Being a person who loves the out-of-doors I can enjoy my surroundings whether standing on a mountaintop or walking a deep, remote valley. A stream full of trout or a forested trail, it matters not. Just being there is the important part. It is where the rhythm of nature matches the cadence of something within me. Usually, it means I’m in the perfect place at the perfect time.
That all said there are some very special places for me personally, places that speak louder than others to my spirit. These are locations that I’ve found and visited perhaps only once, others I’m able to visit more often. For me, a visit to Sedona, Arizona was such a place. So too the Lightning Lakes of Manning Park at sunrise own a very important place in my heart. Then there’s a little creek back home in Peterborough, Ontario, that creek I used to fish as a kid. These are places I can visit often, simply by closing my eyes. They are places of wonderful peace and very personal adventure. Their beauty and serenity will live within me for all my days. I hope everyone who reads this is fortunate enough to have his or her very own “special” places in this world. For me they are a dependable, soothing source of comfort and solace.
One such place for me is in Tofino, British Columbia. It’s a small beach really, particularly in the presence of its much bigger cousins Chesterman Beach, Cox Bay or Long Beach, but for me it’s the very best sunset beach in the Tofino area. Few people even know of the beach, let alone how to get there. It’s right in the Town of Tofino, and a cool green-forested boardwalk twists its way through the dark west coast rain forest to take you to this very special little place.
It was a sunset visit to Tonquin Beach that inspired this painting. Perhaps one of my most stylized paintings ever, this image is intended to project the mood of a Tonquin sunset rather than just the realistic image. Remarkable to me was the bank of clouds and fog in the distance out over the open Pacific Ocean. As the sun flashed its last rays and ducked below the horizon, it held its brilliant grip for just a few fleeting minutes longer right there on the glowing outline of the cloud-bank. The warm light, calm seas and fresh cool air of the evening created not only a lasting memory for me in my mind, it was the inspiration for this painting that refers as much to that magical little place called Tonquin Beach as it does to the glowing cloud bank in the distance. For me, Tonquin Beach is the “Silver Lining” to the wonderful west coast environment of Tofino and the west coast of Vancouver Island.
