A primary school teacher for the last 35 years, Barbara Stevens began painting 13 years ago. She apprenticed with Atikokan artist Alanna Marohnic, whose work she very much admired.
For a couple of years, Stevens would spend every Saturday working beside her mentor learning to paint. She developed and enhanced her own particular style of intense watercolours that has permeated her work ever since.
“Load your brush. That’s what Alanna always said,” recalled Stevens. “She also said that there should be no rush when it comes to painting.”
Stevens admitted she does struggle with timelines. Often months in the planning stages, every detail of each of her paintings is thought through in minute detail before it is translated onto canvas.
She describes this process as “incubation” and the actual painting as “birthing.”
“After years of the demands of teaching school, I look at painting as my time to be spontaneous and joyful,” enthused Stevens. “My paintings express my experience of the natural world.”
In direct contrast to many Canadians, Stevens goes north every winter to Yellowknife to visit her daughter—and to paint.
“There is nothing like the blue of a northern sky. Because days are short, everything seems more intense, more dramatic,” she explained.
Her northern paintings capture this intensity.
Stevens has been a member of the Fine Line Art Gallery in Fort Frances for the past four years. Come in and have a look at her unique watercolours depicting the land, lakes, and natural world.
See you at the gallery!
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
