Okanagan Artists of Canada
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  • ART
  • EVENTS
  • HISTORY
    • Tributes
  • Membership
    • OACS DIRECTORS
    • Resource Links

MARY STEBBINS

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I grew up in northern California.  My childhood memories are exploring the wild hills nearby.  Nature was and is the place where I am most at home.  My father, a biologist and an artist, connected me both to the natural world and to the world of art.  With his encouragement and that of my mother who was also an artist, I learned early on the joy of artistic creation. 

I came to Canada in 1973 to get a teaching credential at Simon Fraser University.  I did my student teaching in Vernon, and here I have lived ever since. For many years as a mother and an elementary school teacher, I found little time for my own art.  My creative energy went into encouraging the artist in the children I taught. 
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After retirement, I began travelling, preferring out of the way places where people live close to the earth—Tibet, Africa, Mongolia.  It was the faces of the people I met that became the subject for many of my recent paintings.  I believe every human being has a story.  I search for their expression, the story in their eyes, the line of the lips, the light on a cheek.  

​I also paint the people I love, my friends and family. Each painting feels like a miracle, that slowly from a blank canvas a person emerges and takes on a life of his or her own. Lately, I’ve become interested in painting animals as well as people.  This is a new direction for me.  Fur instead of skin. There is something freeing about an animal.

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