The Origin Story of Albion's Wake and Albion's Shadow

I’m often asked where I got the name “Albion” for my paintings of the landing across from the Surf Motel. It’s from a little tidbit of local history.

Albion’s Shadow

The steps across from the Surf Motel that lead to the ocean actually look out to Brotchie Ledge. Brotchie Ledge is a ledge of rock that lay just beneath the surface of the water. This made for dangerous sailing and in 1849 Captain William Brotchie crashed his ship, the Albion, onto its rocks.

I named the first painting from this view, Albion’s Wake. A wake for the crashed ship and a wake of the water. The second painting (above) I named Albion’s Shadow. It’s the last of the flickering light over the landing which resembles a ship on the ocean.

Brotchie Ledge claimed several ships and at first they attached a pole to the rocks to ward them away to safety. A ship crashed there and became the new beacon for 6 years before it was removed. A fisherman would row out every evening and place a light on the mast. They built a light beacon in 1898 and replaced it in 2005.

The beacon is just to the left of the composition so is not shown in the painting. I wanted to leave you the feel of the sea and the timelessness of the location. Thousands of sunsets have come and gone since the crash of the Albion.

Phillips Art Show

April news. I’ve been invited to do a solo art show at the Phillips Brewery! Everyone is invited for this one day event and I would love to see you there. Come by 2000 Government Street between 4 and 8pm to see me and/or the work. I will be available to chat. See you there!

Print Shop Update

As I am heading in some new directions I will be closing my print shop. Moving forward I will be adding a shop page with original artwork. I am very excited about this new move and feel it will better serve my art collectors. I want art to be abundant and accessible on my website. Thank you for your continued support while I liven up the place!

A Chapter of My Life

In 2006 I was working hard and looking forward to graduating with my Honours, Bachelor of Fine Arts. The year had been physically tough for me and I was very tired. I was in the Uvic medical clinic often for this and that. One day as I was working in my studio I put my brush down and went home.

What happened then changed my life. I made it to my couch with what I thought was a bad case of strep throat. A few days later, I called a friend to take me to the emergency department because I couldn’t bear the pain any longer. The next few weeks were a haze. I had been days or hours from dying from cancer. I was put into a helicopter and flown immediately to the Vancouver General Hospital. I spent the next year receiving chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant from my brother to treat a rare and aggressive form of cancer, Acute Mylogeneous Leukemia. After the transplant I had a 61% chance of surviving.

The treatment was gruelling and felt never ending. Eventually after a year or so I was able to come home. Home meant I still had to travel to Vancouver for follow ups, specialists etc. Chemo and being inside the hospital had a deadening affect on me. I missed the feeling of the breeze on my cheek and grass under my feet. I was robbed of sensations in my body, taste and smell.

But then something happened. After a while I started to come alive.

LEMON 2008

My body was vulnerable and I experienced bruising over my body that flowered and changed colour like blossoms. I reimagined the colours flourishing over my body. I imagined my new stem cells from my brother as stars, doing their magic in my veins. I wore my striped socks which felt like armour to my battered soul. I also wished for long hair to replace the short stubble I was left with.

And eventually I started painting again. I painted my grief, my sorrow and my gratitude. I painted the joy and the creativity which bloomed from me again.

Moving forward I will be exploring some themes from this time and painting of the figure. A lot of years have passed but I still have the fire in me that fuelled this work.

Artistic Transitions

You may have noticed my work is changing on my Instagram page. There are a few reasons why. One is I am very experimental and I like to explore new subjects, mediums and styles. I loved painting the Dallas Road scenes but I feel like that muse has moved on with the seawall being torn down. These paintings are like jewels from another time to me now. Lucking I have 7 paintings which I will release in the coming weeks. Sign up to my collector’s list to find out when and where they will be released.

My new work is close to my heart and is a continuation of a show I did called LEMON in 2008. LEMON was about coming back to life after cancer at 33 and a bone marrow transplant. They are self portraits and there is symbolism in every detail. My life has been forever altered from the illness and the treatment, I live day by day now. Art to me is a way to live. It encompasses all the grief, love, power, colour, softness and fierceness it is to be alive. I’m going to be working in this vein moving forward with light and colour. Keep watching, there is more to come!

Rose Currie from 2008

Words of Inspiration

These are some words that inspired my journey with my landscapes.

“The West Coast has its bright clear days where all is revealed, but I favour the grey mists, the rain obscured islands and the clouds that hide the details. However much we desire order and clarity in all the details of our lives, there are always unexpected events that could cloud and change our course. Life is ragged. The coast is like that, just enough detail to make it interesting but not so clear as to be banal or overwhelming. -Takao Tanabe 2001

How My Colour Pallet Came to Be.

I get asked a lot where I got my colour pallet from because the same colours show up in my work again and again. The soft colours, sea foam green, blues and pinks are my mainstays. They are close to my heart and I’ve never revealed what my main inspiration was.

I was diagnosed with leukemia at 33 and had a bone marrow transplant shortly after. I spent most of a year in the hospital in Vancouver. Day after day I was surrounded by sea foam green scrubs, walls, medical equipment, nurses uniforms etc. It was inescapable. I floated in a sea of green, blues and pinks for a year not knowing if I would survive.

At first it was completely alien. I felt like I could be lost in the folds of the blankets, sheets and medications. It felt like no one knew I was there and that no one would miss me if I didn’t come back.

The colours became a part of my struggle to stay sane and to live.

When I left the VGH cancer free I felt I left a part of me behind, I left the old me and something intangible. As I got back to creating I felt drawn to those same colours that kept me company. The soft pastels came with me and filled the canvases in surprising ways. As I convalesced I would take long walks along Dallas road. The colour came with me in the form of the seawall. I found it soothing to my soul.

I continued to use the colours in all my work and I started to realize they represented something more to me. They now represented my resilience and strength. I found healing through sea foam green, blue and pink along with the sea water. Art is the greatest healer (along with medical science of course).

Writeup for My Show, SALT

Salt is a corrosive and a preservative. Salt is where the ocean meets the land. Salt is in the air we breathe living next to the sea. I paint iconic places that lay like salt in our memories, preserved with nostalgia and corroded over time. Our city’s landscape is changing around us at a fevered pace and is unrelenting like the tides on the shore.

Timeless architecture is being torn down, changed and replaced. Places we know in our hearts are vanishing. New structures are replacing old. The salt of the sea makes its way underneath paint and corrodes. My intention was never to document the changes but to relish in the iconic architecture and ocean. I was a silent observer. My new collection of paintings is intended to help you smell the salt air and feel calmly at peace. Be the silent observer, bathe in the West Coast light and breathe the salt air.

Inspiration for the landscape series comes from walking the cool winter scape of Victoria's Breakwater and surrounding areas. Their large scale envelopes the viewer with the feel of salt air mist as well as the magic of the West Coast. Their minimalism steps into the realm of gentle colour fields.