The Bean Scene Coffee House is now featuring Our Town, 20 paintings by local artist Ruth Nygard, for the month of October.
Born and raised in Vernon, Nygard said even as a small child, she was drawn to art.
“There was no question about where my strengths were and teachers encouraged my art,” she said. “When other children were playing with toys, all I needed was a pencil and paper and I was in bliss.
“I am well versed with painting subjects in Vernon as that was where my themes of course came from as a child, so this art show with Vernon being part of the focus was inevitably going to happen.
Nygard calls Our Town her tribute to Vernon because this is where it all began for her.
She feels fortunate to have been able to move back to her hometown, where in 1992, she was commissioned to paint seven large murals to commemorate the city’s centennial.
“I wanted to paint more of what Vernon is today and I have taken this opportunity to do so now. We have beautiful scenic vistas that I could have painted and many artists have, but I wanted to paint people and the town itself.
“We have a lot of character here and we were ranked number-one in entrepreneurial spirit by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business plus we were also ranked one of the top six most desirable communities to retire to in North America — these plus many reasons say we are worth painting. I will continue to do commissioned work and portraits of course, but I am now working toward these types of showings also.”
Nygard comes from an artistic family: her mother was an artist and her daughter currently works as a computer graphic artist who works on feature films and in television.
Nygard’s exhibit, Our Town, is on now at the Bean Scene Coffee House, 2923-30th Ave., downtown Vernon.
