At the MAC October/November 2025

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Opening Reception, Saturday, November 1, 2025   1pm

Melinda has been involved in many artistic ventures from private and public murals to volunteer after school art programs, community “Art Start” workshops, Professional Development seminars for CUPE and BCTF and the B.C. Ferries Artist and Speaker program.  She is currently a director at the Pier Gallery Artist’s Collective on Gabriola Island where she lives with her husband after raising 5 children, various dogs, chickens, ducks and rabbits. Her works are in private collections in Australia, Europe, Asia and throughout Canada and the US.    …

Opening Reception, Saturday, November 1, 2025     1-3pm

I’ve always loved nature, but it wasn’t until my teenage years that I realized how deeply the natural world shaped my sense of well-being. On a trip with my parents from our suburban home outside Vancouver to camp on Vancouver Island, I noticed that as the landscape grew wilder and greener, the anxiety that I always carried with me began to ease.

The realization that I feel most at home among trees and the ocean has been a guiding force in my life ever since. It has led me to many beautiful places, including Hornby Island,…

October 28 – November 22, 2025

Opening Reception:  Saturday, November 1   1-3pm

As a blind artist, it might come as a surprise to most viewers, that I have a close and treasured relationship with colour.  In scientific terms I experience what is known as Charles Bonnet Syndrome.  Interested viewers can learn about this phenomenon by simply asking Google, or any of the AI platforms.  Alternatively, search for a very popular TED Talks by Oliver Sacks, which features his own experience with CBS.  Not all blind people see vibrant colour swirling…

Meaning is a driving force. Patricia allows and encourages the painting to speak for itself as she makes marks spontaneously and intuitively. A conversation develops as she paces back and forth while making those marks. Meaning emerges and she uses her design knowledge to resolve the painting in order to depict that meaning.

Her studies at the Ontario College of Art; her teaching of art in the Toronto District School Board; her…

The Crow Show

I stepped onto the beach at Cox Bay one recent spring morning and found mounds of the freshest and most interesting and colorful seaweed I had ever seen. Crows were everywhere and certainly inspecting the new additions to a beach smorgasbord. I started snapping pictures.

The camera picks up stance and dare I say, the idiosyncratic personalities of these black feathered creatures. The seaweed seems to reflect color and shape that is artistic and intriguing. Ohhhhhhh….the beauty of Mother Nature!

I have painted many compositions that flowed from that scene and some larger ones have been commissioned. Besides finding joy putting bird and flora together it is a lot of…