“It is the actual act of painting. It is almost meditative. I’m so much in the present with myself, that’s where I’m the most me and the most comfortable.”
“It’s also a way I can express the beauty that is around me,” she continued. “Literally, ‘beauty everywhere’ is always in the back of my mind. Especially when things are tough like they are now.”
In the last three years, she has been putting in more time, honing in on her style. She turned 40 this year and her goal was to put on her first show at the 1894 Gallery in Boissevain to celebrate. However, COVID changed that. Instead, she released it online. Heide finished 14 paintings for the show and they are at lisajoelle.ca.
Why now? She said there was more time, as her children are all in school. This prompted what Heide called a “mom moment”, when they start thinking of ‘what next’? The farm is still the big family project, but she wanted something that was hers, and she wanted the challenge.
“It was also kind of the audacity of ‘could I do it?’”
She started painting for this series in November 2019. One of the works was accepted by the Rural and Northern Juried Art Show run by the Manitoba Art Network. It was called “Half Green and Half Dead”, and was sold at the show.
She uses different media and tools in her painting. For example, her painting of Boissevain’s iconic water towers uses sheet music she painted on top of. Heide said her skies are always just paint, but does the ground or other areas with more texture.
Heide said there are many artists who inspire her. She named New England artist Jess Franks, who paints landscapes, often using fluorescents, as one. As Heide explained, Franks shows you can expand the colour spectrum in a work and not just show things as they appear at first glance.
“Artists inspire me when they capture what’s there, and then interpret it through their own lens of what is important or what is beautiful,” she stated. “It’s not just the artists who paint the same things as me that are inspiring.”
The recent collection is called “I Just Needed to See the Sky” and focuses on that recognizable feature of the prairies. Heide said she walks her lane pretty much every day, and 90% of what she paints comes from pictures of what she sees on those walks. She is unsure if there is a name for her style, saying someone else would have to do that. Her art is not super detailed, but it has to be appreciated as a larger work.
The next project is to paint a variety of florals she can release on line just before Valentine’s Day - you can buy a painted bouquet for your valentine. Right now, she has just sent something over to the Killarney gallery, and is open to doing commissions. She has prints available of three paintings and greeting cards will also soon be ready.
As for the future, expanding her art will be a part of it.
“Just wherever I find myself, I’m open to it.
by PAUL RAYNER, Recorder staff