‘I’ve done beyond my wildest dreams for this simple joy that I wanted to just paint,’ says Donna Spears Lauzon
TIMMINS – A hobby that started as art therapy is creating connections and opening opportunities for a Timmins artist.
Donna Spears Lauzon’s oil painting, Maple Red, is part of the Art à la Carte exhibit in the In Camera Dining Room at the Ontario Legislature.
“I wanted to put something that was distinctly Canadian,” she said.
Up until last year, she didn’t know about the opportunity. She applied for it in the summer and had forgotten about it until she received the acceptance in the fall.
Recently, she was in Toronto with her two daughters for a celebration af the artists in the show, which she wants more Northern artists to know about.
Spears Lauzon has been painting for about 15 years.
“I never went to school, I never had formal art training. I didn’t have time for art, I was bringing up a family, I had another business. It was kind of a therapy for me when I started — for stress,” she said.
“To this day, I have not lost my passion for painting. I think it just shows you that it doesn’t matter how old you are, if you have something you really love, you can still do it and you can do it well. It makes me so happy and it makes me happy to be able to share the art. I’ve donated art, I’ve gifted art, I’ve sold art. I’ve done beyond my wildest dreams for this simple joy that I wanted to just paint.”
Her favourite subjects to put on canvas are animals.
“I’ve painted everything, I’ve tried everything, but I thought, what do I love the most? I thought why am I wasting my time painting tea cups when I want to paint wolves and bears and dogs, and things like that. It took all this time for things to dawn on me,” she said.
It was a pastel painting of a dog that created an unexpected connection south of the border. The minute the painting went online, someone wanted to buy it.
“I thought, oh, this is nice. And then it was going to Delaware in the United States, and I found out later he was a friend of President Biden,” she said. “That was a shocker to me.”
While she loves the connections art can create, putting herself out there doesn’t come naturally.
“I do it, I do promote myself … but I don’t really like to do that. But I say to myself, who’s going to do it if I don’t?” she said.
Art à la Carte is a juried show that’s open to Ontario residents over the age of 18. The full details and a gallery of the 2026 artwork is available at ola.org.
