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By Heather Killen
The Annapolis County
SPECTATOR
December 22, 2011
The Annapolis County
SPECTATOR
December 22, 2011
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| Painting in the garden in Bear River. |
To any painter who feels glum about that cramped studio space at a corner of the dining room table, or in the back bedroom - take heart. Flora Doehler has a perfectly good studio and most of the time she doesn’t use it.
This
Bear River-based painter is now living her long-time dream. Her life is filled
with art and flowers. Best of all, she has a beautiful art studio that she
shares with her life partner and silversmith Larry Knox. Green Willow Studio is
a nice space with lots of good light, yet Flora’s best paintings seem to happen
in the yard.
Knox
said he loves to watch her work because it’s seeing art in motion. Almost like
a bellet of brushstrokes.
“It
just happens”, he said “She’ll be walking and suddenly stop. Then the paints,
the canvas, and the brushes disappear outside where she first saw the
painting.”
Studied in Toronto
Doehler studied fine arts and fine crafts at the Art Centre at
Central Technical School in Toronto where she was introduced to painting,
printmaking, and weaving. From there she went on to study painting in Berlin
and found the German Expressionists. She became mesmerized by printmaking
techniques of artists like Kathe Kollwitz and Wassily Kandinsky.
Until three years ago she lived mostly in Toronto where she worked
as a librarian in the school system. An avid gardener, she dreamed of a time
when she and Larry were able to pursue their art and life in the country.
“I love colour and texture”, she said. “And being in the elements
makes the whole process thrilling. I’m interacting with what I’m painting. I
hear the birds around me and feel the moment.”
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| Painting in the studio in winter. |
Paints From Life
She will work from photographs, but says she prefers to paint from
life. Completing a painting therefore can become a race against time and the
elements. In some cases the paintings take years to complete as she waits until
the scene emerges the following season.
“It is a great feeling to be present with a living flower and to
sense the life force of it,” she writes in her blog. “When a painting is
working for me, I get lost in it and I feel like I am channeling the essence of
the object of my gaze.”
Green Willow Studio is part of the Bear River Working Artists’
Studio Tour. For more information visit http://greenwillow.ca
or see them at 967 Riverview Road, Bear River. (902) 467-0553.
