it here he states such a flower always bears within itself its own double whether it be the seed or

49:31

the type the chance of its program or the necessity of its diagram and you’ve done both really

49:36

because as a seed it would have continued to bear seed and and live on but then when

49:42

you immortalize it in a vase it’s a different life right yeah it really

49:48

doesn’t i always think that um even in a garden a lot of times you don’t see every flower so

49:54

i try to make every flower have its own space in its own um character and voice and vision

50:02

and yeah in the still life similarly i think um uh you know takes a long time to grow

50:09

flower and to think about it and have it so when when the flower’s picked and cut

50:14

of course it’s gonna die so um and i um i always find that very odd that you

50:21

that you um you know you can go into a store and you can be

50:26

bob you know so many pails of beautiful flowers and you sort of think oh they’re nice so sad so um you really

50:33

have a feeling that you know when i do take a flower and i put it in an arrangement as and a still life and

50:41

everything i want to give each of them a special place and have them a life

50:46

yeah and it’s it is it’s interesting how uh so why do you have the moose

50:54

on the left side in both pants yeah i i just think i wanted to give the idea

51:01

that this is a canadian painting from western canada and so sometimes i just like to put the

51:07

our animals in it so i like to have their own context give you context yeah contest so it gives it i think as

51:14

often uh landscape people have a sense of place yeah in their work and a lot of people

51:21

that write have a sense of their origin or sense of place in their writing well for me um i’d like to have

51:30

a sense of place in my still life and i want them to be as important as my landscape so i do

51:36

sometimes borrow a moose or a coyote or something and just pop it in there

51:42

yeah it’s interesting to you that you have the the checkered pattern um in the garage yeah

51:51

yeah it’s a great way to integrate it into the piece yeah and i think yeah it’s part i guess

51:56

it’s part obsession i also like the idea that that um

52:01

there’s an overall uh design feeling in a way and some of these still lives that have patterns and

52:08

things that yeah and then also with some flowers that maybe aren’t even from the same season i

52:14

don’t mind if we mix them up like that to a little bit like the dutch yeah

52:20

and also i like the um or i appreciate the your use of line how you have the

52:26

red lines but you’ve allowed the white so is the white the actual canvas

52:38

now we have another question do you do you do commissions yes i do of course yes okay wonderful so

52:46

they can contact either peter robertson gallery or the art gallery of alberta

52:51

yeah either way yeah but but um everything now is going through peter so

52:57

and it’s a wonderful to belong to a good gallery it’s very very important for an artist and so i’m thrilled to be there

53:03

and i do take commissions and have done lots and often i do um try to do two pieces so that the

53:11

that they have a choice or sometimes they just direct me um as to what they want for a

53:17

specific place right sometimes it there’s there’s sometimes there’s a lot of freedom too

53:22

they just say they want something a certain size and whatever yeah but it is actually really

53:29

wonderful to work on the commission because then you don’t have to keep thinking of what to do although i never really have too much trouble

53:34

thinking of what it gives me a it’s like um it’s like a

53:40

puzzle yeah so which is really interesting to figure out right yeah yeah do you

53:47

ever do often go into their spaces and and get a sense so yes

53:52

and everything yeah are you going sometimes i’ve gone into people’s gardens and taking photographs and looked at them oh that’s

53:59

and rearrange them for them and then i put them in a painting that’s great it’s a great idea a lot of fun to do that yeah yeah

54:08

all right so we only have a few minutes left uh i guess i should reach out to

54:15

um the attendees does anyone have a question that they’d like answered before we’re done

54:24

it doesn’t look like it i have another comment from the client who owns uh she says i have a large landscape on

54:31

lexan that is backlit installed in a den that has no window the effect is remarkable gives such an

54:38

open feel so that’s wonderful good thank you for for telling me that i

54:43

just love to know that people enjoy them and that they have a space and a place for them that

54:49

they work that’s wonderful wonderful yeah yeah great

54:56

and we also have um your link available to the attendees uh just so they can view your your work

