Someone’s Sailboat in Oak Bay Waters: Looking Southeast to Chatham and Discovery Islands Acrylic on canvas, 18″x29″, 2010
The Lagoon on Chatham Island, acrylic on canvas 20″x40″, 2010
Chatham’s North Islet with Geese and Flotsam, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 18″x30″
At the end of last summer, we took our second trip to Chatham Island, just off the southeast end of Victoria, courtesy of Cap’n Jib and his Thunder Jet. I was anxious to go as I have wanted to get back there for some time in order to make some observations that I might bring back to the art table. Both islands lie less than 2km from the U.S. border which runs down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There Chatham and its sister isle stand like lush sentinels with Victoria to the northwest, the San Juan Islands to the east and the Olympic Mountains of Washington State to the south.
I must admit, I can’t get enough of this place. The island is actually a set of four small islands plus a bunch of dodgey rocks that can make navigation difficult. It lies next to its twin, Discovery Island , which is a BC Provincial Park. (Chatham itself belongs to the local native nation). These isles were named by Captain James Cook George Vancouver in the 1700s after his boats, HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham. However, as the native people of the Salish Sea had been visiting and living here for millenia, one supposes that they have other, more original names too.
These islands have a paradisical quality – lush and overgrown, they are filled with many species of trees, thick undergrowth in places and wildflowers galore. On a warm, sunny summer day, Chatham Island seems to call out to the shore saying: “C’mon… peace and tranquility await you this afternoon.” However, there is a flipside to being an island in this part of the world – winter storms. Both Chatham and Discover are properly battered all winter long and the evidence is plain. Many of the trees have lost their tops to wind and storm and the vegetation seems to cling to the island as though it often needs to hold on for dear life. For the rest of the year though, these isles are a haven for wildflowers, indiginous plant species and all kinds of birds. ( On my last trip there I spied an enormous flock of geese which vacated the meadow above upon my arrival.) There are beaches here too, though most of the shoreline is rocky and rugged.
The top image, Someone’s Sailboat in Oak Bay Waters shows the view from Oak Bay with Chatham and Discovery in the background. Most days when I look out at the sea, especially eastward from Oak Bay, I see bands and striping on the water’s surface, I suppose caused by wind or cuttents . It’s one of my favorite things to observe and to paint, though I have yet to get it 100% perfect. In July and August when the water is calm and the breezes play lightly with the surface instead of whipping the waters up into whitecaps and swells, the banded surface sparkles with all kinds of lightplay, creating a radiant glare. I wait all year to see this radiant, doldrum sea and this is what I’m driving at in this image. The sailboat made a nice, placid subject for the foreground.
The second image, The Lagoon on Chatham Island, shows the end of the lagoon at the center of the island, seen from the west side where there is a type of meadow that looks like it gets flooded with seawater from time to time. There is a cairn on the meadow and I wonder if it is the grave of Jimmy Chicken, one of Victoria’s more noteworthy historical figures. ( I’m not sure though – could just be a pile of rocks.) I found this one difficult – it was my first serious project after two years away from my acrylics and the scene was a little overwhelming. Here I wanted to convey the beauty of this meadow while preserving the rugged, weatherbeaten look of the island.
The last image, Chatham’s North Islet with Geese and Flotsam is sort of a mish mash of ideas. I changed my mind twice while painting this and then I added things that were not in the original plan. In the end, it became more of a sketch than anything else, a way to work out some ideas for future work. I am particularly interested in the vast amounts of flotsam that washes up on the shores of Vancouver Island and here we have a tangle of rope and lumber, two lost floats and a milk jug. It’s kind of sad that there is no end to the trash that piles up on the beaches – containers, bottlecaps, lumber, smashed-up pieces of plywood, old floats, styrofoam and a million other things show up on our shores. It comes from Asia, Alaska and Vancouver, following the currents that eventually sweep past the bottom of our island. it’s trash, but most flotsam is interesting to me – I like the idea that there are a billion objects out there, each with its own story, riding the waves and following the organic patterns of water and weather. Each piece of flotsam is destined to touch solid ground again but the mystery lies in when and where that will be. Somehow its presence makes a scene more interesting to me too, providing a break away from placid landscape images and the fluid, perfect lines of nature. Trash speaks to the presence of humanity; it’s angular, jagged, geometric, poisonous and unnaturally coloured. I like the juxtaposition, I suppose.
If the hearty Cap’n Jib will take us, I’ll definitely go back to Chatham. For now, I’ll have to be content with photos and drawings from our last visit.
art, paintings, Uncategorized, Victoria's South Shore
chatham, chatham island, jeff rode, Oak Bay, sailboat, summer clouds, victoria bc, west coast canada
Changing Weather, Williston Lake watercolour, 2012
Finlayson Point, acrylic, 2007
Pilot, watercolour, 2007
McNeill Bay, acrylic, 2006
Dark Weather on the Juan de Fuca, acrylic, 2006. Sold
Red Log, 2006, acrylic. Sold
Thorny Thicket, Acrylic, 2007.
