Painter and creator of WorldArtTours.net, Angie Roth McIntosh is the Meadowlark Festival Featured Artist for 2010.Angie is a true Okanagan resident. She was born and raised in Kelowna and chose to return to the valley to raise her own family in Penticton. Angie has seen many changes in the south Okanagan over the last 40 years, and wants to share the beauty and fragility of the local landscape while working towards creating an awareness of ecological issues important to the region. During her journeys across the province to paint she says she has seen the melting of northern glaciers and the habitat loss, and the heating up of the southern pocket desert. It is her dream that the arts community will play a strong role in protecting and enhancing our precious land.
Angie studied in the faculty of Medicine at UBC where she met her husband Dr. Robert McIntosh while doing the Rural Doctors elective at the Penticton Regional Hospital. She left to pursue her interests in art after being encouraged to pick up a paint brush by the hospital art therapist. With the support and encouragement of her husband and children, Kelsey and Kieran, Angie has been traveling and painting around BC and the world for the past 25 years.
Everyone is invited to see an artist's view of the South Okanagan Similkameen by attending the Art Exhibit Opening of 'Landscapes and Habitats of the Okanagan' during the Festival at the Penticton Art Gallery on Friday, May 21st from 7pm to 10pm.
The 2010 Meadowlark Festival Signature Piece
Artist's Statement of"Meadowlark View (Osoyoos) "
The Okanagan Valley falls within the summer breeding range of the Western Meadowlark who prefer open grassland habitats of meadows, plains, and prairies. They will make their shallow grass woven nests on the ground or even in the centre of a patch of cactii. When I first started thinking about painting a Meadowlark I hadn't yet been fortunate enough to see one.
I spoke to the seniors in the painting group I volunteer with about my plans. Many are avid bird-watchers and filled with good advice. They told me I was most likely to see one perched on a fence post near one of our local golf courses, especially as males like to perch to stake and defend their territory.
Being one of the few people to have been born in the Okanagan, I have for long been concerned about the impact of the large population growth in the area, and how it will affect our wildlife habitat and water resources. I painted my Meadowlark sitting on a fence post on the east side of Osoyoos overlooking the local golf course, with the developed town and Osoyoos Lake in the background from a photo I took while on a visit to the Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre a few years ago. I chose to paint my Meadowlark in a rather puffed up fashion (as I saw it in a US Fish and Wildlife photo) as if indignation over the local town development and vineyard expansion that could put pressures on the birds' ability to secure several acres of habitat, necessary to successfully breed in our region.
While we humans may chose to live in one of the most favourable and beautiful regions of Canada, we must also be cognizant of the results our choice in habitat is having on the other creatures within our environment. We must think of how we can best reduce these impacts whether through education, restoration, or other steps we may take to mitigate our presence. In my art work, many pieces are painted landscapes done en plein air or from photos of my journeys near and far, most recently the Okanagan-Skaha area and the glaciers of northern BC near Stewart. While I enjoy the natural beauty of the areas that I am painting, I am also thinking about how my presence is affecting the opportunity of future generations to witness the same. While I have a strong desire to network people and communities through art, I am also hoping that I may somehow inspire people to do more to protect our fragile environment. Angie Roth McIntosh.