If you find yourself in Williams Lake this month, you won’t want to miss two unique art exhibits on display at the Station House Gallery.
In the Main Gallery is a glimpse into the work of Roberta Robson with her show, Corners of Rooms in the Forest. Described as “large oil abstracts on canvas with a dream-like exploration of the connectiveness with relationship between humans, animals and landscapes,” Robson told the crowd gathered at her art show opening Oct. 5 that she’s a “product of art school in the ’60s” who has been obsessed with painting throughout her life.
“I’m starting to kick that addiction in my old age,” Robson joked with the crowd.
“I have a strong need to paint. It’s a strange obsession why people need to paint, but people have done thousands of years ago in caves and all kinds of things.”
Robson said one her favourite paintings is of a girl running, based on a poem by Margaret Atwood which she read aloud:
“I passed her at evening.
She was running, her arms stretched out in front of her;
I called but could not wake her.”
Robson spends her winters in Horsefly with her partner Charlie Bland. In the summer months she spends time at her home on Quadra Island. Charlie’s daughter, Lisa Bland, organized the show for her.
“I was thinking what an obsession it has been,” Robson told the Tribune of her art show.
“I’ve painted through marriages and divorces.”
In the Upper Gallery is the detailed work of Horsefly artist Theresa Augustin, whose show the Seeds of Love includes a display of hand-bound books, hand-painted clothing and intricate wall paintings inspired by her connection to nature and her life in Argentina for the last 12 years.
Davana Stafford, Station House Gallery executive director, introduced Augustin at the gallery opening, adding she is also “and the first and only person who’s ever gotten married at the Station House gallery.”
Augustin said during her early years living in South America she traveled a lot, living in the Andes, Peru, Bolivia and northern Argentina.
In more recent years Augustin and her husband José Attiolo Alonso have lived in their own space, an adobe home, built with earth by community members.
“We lived without a car, we lived without a bank account, we lived very simply. I gave yoga classes five to six hours a day so I spent a lot of time in that kind of frequency.”
Augustin said living in an adobe home is very different than living in a cement or even wood-built home. She brought some photographs of their home which is also on display with her art.
“It’s a very different feel so these images are a little bit of a sharing of that.”
Augustin said eight men helped build their home, and others’ homes, in the community, which is a way of life where they live and what inspired her latest art show.
“The whole space upstairs comes from the seeds of the heart. We lived from that space with everything we did.”
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