INSIDE
An artist for all ages

By Meg Olson

When South Beach House closes for the season after November 14 the local restaurant was transformed into a gallery featuring the work of well-known watercolorist Errol Etienne.

Etienne’s work is already well known to patrons of South Beach House, where it has been featured prominently since the beach eatery opened. They may not know it, but if they’ve eaten at an Earl’s or at Kettle of Fish in Vancouver, they’ve seen it before. “I was a graphic designer when graphic designers were required to draw,” said the 63-year-old painter, who designed artwork, menu fonts and murals for many Vancouver restaurants in the 1960s and ’70s.

A graduate of the Art Center School of design, Etienne’s work won him a position as Senior Academician with the Royal Canadian Academy in 1978. He’s sold over 4,000 paintings at exhibitions around the world, provided artwork collections for corporate offices, such as that of Hershey Corporation in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and won an Emmy in Australia for creating animations using his paintings.

Etienne’s career veered off track in the early 1980s due to illness and it wasn’t until after a liver transplant in 1994 that he could return to his craft, but found the need to work differently in a different market. “When I came out there were computers and everything had changed for graphic designers,” he said. He also found people’s attitude towards art had changed. “Nowadays the last thing people buy is artwork,” he said. “They’d rather buy a dishwasher.”

Today Etienne and his wife Jan live and work in a “mobile studio,” a GMC motorhome that takes them across the country, painting, meeting with collectors and selling Etienne’s work at private shows and small town markets. By cutting out gallery owners, he said, he can keep his artwork affordable and still make a living. With original works starting at $40 Cdn, the artist believes more people will feel they can afford original art. “I love the idea that people have an original of mine on their walls,” he said.

Jan Etienne added he had also produced some works especially for children to begin their art collection young. “It’s a neat idea for Christmas,” she said. “Something they can keep forever.”
Etienne said he has no attachment to subjects, only to technique: he uses single floats of brilliant watercolor, sharply separated by glimpses of bright handmade paper to capture a hike along Lake Superior, a tangle of salmon, or a single eggplant. “It always keeps changing,” he said. “We’ve sold grapevines in Michigan, roosters in Florida. There are no rules. I love what I do. I don’t know how I do it but I know it’s my work..”

This is Etienne’s first Point Roberts show in a number of years and it will feature 120 works from a series of $40 Cdn smaller pieces featuring food to large earlier works going for $2,000 Cdn. Previews of the work will hang in South Beach House, changing weekly until the show opens November 20 from 3 – 7 p.m. with a wine and appetizer reception. The second day of the exhibit is November 21 from noon to 4 p.m. Call 945-0717 for more information.