Patricia Doyle is a visual artist residing on the Bella Vista Hillside in Vernon, BC. While her primary medium is glass she also works in metal, acrylics, mixed media, felt, clay, videography and photography.

Doyle's works are usually centered on both her love and awe of nature and her quirky sense of humour. She uses art to convey her vision of the world being a more harmonious and beautiful place.

Doyle teaches fused glass and glass bead-making classes at the Vernon Community Art Centre. She also teaches one week intensive glass bead making courses at Red Deer College's Summer Series in Alberta every few years. She also hosts and produces a cable TV show with Shaw called Artisan's Alley that showcases notable artists and artisans from the North Okanagan.

While she does a limited number of shows and sales throughout the year, her work is available for purchase in a number of stores and gallery shops in Western Canada.

www.bellavistaglass.com

www.thelifethroughglass.wordpress.com

Bella Vista Glass Art on Facebook

Bellavistaglass on instagram

Born and raised in British Columbia's spectacular Fraser Valley, glass artist Nancy Dearborn has always sought to echo the beauty of the natural world in her art. The call to create began early in Nancy's life, beginning with interests in painting and photography. Her love of colour and texture opened her to the world of glass and it was through this medium that she found freedom as an artist .

In 2004 Nancy relocated to the Okanagan Valley where she is inspired by the breathtaking views that surround her. She works from her studio nestled in the solitude of towering trees in the hills overlooking Okanagan Lake.

Nancy has become known for the highly textured surfaces that she achieves by using a unique process of hand-hammering glass.  The piece is then built layer upon layer, producing light-catching angles and contrast of colour. Many of her works are comprised of thousands of fragments that return to the kiln for several firings.

Nancy's art work can be found in galleries and private collections in Canada, the United States, Mexico, South America, Australia & the UK.

Diane De Roo is a botanical artist who has developed her own unique style. Utilizing the vegetables, herbs and flowers cultivated from her cottage garden, she creates a collection of show-stopping wall hangings. Throughout her 30 plus years of practice, Diane has developed a range of drying, pressing and casting techniques for capturing the beauty of her homegrown plants in her art.

Diane’s pressed work uses delicate cross sections of her subject. She creates these paper thin slices by using a razor to cut through the centre of the vegetable, preserving the roots, stems and seeds. Diane has spent years developing her skills and creating a unique process where she is able to press and dry these perfect cross sections to use in her art. Diane’s finished works en-capture the vivid colours, varied textures and delicate inner details of each vegetable.

In Diane’s latest collection she focuses on traditional representation of herbarium specimens as art. Diane’s cast pieces are directly inspired by this art form and have pushed her professional practice. For her cast work, Diane meticulously transfers the delicate veins, tendrils and flowers of her plants into a clay mold, and then encases them in plaster medium. Diane’s new botanical relief tiles showcase intertwined leaves, herbs and flowers, reminiscent of an exuberant, free-flowering cottage garden.

All of Diane’s work is inspired by her love of nurturing plants in her backyard oasis, her ever- growing interest in art and botany, as well as the calming and meditative place that is her cottage garden. Diane as an artisan aims to draw the viewer in, and surprise them as they look more closely into the intricate beauty of each piece.

Diane’s work has been showcased and highlighted in juried artisan shows across Canada since she started her craft. She has also exhibited in local boutiques, shops and art galleries.

Diane currently resides, cultivates and creates in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. 

Angelique grew up in a small town in the interior of British Columbia. Her jewelry creating journey began shortly after discovering her love of combining semi precious stones with silver many years ago. Angelique's artistic talents continued to grow while being commissioned to make one-of-a-kind pieces for weddings, birthdays, graduations and special gifts.

"I've been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of metalsmithing in a one-on-one environment in more recent years. I am extremely passionate about the design process. I love creating unique textures while working with mixed metals and beautiful stones as my visions come to life. My teacher and mentor felt I had a natural gift for designing, working with metals and gemstones which inspired me to follow my life-long dream of becoming a jewelry designer.

Sometimes I'll comprise a mix of stones for their complimentary healing properties and the other times for their sheer beauty." 

Hector Alec, a syilx artist, recently rediscovered his passion for art after putting his pen down for nearly 40 years.

The brightly-coloured work makes use of traditional syilx designs, patterns and elements. Using sharpies and drawing from spontaneous thought, Alec creates contemporary syilx art that depicts an array of animals and plants.

Alec, who is from snpink’tn (Penticton Indian Band), says he was interested in art from a young age. He discovered his passion for art while watching his stepfather and uncle in their studios.

“When I was really small, and he’d give me a pencil and pen. I remember I would draw block cars, and I remember the first time I figured out how to draw a face,” he says.

Much of Alec’s work now depicts birds because, to him, they represent freedom and strength.

“I used to have a motorcycle. I had two Harley-Davidsons. I love those things. I could get on them and go,” Alec says. “I love the freedom, and that’s what the birds are like. The birds are freedom, you know, wind (in) your face, and I’ve always been like that.

“I’ve been told that my artwork represents the true syilx design.”

Toni Cattani has been a dedicated member of the Penticton Potters’ Guild. Her donation of bowls to our much loved Soup Bowls Project are among the most coveted and sought after. She is a highly regarded member of the arts community and a great friend, supporter, and mentor to all she comes into contact with. In a pre-pandemic world, an opening or Gallery event would not be complete without her in attendance with her laugh and smile brightening the room. Her work can be found for sale in our Gift Shop and in many distinguished collections the world over.

