It takes an artist's eye to see the trees we all see every day, the moon we all see in the night sky so solitary each night, and draw those elements together to form the letter D.
Marie-Eve Lavoie lives on a forested farm east of the city. The landscape of her life informs her thinking. She has been a realist painter for almost half her life, and since her 17th birthday has yet to arrive, Lavoie also firmly wears the lenses of youth. Hers was the artist's eye that drew the crescent lunar phase and the skeletal bones of the limbless tree together into something else bigger and more than they were by themselves, while losing nothing of what they were individually.
She admits the striking image did not come to her in a flash. There was no epiphany, just hard work and practice. As much as art can be helped by a visionary mind, most of it is simply hard work.
"Even I can't explain it. I even surprise myself sometimes," said Lavoie. "At first I thought about just doing a letter and filling it in with something. I didn't keep that idea; it wasn't my style. I wasn't too sure how to approach it. I sketched a couple of thumbnail versions to get me thinking, just to see how to line up my thoughts. I reworked a couple of them, made some choices about what looked best. I finished it, or at least I thought I did, but when I stepped back and thought about it some more, I decided to rework it again."
Flip through the below slideshow to view the Alphabet Project art and a link to each artist story:
She finally put the brush down and had the fourth image to be unveiled in the Prince George Citizen's Alphabet Project, a partnership with the Community Arts Council in which 26 of the city's artists each contribute a randomly selected letter to the collection, revealed one per week in the Citizen Extra. Lavoie earned her spot with a body of work that defies her young age and lights a bright torch to guide her future.
She is getting strong leadership in her artistic pursuits. Her mother Caroline is also a painter, as is her younger sister Rafa'le, so the house is a hive of creativity. At little Giscome Elementary School she was encouraged to express her art, and at 10 years of age she got serious about painting. An art teacher at PGSS, Jennifer Pighin (acclaimed nationwide, with a letter of her own upcoming in the Alphabet Project), has ignited new levels of artistic passion.
Another key creator helping her along is last week's letter artist Christina Watts who runs the Ridge Side Arts online art service. About 20 local artists post their stuff for sale on the Ridge Side Art site, including all three of the Lavoie painters.
Acrylics are Lavoie's usual medium, but she does watercolours too and lately has been trying out oil painting. Almost everything starts with a sketch, though, and she uses photographs for references, like ones of the moon and the tree that she brought into focal connection in her D painting.
Just to prove she isn't a one-dimensional youth, she also helps look after the chores of the farm, has her own farm-based trap line and she has been dabbling at the guitar. Since she is largely self-taught in all these things, the future really is in her hands.
