Well hello there happy camper, I hope your summer (assuming you’re in the Northern Hemisphere) has been going ok, and you’ve managed to make it through back to school/almost pumpkin latte season intact. 😊 First up I apologize for the long delay between posts — as you may have noticed, the world is rather in flux right now, and I’ve been working on some projects so the combo meal deal meant I couldn’t write before now. Plus of course dealing with trying to regain some mobility in my herniated disc, that’s been very unenjoyable to work around to put it mildly, but I’m getting there. ❤️
A while back I had the lovely fortune of speaking to fellow artists Paige and Jordana of the Creativity Café Podcast. Ironically we all share the experience of living in Japan (them currently, and me for four years before I joined the RCAF). We had a lovely chat, and if you’d like to listen to this episode you can listen below.
I also managed to finish this series of oil paintings, they’re all 15” long x 9” wide. I decided to call it “Reflections” for obvious reasons, but also because the health of the ocean is directly tied to our health on land. Did you know more than 50% of the world’s oxygen comes from the ocean, from plankton? The ocean is absolutely astounding and I feel so fortunate to live next to it (and have spent most of my life next to the Pacific Ocean, whether it was in Canada, Japan, or New Zealand).
I’m wanting to sell this as a set to help raise money for the Whale Interpretive Centre in Telegraph Cove — if you haven’t heard me talk about it, it was an absolutely magical place on Northern Vancouver Island, and tragically it burned to the ground (along with several other businesses, a historic home, and most of the incredible historic boardwalk), it was built as a coastal telegraph station in the early 1900s. Pictured above is an image of the WIC and the boardwalk that was destroyed in the fire (the WIC is the red building in the lower right of the right hand photo). Telegraph Cove and the WIC have a very special place in my heart, I almost became a marine biologist because of spending time at the WIC (I lived in the next nearest town, Port McNeill). They are in the process of rebuilding, so I want the sale of this series to help fund that process, the work they do with education and research is so important. If you know of anyone who might be interested in purchasing these to help support whale conservation and education (or be open to me reaching out sharing the series with them), please do let me know. You can leave a public comment or just reply to this if you’re reading it as an email.
Speaking of marine conservation, in the past few weeks I’ve done several marine tours, one was whale watching with Orca Spirit Tours, and one was a birding tour with Eagle Wings Tours. For the Eagle Wings one (top two photos are courtesy of them), we went out looking for puffins and we found some, this cute little dude is a Tufted Puffin. They’re SO CUTE, and I’d never seen a puffin in the wild. We also saw so many other birds, like Common Murres, various gulls, and a ton of Brandt/Pelagic/Double-crested Cormorants (in the upper right). With Orca Spirit we were lucky enough to have a humpback whale come right under our boat twice (which was a little freaky, but they’re such beautiful animals), and of course a ton of Steller and California sea lions. We even saw some Bigg’s Orca hunting, the huge six-foot tall dorsal fin of the males slicing through the water is simply breathtaking to see in person. 😍
I’ve also been working really hard to coordinate with a BC photographer/filmmaker, Ian McAllister, and his conservation organization Pacific Wild. We’re still figuring out details, but Ian has given me permission to use some of his stunning photos to paint from and I’ll donate a portion of any of the sales to Pacific Wild to help with their work. This image is of a Sea Wolf (also known as a Coastal Wolf), this is a distinct species only found along the Pacific Northwest coast. About 85% of their diet is based on the ocean, they are simply incredible elusive magical creatures. This painting is done from one of Ian’s most iconic photos, I just wanna boop his little nose! 😍 I also have been learning how to do my own wooden frames, so this was my first go at doing mitre joints and float framing. I’m happy with how it came out, I think the wooden frame really complements the colours of the wolf (the wolves have a lot of rust colours in their coats to blend in with the seaweeds along the shoreline). ❤️
And as a final note, I wanted to say that I made the very difficult decision at the end of August to close off art print shipping to the US for the time being. US Customs is trying to make shippers pre-pay the tariffs (and with the end of the de minimus in the US, that puts a huge burden onto sellers for tariffs that actually are import taxes, not export taxes). It’s awful, but there is no real other choice. If anyone does want to purchase any original art, I **might** be able to figure that out via couriers, but please know the costs may be much higher than with standard shipping. Right now digital items like my stitching patterns and Skillshare classes do not incur tariffs unlike what physical shipped items coming into the US do. Also if you’re in the US and order any items from my Spoonflower shop (home decor, wallpaper, and fabric), they won’t be hit with tariffs as those items are printed in and ship from North Carolina.
Also, I am considering turning on paid subscriptions to this Substack as a way for people to support me — it would be totally optional to have a paid subscription, and paid subscribers likely won’t get too many (or any) extra perks for now. But, it would be a way for you to help support what I do if you can’t or don’t want to purchase any of the items I currently have for sale. Right now, people can “pledge” their support monthly or yearly, and if I turn paid subscriptions on then those pledges will be charged to your credit card. Things are changing so rapidly, any support people can give helps stabilize my capacity to keep creating for you all, to keep contributing my energy and skills. If you’re already a free subscriber, you should be able to see the purple “Pledge your support” button at the top of any of my posts on Substack (like you can see in the screenshot below). If you’re not already subscribed, pledging your support is an option when you do subscribe.
Every little bit does help, please let me know what you think in the comments or hit reply. I won’t be turning on paid subscriptions without an official “I’ll be doing it after x date” in a future post, so those who have pledged can get enough heads up that a charge will be appearing on their credit card. And thanks so much to all who have already pledged your support, I really do appreciate it (and if you’ve changed your mind/your situation has changed and you want to cancel your pledge, absolutely no problem). If you have questions, please feel free to ask, I know Substack isn’t the most familiar platform to many. ❤️🇨🇦
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