55:02

at either peter peter robertson gallery or at the aga includes your bio yeah and i have a and

55:09

i also have a website um but it website is i don’t know

55:15

it’s got a lot of a lot of work and a lot of it is gone most of it is a way for me to save some

55:21

of my images too but um but it’s it’s got a lot of things a lot of variety in it

55:27

yeah yeah it’s nice to see that again the history of the different bodies of work and yeah

55:34

yeah we have a comment uh thanking us for thanking you for the beautiful

55:40

interlude to to her day it’s lynn i’m not sure if she’s

55:46

oh nice yeah yeah thank you and i have

55:53

another question do you have a regular work schedule um well i used to be much more regular

55:58

when the kids were living at home and they went to school or my husband went to work so he’d go to work and i’d

56:04

i go to my work and i worked a little longer then but now now that he’s retired he he wants me to

56:11

be around more so i’m working less i’m finding it harder to work as i get older a little more arthritic in the

56:17

hands and not and difficult more difficult to use my hand-eye coordination things so it’s

56:22

just a lot of things aging isn’t easy but um i still try to work

56:27

four hours a day so i usually work in the morning if i can for about four hours or i try to get it

56:33

in and i try to work every day if i can yeah that’s that’s really yeah

56:38

i’ve heard that said a lot uh where artists say it’s you show up you show up you show up and then boom there’s the moment and

56:45

everything happens in this small window but you just have to keep showing up right yeah yeah absolutely sometimes you just

56:51

rearrange things yeah but it is it is very interesting to keep working and it’s also really

56:57

interesting to have several things going at the same time so that you can always go in with something to to start working on

57:04

right away i love that i love that feeling of um and i love working alone in my studio even though

57:10

it doesn’t have a window it’s not so fabulous anymore it’s and then the building is pretty

57:16

not great but i tell you it’s a magical place for me i don’t even need music i just

57:23

work so yes where i can have a dialogue with my own

57:28

color drawings paintings whatever and works yeah perspective

57:35

yeah i i can i can appreciate that i have so many nice comments can you see the

57:40

the chats the chat bar no i can’t see the chat bar well we have so many beautiful comments

57:47

thanking you for the talk and for sharing beautiful as always um thank you for the presentation and we

57:55

we’re actually um it’s time to wrap it up it’s been it’s been absolutely wonderful

58:02

um is there anything in closing that you’d like to share from your lifetime

58:07

experience as an artist you have two minutes okay well the most important thing is that i can talk about

58:13

my work to someone who’s interested in hearing about it because i think my friends are mighty bored

58:18

and they don’t want to listen to you much more and because it is so much a part of you so

58:24

i just appreciate so much this opportunity um and i hope i didn’t sound

58:30

too ridiculous but oh it was wonderful i just love the opportunity it’s just so

58:37

marvelous that there is an interest in my work and that’s interesting too because you say you’re

58:43

introspective in the studio but it really is that that collaboration that

58:48

that second voice uh to share oh it’s just some kind of

58:53

insight i’m sure it’s it’s really great for your practice too it is just so wonderful to have someone

59:01

say i have the painting and i’ve had it for 10 years and i still love it i’m

59:06

thinking oh isn’t that wonderful yeah so good maybe maybe i’ll just get back in that studio and work a little

59:12

harder not lose my confidence or my energy because

59:18

it’s uh it’s wonderful and i appreciate it so much i appreciate the interest yeah well it’s

59:26

been it’s been an absolute pleasure lynn uh thank you so much for for yeah sharing your experience and

59:34

uh talking us explaining some of the processes it’s been great oh thank you

59:42

enjoy the rest of your day i don’t think it’s going to snow i hope it’s not going to snow i’m going to quickly run

59:47

downstairs and get myself a good big cup of coffee before i attack the world

59:52

wonderful thank you thank you for everything rachel i appreciate your vision

59:59

thank you thank you it’s been a pleasure good bye now bye bye

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