In the week leading up to her 88th birthday, on May 10, which also happened to fall on Mother’s Day this year, Doug St. Denis restocked her inventory of paintings.
Inside the Coronado home she designed with her late husband, St. Denis sketched eight squares onto a 2- by 4-foot birch plywood panel.
She plans to replicate the bookshelf a couple meters away from a round coffee table she has recently painted, as well as another artwork of the red-orange tulips from April’s Coronado Flower Show with her zebra print sofa in the background.
“I just love painting,” said St. Denis. “It’s when I feel most alive.”
Born into a Navy family in Coronado, where she lived off and on growing up, St. Denis said she has always been creative.
“My life has been this incredible journey, it’s like an adventure,” she added. “I have a really wonderful childhood and a very close family. Painting is just an expression of that, and I feel so blessed.”
St. Denis, whose civic engagement includes being the founder of the Coronado Island Film Festival, shares her life through her painting.
“Someone who sees my art, I want them to relate to it and find joy in it,” she said. “The good things worth painting are right in front of us.”
Remembering Dale
Flowers and greenery narrowly line the entrance of St. Denis’ home where sunlight and natural breezes flow into the space.
This was the intention when the one-story ’50s house was remodeled. The architects are St. Denis and her late husband, Dale, who died a decade ago.
She said the best thing for her artistry was meeting Dale, who she describes as the most creative person, in 1976.
They traveled the world together and he inspired her to go back to school and get a degree in architecture. She said his influence extends to grandchildren who enjoy careers in design, architecture, photography and film.
“I feel his presence here and his support,” said St. Denis. “I just feel I’m so filled with it and it comes from everything around me. It comes from him. It comes from the house that we designed. … It’s in the air, it’s an energy and it’s not going to go away.”
Pots created by the couple can be found alongside photos and paintings of her three children, Coronado High School graduates who are now adults, and 11 grandchildren.
“It’s really fun having a family of artists,” said St. Denis. “And when we’re working on something we send pictures back and forth.”
Her eldest daughter, Corinne Lynch, and son, Larry Baldauf, are painters. Terry Curtin, her youngest daughter, who also lives in Coronado, designs gold and silver jewelry with unique stones.
St. Denis said she named them after relatives, a tradition her family carries.
“There were no girls in my family and my joke is … I came along and they didn’t know what to do with me so they named me Douglas Howard Mustin,” said St. Denis. “My son’s daughter … she’s now pregnant due in October with a little girl and she’s naming her Douglas.”
Capturing happiness
St. Denis said she cannot remember a time when she was not painting, but got serious about the craft during her time in Carmel in the early 1960s.
“I went through experimenting with different styles …But I always come back to Van Gogh and Matisse and those are the two that really, really influenced me,” said St. Denis.
As a young mother, St. Denis said, she grew up with her children and art was a big part of it.
“My kids said, ‘Other people get nostalgic when they smell cookies cooking. We get nostalgic when we smell oil paint and turpentine because it’s like our childhood,’” said St. Denis. “It was just a part of our life.”
In 2016, St. Denis transitioned to painting on plywood which she loves because the wood shows through and becomes part of the painting, she said.
“As an artist, I’m always learning, trying to experiment with new things and trying not to always fall back on stuff that I know works for art,” said St. Denis.
It was inside the home exuberating family and artistry that St. Denis painted a piece decades ago that now hangs inside the Coronado Public Library, through Aug. 3.
The piece depicts five cousins — Curtin, Baldauf, Lynch, Tom and Carolyn Mustin — celebrating the Fourth of July in Coronado. It’s accompanied by a poem, authored by St. Denis.
“I see happiness. I see great great days, sunshine, everyone in town, …fireworks at night, swimming in the ocean, all the things that make life wonderful,” said St. Denis.
The painting is part of an exhibit featuring the artwork of nine local artists who are members of the Coronado Art Association.
Tina Christiansen, also a Coronado artist and volunteer for the nonprofit organization said “It’s a Beautiful Day” was selected as the theme for this year’s exhibit, and the paintings on display are from portfolios of member artists.
Christiansen said the association, founded in 1952, sponsors an open air public art exhibit at Spreckels Park, across from the library, on the first and third Sunday of every month.
To learn more, visit: https://www.coronadoartassn.com/.
