By Lori Knowles

Long ago, when portable laptops first came on the scene, a friend sniffed at the idea of me taking mine outside to write. “You’re going to work?” he asked. “In nature – why? Can’t you just enjoy the day? Can’t you just be?”

It was long ago yet still, each time I flip up my laptop’s screen and begin tippity-tapping on the keyboard while out-of-doors – by a lake, in a boat, in a backyard – I hear his voice. You’re going to work? In nature? Why?

And then the struggle begins: the brightness of the sun, the darkness of the screen, those distracting deerflies buzzing by. My mind goes awhirl with a thousand negative yet reasonable reasons why I should pack up and move inside. You’re on deadline, says The Voice. The bugs are bad. And think of the sacrilege! You’re missing the beauty that’s right in front of you. Close the screen. Stop the tippity-tapping. Just be!     

Recently I discovered these struggles aren’t exclusive to me. Artists of many kinds – painters, sculptors, writers – battle with whether or not to take their art outside. Insects in Muskoka are listed as top deterrents, followed by rain, wind, lack of toilets, lack of power, nosey neighbours (Whatcha workin’ on?) and… oh, here’s a good one: rogue dogs. Imagine setting an easel down in a public park, your paints wet on a palette, when along comes Rufus, an unrestrained bernedoodle with a bushy, swirly, swinging tail…

And yet painting en plein air has been popular since the paint tube and the box easel – a painter’s laptop – arrived on the scene. A little Googling reveals this occurred around the mid-1800s when an insignificant movement called “impressionism” also became a thing. Renoir. Degas. Monet, who painted approximately 250 versions of water lilies in his Giverny backyard. Did Claude slap at mosquitoes while creating some of the world’s most-recognized art? Does France even have mosquitoes? Not that I’m comparing myself to Monet, but hey, if Claude could work outside in the elements pre-Gore-Tex and bug spray then surely so can I.

For encouragement – to dispel those deterrent voices – I turned to Muskoka painter Marilyn Gargarella. She is a spokesperson for the Muskoka Group of Artists – a 45-member collection of local painters who regularly venture en plein air. Woods. Waterfalls. Famous rockcuts. Once a week they sally forth to someplace deep in Muskoka that’s calling their names. Often, they have no clue where they’re going until they get there.

“It’s the moment,” says Gargarella, “when we say: ‘Ahhh! Look at that! Stop the car!’ that we know we’ve arrived.”

The group sets up easels, palettes and portable chairs, perhaps in front of a fast-flowing river or a vibrant blue lake. Green islands, grey rocks, windswept trees of Muskoka – all of it comes into focus and they begin to work.

“I’m usually overly excited,” says Gargarella. “It takes me awhile to settle down.” But once she manages to focus, really focus: “Wow,” she’ll say, “it’s good to be here.”

Deeper Googling makes me realize how easy people like me and Marilyn have it now. Tom Thomson – now there’s an artist who actually had it hard. Paddling unpopulated lakes, scrabbling over rugged Algonquin terrain, this Group of Seven painter of the early 1900s could have told us a thing or three about perils of plein air. No motorboats, no insulated water bottles, no ice cream shops nearby. Just rattlesnakes and raw elements to contend with. Thomson died violently and mysteriously on Canoe Lake, for heaven’s sake!

Art experts, including the Audain Art Museum’s Curtis Collins, lay plenty of praise on the fortitude of the Group of Seven. “By representing the Canadian landscape in this very bold fashion, it was about establishing the Canadian identity,” he says. Yes! I think in response. Bring on more plein air artists! Right here, right now, a bold Canadian identity is exactly what we need.

Which brings me back to my struggles dispelling The Voice, the one telling me that while I’m in nature I should stay in nature – don’t work, don’t write, just be. Probably I should ignore it from now on. Probably I should sally forth into plein air, as Marilyn Gargarella and the Muskoka Group of Artists do every week guilt-free. “Ahhh, look at that! Stop the car!” I’ll say. “Wow, I’m glad I’m here.”

 Lori Knowles is a journalist and author of Summers with Miss Elizabeth, a Muskoka novel. In this column Lori explores what it’s like to live and work as an artist in Muskoka.

www.loriknowles.com @loriknowles_author