It's a bold sky and a bright start for artist Lucie Bause
by Shari Bishop Bowes
She isn't much for pastels, this much is certain. Many a Canadian Rocky Mountain scene is depicted in soft pastels and watercolours blending forest to mountain to sky.
The bold strokes of Canmore artist Lucie Bause, however, paint a much more colourful - and decidedly magical - landscape of the area and its natural beauty.
"I use the word stylized," Bause says, describing her painting style as she gives a tour of the sunny Canmore apartment which does double duty as her home base and gallery of recent works.
Perhaps Bause's style is more accurately linked to her study of magical realism in literature at university. "I think it's something that comes into my paintings."
Canmore artist Lucie Bause in her home studio with "Johnston Canyon" painting.
No doubt about that. Colours take on a life of their own in acrylics - such as one titled Bow Valley View. This painting at first glance might be a view so typical to area residents as not to merit further glance. But further contemplation of a wandering Bow River, with forest stretching beyond to the stylized mountains and painfully blue sky evoke a feeling as much as a memory of this place. Buoyancy, air and light would well describe the feeling you would have, coming upon this perfect blue sky day on the river. Pastels in this scene would have you snoozing by the riverside, and missing the view altogether.
Bause has been painting seriously since 2000, when she was living and working at a retail job in the mountain community of Lake Louise. She decided to do some travelling, and while away decided the time was right to throw herself headlong into her passion.
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These days, Bause is living in Canmore and happy to have her paintings hang in a handful of local spots, and even happier when they attract attention to her Web site, www.luciebause.com. The Coffee Mine and Melange restaurant show her work in Canmore, with art cards of her work available in the Whyte Museum Shop in Banff and Café Books in Canmore. She has had her own exhibition of a series called Areaworks, in Banff, and shows with other members of the Canmore Artists and Artisans Guild in the local library gallery.
"I decided it might as well be the thing I wanted to do," she says. A degree in English literature may have been put to use in many different careers, but Bause began by using hers to hound the owner of Mountain Light gallery in Lake Louise to hang a few of her paintings. It was the start she needed, as her colourful scenes were immediately popular and sold quickly.
Bause grew up in Ontario and took her education in Peterborough - but it was always the mountains that called out to her for summertime work, and eventually, as a permanent home.
Bringing with her some inspiration from Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris - himself known to favour both Ontario Shield beauty and the grandeur of the Canadian Rockies - Bause now loves nothing better than to spend time outdoors taking photos and drinking in the beauty that inspires her paintings.
Many of her favourite scenes can be found in her former home base of Lake Louise, Lake O'Hara and beyond to Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park, but her body of work continues to broaden as she hikes, skis and canoes in new mountain places.
This summer, she hopes to work in plenaire, or, as the French would have it, right out in the middle of all that beauty with nothing but an easel, her paints, and more fresh air than some cities have seen in a decade. In her future, she'd love to take on some commissioned works and gradually ease into the life of a full-time painter.
In the meantime, she has the support of her employer in Canmore, Wilderness Homes by Riverdale, a local homebuilder that has purchased one of her large works to hang in a showhome.
She also has the inspiration that comes with sharing her considerable talent with others - in painting classes held in Canmore and Banff as part of their continuing education programs.
While the life of a full-time painter still lies in her future, Bause appears content to work hard at her colourful paintings, with colourful strokes ranging from the whimsical to the bold. It's a bright start indeed.
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