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Kars-based artist Shelley Leach was 14 years old when her painter mother packed up her steel-toed boots and oil paints and headed to the arctic. Now, Leach has embarked on her own artistic adventure: one that she hopes will draw attention to a campaign to protect a Quebec river.
Leach’s journey began in 2008, when she headed to a friend’s remote fishing camp on the Dumoine River, near La Vérendrye Wildlife Reserve. While she left home anticipating a relaxing vacation in the bush with friends, the rugged landscape made an impact on her.
“You walk in, and it’s just wilderness,” she said. “It just takes your breath away.”
From the towering black spruce, red and white pine and birch trees to the rugged rocky cliffs, the remote and mostly inaccessible landscape spoke to Leach. When she returned from that trip, she picked up her brushes – and hasn’t looked back since.
“I’m doing it almost like a personal mission,” she said. “It might take me 10 years. It might take me a lifetime.”
So far, Leach, 40, has spent a total of about six weeks travelling the northern portion of the river, mainly by motorboat and canoe. In three trips, she has traversed about 20 kilometers of the 129-km river so far.
Leach has been taking her time travelling the river with friends, lingering in different locations and absorbing the atmosphere and experience of each site.
“It was about using your imagination,” she said. “It wasn’t just about painting, it was about noticing small things.”
For the Dumoine series, Leach said she gathers resource materials, including photographs, sketches and notes on the details of the landscape, and only puts her brush to the canvas weeks after she has returned home and absorbed the experience.
“I just start painting and see what comes out,” she said, noting that the places that conjured a strong emotion or memorable experience are usually what form the content of the paintings.
She sees her paintings as the embodiment of a unique experience and a geographical record, rather than simply a piece of art in its own right.
Most of the river is inaccessible by land vehicle, so the main way people travel there is by float plane. About 1,000 people travel the river each year, Leach said – mostly paddlers travelling with group tours.
She will be heading back to Quebec for her first winter trip in March, because she hopes to capture the river’s landscape during every season.
In 2008, the Quebec Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks announced interim protection for about a third of the Dumoine River watershed. After starting her series, Leach learned that the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) had been campaigning for the river’s protection since about 2003 and decided to pitch a partnership to the group. She is invited to display her paintings at CPAWS events in the area and she donated 15 per cent from the sales of paintings from the series to the cause. So far, Leach has donated $460 to CPAWS.
“It gives me the opportunity to put my art where it has value – where the everyday person can see it,” she said.
Dare to be Deep
One of those opportunities led to the experience of a lifetime for Leach last week when she was invited to display her paintings at the Museum of Nature for the Dare to be Deep event hosted by CPAWS as part of a nationwide tour.
The gala event featured traditional cultural performances from the Haida First Nation to celebrate the creation of Canada’s first deep sea National Marine Conservation Area in British Columbia’s Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve waters – formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. Leach’s paintings formed the backdrop for the event, which also included talks from marine scientists and conservationists.
The event was a new high for Leach’s artistic career.
“It was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had in my life,” she said. “I would have never dreamed, three years later, that I would be hauling my art into the Museum of Nature with Haida First Nations dancers performing in front of my paintings.
“It was just an honour. I was on cloud nine,” she said.
Mom’s influence
The Dumoine River project has really opened Leach’s eyes to the influence her mother’s artistic career had on her own life and her work as an artist.
Pilfering her mother’s paints was Leach’s first artistic experience when she was seven or eight years old. She has always painted on the side, but gave up her career as a technician at Ottawa hospitals in 2007 to paint full-time.
Mary Louise Leach was a Canadian painter who was known not only for her landscapes, but also her thoughtful portraits of military life. With her husband, Bill Leach’s lifelong career in the military, Leach’s mother had a particular insight into the seemingly insignificant moments that define life for families living the military lifestyle, and she was commissioned by the military to travel to Canada’s far north to document military family life. She was also an artist for National Geographic magazine.
Mary Louise Leach passed away seven years ago at age 57 due to cancer.
“It was 1984 and I was 14 when my mom did her first trip,” Leach said. “She had her army boots on, she took shooting lessons … It was really inspiring. I don’t think I realized that until I was much older,” Leach said. “It just took guts.”
Her mother’s approach to art taught Leach to look for a niche angle in what she does.
“I saw what makes people successful. It’s not painting what everyone else paints.”
Leach’s Dumoine trip is emulating her mother’s journey in the sense that adventure can lead to great art, but the younger Leach wants to blaze her own trail.
“I didn’t want to follow in my mom’s footsteps literally. I wanted my own adventure,” Leach said. “Dumoine is the first step in my adventure.”
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