Art can create the foundations for change. It intentionally shows the history of the land and the people who inhabit it and the changes we see throughout time. The history and change of Muskoka’s shoreline is what inspires the next artist to be featured in Art Journey’s: Andrea Ross, a painter and activist who resides on Skeleton Lake.
Ross wasn’t always from Muskoka, born in Oakville and raised in Ottawa. From suburbs, to city, to cottage country, she’s experienced it all. Ross’s history of Muskoka however, comes from her grandfather who originally bought land on Skeleton Lake in the 1920s and the family had been residing on portions of that land to this very day.
“It's really been weird, because now we live here year round. When I was here for the summers, really, I just explored the lake and the water, just on skeleton lake. So now that we're retired, I'm branching out, I've gone into Bracebridge, I've and all the, you know, hiking trails and boating and paddling places.
It's quite incredible.” Ross notes when describing her connection to the land after moving here year-round.
Ross started out using pastels as her medium to create art. She accredits her time with pastels to her use of colour in her oil paintings. She enjoys the difference in ability of what you are able to create with oil now, compared to what pastel is capable of.
“I wanted to get out from under glass, because pastel, you have to frame very carefully, because it's so dry. Now that I'm in oil painting, I can make larger pieces, which I love! You can get some nice big strokes of colour, and get the full picture.
There's just so much that it offers.”
The shores of Muskoka always bring out an emotion that can only be described and transcendent. Growing up here, that view is considered the break and reward from the harsh cold winters. For the cottagers, it embodies the slowed down tranquility of summers spent with sunburns and bug spray enjoying the beauty of our world. Andrea Ross does an expert job at applying this idea to each one of her paintings, and we dived into her artistic style.
“I love to paint Muskoka, particularly shorelines, where the water meets the rock, the trees, the skies, the sunsets, you know.
There's just so much. Especially natural shorelines. I'm a kayaker, and a hiker, and I love to explore close by in my kayak, to the shore, and all the blocks, and I find that very inspiring.” Ross describes how she uses the landscape on her journey of artistry.
Given that Ross had painted our shorelines for decades, it’s no shock that she has seen changes to the place we all call home.
“Being on the lake, and a very popular lake at that, I've noticed a lot of the natural shorelines are disappearing at a very fast rate. It's being developed, and some people develop the shoreline in a very good way, and others do not.” Ross stated as an unfortunate truth of the effects of the recent urbanization of Muskoka.
Since the pandemic, Muskoka has seen another surge of migration from cities towards our shores due to the isolation from the outside world and the ability to work from home. With this access of people, our natural beauty is what takes the hit, in order to support the amount of individuals inhabiting the space.
When asked, Ross hoped that she could use her own art to shed light on what has been happening to our home and why art matters to her so much.
“So part of my exploration of art, of the natural environment, is to encourage people to keep it natural, because there's less and less of it all the time.
And what we have here in Muskoka is so special in other countries, this sort of thing would be considered a royal gem. And we just take it for granted, and develop it, not necessarily in the right way, it's a bit of a crusade, I guess you would say. To see a painting
like mine, well, there it is in your natural environment. That’s why art matters to me.”
I found while speaking to Ross, I found a new understanding of what art is. I always thought it was a way of shore stories through time — which I still do believe. But it also allows us to change how future generations will view us in the early 21st century. Will it be the generation who let the beauty of crown jewels like Muskoka be lost to the history of time? Or will it be the generation who notices this change through art, and takes action to protect the nature that we still have? Which is what Ross puts so eloquently in each of her paintings.