Nancy Canyon, Winter Morning, 2020, Acrylic on panel, 11.5 x 20 x 1 in, Lynden's St. Joseph's Hospital bought nine paintings for their new clinic location.

Nancy Canyon grew up across the street from Audubon Park in Spokane, Washington, where she spent much of her childhood exploring nature. She carried her Brownie Box camera daily, photographing flowers, seeds, and leaves to bring home and later draw or paint. Alongside her love of visual art, she enjoyed playing classical music on the Hammond organ and riding her Schwinn bicycle to the river, experiences that nurtured both discipline and creativity.

Today, her paintings reflect a lifelong devotion to nature in both realistic and abstract forms. While hiking, she is drawn to water reflecting dappled light-tree limbs mirrored on the surface, rocky streambeds visible beneath. She photographs these moments and develops sketches in her studio, refining compositions until they feel complete. Her work focuses on details such as the veins of leaves, the structure of seed pods, petals surrounding the calyx, and the curling forms of water lily leaves. Abstracted reflections, filtered light, and the movement of native trees also inspire her imagery. Now living near a pond where she walks daily, she continues to paint changing trees-some shaped by wind, others fallen-finding ongoing joy and inspiration in nature's transformations.