I thought the only reasons I painted were that I love messing about with paint, and I love how different types of light affect colour. I also enjoy seeing shapes and their relationships to each other. Recently someone suggested that perhaps I paint because of lifelong vision problems: I love seeing, looking at this world we live in, and recording my responses to it.

I paint on site, outdoors, more or less locally, in about a 150-kilometre (90-mile) radius from home. In Nova Scotia this includes the French Shore, the South Shore, and the Annapolis Valley and Fundy Shore. For a short time each summer I paint in the Passamaquoddy Bay area, especially Deer Island, New Brunswick and Eastport, Maine. I also paint at home and when visiting friends; what I see, or from my drawings and sketches; rarely from photos.

I paint whatever I enjoy seeing; our landscape because of its beauty, its fragility, and our vanishing way of life, and the changes each season brings. In winter I work mostly indoors; still lifes, house plants, and interiors denote my pleasure in the dailyness of home life. This interest in home comes from having moved frequently and my fondness for building; I have designed and helped build two houses and planned five major renovations.

Biography

Helen Opie was born in England, raised in the US during and after WW II, and moved to Canada in 1977. She majored in studio art at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio; earned an M.Ed. from Boston University. She has taught grade one, gardening, and art to people of all ages, as well as homesteading from 1964 to 1990.

She now enjoys being retired so she can paint more. She has no major accomplishments, her major distinction is in belonging to that group of people who are happy; nor has she any claim to fame other than being the oldest outdoors painter in her area. She was taught to paint abstractly and non-objectively when in college, but turned to figurative painting upon graduation. Her interest in visual perception may account for this shift: she simply enjoys having sight and celebrates that.

I thought that the only reasons I painted were because I love messing about with paint, and I love how different types of light affect colour. I also enjoy shapes and their relationships to each other.

Chapel Gallery of ArtsPlace, Annapolis Royal, September 14 through October 17, 2008

Come to Paint the Town, August 18-19 in Annapolis Royal Nova Scotia.

If you would like to purchase any of the pieces on this website, please email Helen or call
902 532-1212.