Paul's first woodturning project was a full chess set at high school in Summerland. Turning then took a hiatus, but was never completely our of mind-the seeds were sown.

After several paths of education and career, Paul ended up back in the Okanagan in Naramata. Woodturning began as a way to use local woods to make utilitarian pegs, pulls, and knobs for other furniture projects, but soon the fascination of turning itself became an obsession. Paul makes a variety of bowls, grinders, boxes and unique small items from mostly local rescued and found woods. Each piece is unique and handmade.

In the future Paul would like to explore some of the historical technical aspects of woodturning such as handmade threads ("Thread Chasing"), and using his background in education to re-introduce woodturning to a younger generation.

My father was a TV repairman and from him, I learned to be fearless in confronting a problem and patient when the outcome was less than desired. My mother was a caretaker and took pride in a job well done. She taught me to be disciplined and to always take pride in my work. With these influences, along with my natural love of learning and a strong and persistent desire to create things, I taught myself to knit. And thus my journey into the creative world had begun.

My path began in the fibre arts. As a very tactile person, the feel of yarn and fabric was as important to me as the look of the finished product. I alternated between knitting and quilting. With my mother’s practical influence, I made functional items, but, never content to simply follow instructions, I regularly modified patterns to create unique and beautiful sweaters and quilts. My love of learning put me on a path to explore other mediums and led me to watercolour painting where the combination of colour selections and the paint’s tendency to move and flow created amazing images. Studies in acrylic painting enabled me to gain additional control over compositions and to add an element of texture my work.

Even as I studied and worked with other mediums, I have always been drawn to glass art. Glass has a very strong relationship with light and colour, with shadow and reflection, and with texture and dimension. A finished piece is dynamic and can change simply by changing the light around it. One fused glass bowl can become three glass bowls simply by displaying it in a sunny window and watching the morning, afternoon and evening reflections play. Naturally, I took a class in glass blowing. Unfortunately, I sucked at blowing. Although this seemed like a disappointing setback, it actually led me to take a fused glass workshop. It was as though the heavens opened up and the crepuscular rays shone upon me. I knew instantly that I had found my muse.

Destanne Norris was awarded a BFA (Honours) Degree in Painting and Drawing from the University of Victoria in British Columbia in 1987 and a Master of Fine Art Degree by Research at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia in 2009. She has also participated in a number of art-in-residence programs.

Following Norris’ 1995 exhibition, “Leah’s Gift”, which was held to commemorate and celebrate the short life of her young daughter and that included interrelated artworks which were made years before her daughter was born, Norris retreated into nature. Over time, Norris’ artwork organically transitioned from the land and mountains, through the water and some fire, then into the sky before venturing into the vastness of space and the mysterious cosmos landscape.

“With a practice that has consciously connected to the physics of spiritual sensation through her own life experience” writes Julie Oakes, Headbones Gallery owner, an overarching theme in her landscape painting is the mirroring of ‘inscape and landscape’.

Norris' paintings have been exhibited in Canada, Australia and Germany in Public, University, Artist-Run and Commercial Galleries. Her paintings have been purchased by many national and international private collectors and found in corporate and public collections:  the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Penticton Art Gallery, Jasper National Park, the Consulate General Japan, Finning Canada to name a few. She is represented by Gallery Odin, Silver Star Mountain, BC.

In 2020, Norris published her first book, "Leah's Gift: A Story about Reframing Loss". For more information see Book, Testimonials, Interview tabs. In addition, a documentary film, "Beneath the Painted Surface", about her art-life was produced and released in 2020 by independent filmmaker Brian Taylor of En Queue Film is available to be watched on You Tube.

My name is Paula Schneider and I am a potter living in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. I create mainly functional ware that is meant to be used and enjoyed. My pieces are mainly thrown on the wheel and I try to incorporate interesting aesthetic through the interaction between texture and glaze. I use techniques such as sgraffito, mishima, and inlay to depict images that are inspired by the things that I love about the Okanagan Valley. You can follow me on Instagram @hairofthedogpottery

Joel Reid has developed a unique art style, drawing on the traditions of abstract expressionism. His raw and emotionally-charged paintings have a graphic quality and signature of urban graffiti, but his works are more introspective. They are not specifically intended to make people feel, see, or think anything in particular, but rather to communicate visual concepts that are authentic and deeply meaningful to the artist. His works have been described as deceptively simple and very powerful.

Joel has created unique Penticton centric t-shirts, tea towels, and paintings for purchase here in the Gift Shop! In fact, the staff here at PAG loved it so much, you might see us wearing a few of his creations.

Lu-Pins are the unique artistic paper creations of Lois Kurp. “Lupines” are also the name of gaily-colored flowers, native to Eastern Canada and Europe (as well as the theme of a Monty Python sketch).

Lois Kurp recently lived in Saskatchewan, Canada and presently resides on the west coast, in Victoria, BC. She originally concentrated her artistic endeavors on flower themes, which have since blossomed into a myriad of colors, textures and mediums. Besides original multi-media art pieces, Lois’ main focus these days is on custom hand-crafted earrings, which are featured in our galleries.

Visit lu-pins.com for more information