Savour Life – Art Installation #1 – my friend Louise Savoie’s art show June 7 – 8, @ArtCentral Calgary

My friend Louise Savoie (Lou Lou) helps me savour my life. She is an artist. My home and life are touched by her work as an oil painter and by the richness of our friendship. I’m excited to announce a show she will be featured in here in Calgary and I want to tell you a bit about her work from my perspective.

Savoie worked as an interior designer in Montreal and has studied with many contemporary painting masters across North America. She has raised a family and moved from her native Quebec home to settle in Calgary over a decade ago. Since all of her children are grown she now has the time to devote herself to her dream of sharing her paintings with people who will appreciate and enjoy them.

I believe Savoie has the ability to capture the nuances of life. Each time I pass her paintings on the walls of my home during the activities of my daily life I relive subtle meanings and feelings portrayed so effortlessly with her brushstrokes. There are portraits of my son and my husband at the beginning and end of this post that express their spirits completely. Sometimes I just stop and breathe and remember all the sweet things I felt at the times the paintings were done. That’s the power of her art for me – that it inspires me to stop and savour my life. This makes me very grateful to count such a talented person as one of my dearest friends, as you can well imagine.

My favourite element and life force is water. My favourite colour is blue. I was born in the eye of a hurricane and grew up living next to the ocean. My parents still live in our family home about 50 meters from the Atlantic. We had a cottage on a lake a half hour inland. I spent 8 – 10 hours a day in or on the water as a kid. I think of the waves of the ocean as God breathing. I used to sit on a rock and listen to them. I’d watch the seagulls glide above me, breathe the ocean’s tangy air and let a gentle sea breeze caress my cares away when I was a teenager. My friend knows these things about me. For my 50th birthday she gave me a painting of sailboats lined up at a dock on the island of Malta. They look like they are floating to me in a dreamy blue vision instead of sitting on the waters of that warm far away island country. Her housewarming gift to my family was a painting of the sand dunes of Oregon leading down to the ocean below. It hangs over the landing of my stairwell and it makes me feel like I might be going to the beach each time I go to the basement. I have my favourite view of Lake Okanagan and a painting she did from a picture I took of bathhouses on Brighton Beach near a dear friend’s home in Melbourne, Australia. These gifts of water-themed paintings have the power to soothe my soul.

I also love my land-locked life in Alberta. I love the mountains, the rivers, the wide open plains, the big blue sky and the fact that nature is so accessible. Savoie has captured our hikes around Lake Louise and our times skating there in winter. I’m passionate about the farms, farmers and the roots of our food in Alberta. Savoie recently painted a favourite expedition of mine where I sat in a field on a ranch and photographed bison roaming by me with my zoom lens. That was a thrill for me. I relive that hot and dusty sultry September day surrounded by the dramatic presence of Alberta’s indigenous beasts each time I look at it. That’s the magic of a great painter to me. They have the ability to communicate the essence of their subject. The bison, the wide open space, the big sky; Louise Savoie takes me to the core of that day. If I were transported back thousands of years I could have experienced the same scene. The subject of my photo and her painting is the sense of timelessness those bison carry on their strong broad humped shoulders.

But don’t let me sway you. You can decide for yourself. We all decide what we enjoy and what will help us savour life. Here are

Louise Savoie's oil paintings.

I hope you will visit her group show in Calgary to see her talent up close and personal. She and a few friends are having a Pop Up Art Show next weekend. Here are the details as follows:

Elements Art Group Pop Up Art Show
Art Central Calgary 100 – 7 Ave SW
Friday, June 7, 4 – 9 p.m.
Saturday, June 8, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.