My piece Look at All The Scary Monsters in My Head has sold, but is featured  in the exhibition Recognition and Recollection at the Cowichan Performing Arts Centre  until February 28th, 2026.   For more information about the exhibition: https://cowichanvalleycitizen.com/2025/12/31/new-exhibition-in-cowichan-explores-positive-effects-of-art-on-mental-health/ 

    I have become enamoured once again with the "analog life" we all once enjoyed.  Remember the deliciously slow pace of the pre-internet days?  I've returned to it. I'm writing letters by hand (sealed with a traditional stamped wax seal), reading more books, watching DVDs from the library, and returning to the ways I enjoyed life prior to the internet, and in particular social media.  My daily dose of joy comes from creating art, reading, crafting, cooking, listening to music, writing, walking, and catching up with friends in person and by phone. It's dreamy! I highly recommend it.   I am creating a seasonal newsletter mail out (so 4x a year) with text and photos to share what I'm currently working on, pondering, plotting, and planning.  I think this will be a lovely, low tech way to stay connected with folks off of SM platforms. If you are interested in joining my mailing list, email me with "join newsletter" in the subject field: lesleyfountai...

"When I look back on my life, I want to see that I was passionate and weird  instead of just trying to be everyone's cup of tea."  - Unknown M y series entitled Vessel, Measurement, Action, Metaphor will be on show at the South Cowichan Library in Mill Bay for the month of June and until mid July (followed by my show  Growth and Change - The Only Guaranteed Constants, which will be on display until August 30th).   The series consists of eight paintings that feature cups and vessels.  I became rather enamoured with the concept of cups a while back.  I love the fact that the humble word cup can represent so many things: This is my favourite cup to drink my morning coffee from (See? It has a chicken on it.)  The recipe calls for a cup of pomegranate seeds.  (That's a lot!)  He cupped her face lovingly in his hands.  Dancing every day fills my cup. All eight of the paintings share a common history.  About a decade ago I went through a c...

  I just got back from spending the holidays in Kelowna, BC.  I hadn't been there in many years, and I had a delightful time exploring this small city which hugs the eastern shore of Okanagan Lake.  I walked all over the place admiring the waterfront as well as the shops, restaurants, and particularly the art galleries I was drawn to the work of Salmon Arm-based artist Amy Modahl.  Her show Redactions features her latest work, which is rich, graphic and textured.  The show runs until January 12th, 2025 http://www.amymodahl.net/ We Were Young Then -  oil and drawing media on canvas - Amy Modahl When You Asked Me - oil and drawing media on canvas - Amy Modahl I was also intrigued by the thermal ink bleed serigraphs on synthetic paper by Derek Michael Besant.  These pieces top to bottom are entitled In Other Words, Different, and  In Other Words, Afraid.  They are on permanent display in the gallery, gifted by the artist in 2018 Derek Michael ...

Golden Like Daylight - new work 2025. 16 x 20 acrylic and collage on canvas "The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love - whether we call it friendship or family or romance - is the work of mirroring each other's light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when shame and sorrow occlude our own light from view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another." - James Baldwin, Nothing Personal Be the mirror. Be that person. Beam it back, folks. Happy 2025.

 I spent the last week of May and the first week of June in an artist residency offered by the Township Community Arts Council (TCAC) at the Esquimalt Town Square in Esquimalt. This new space is in the heart of the revitalized community at 503 Park Place, and features a welcoming light filled atrium with soaring ceilings, skylights, concrete floors and exposed brickwork. This area connects the new Esquimalt branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library, (which Mayor Barb Desjardins called "the living room of the community" at its opening last March), and the Esquimalt Roasting Company, a terrific coffee shop with an entire wall that slid open to the lively, people filled courtyard space, perfect for a people watcher like me! They kept me fueled with their delicious coffee for the duration of my residency! (See bottom of blog for more details on Esquimalt Town Square.)  The volunteer crew made swift work of the hanging       By the end of the first day I ha...