At 95-years old, Battle Ground resident Gloria Lindquist still puts power tools to the test for her artwork.
Lindquist’s path to becoming an artist is anything but traditional. Her work, playful and imaginative, is the product of a lifetime of creativity shaped by loss, reinvention and an enduring curiosity about the world around her.
Lindquist’s first two “lives” started as a news reporter/photographer in the hills outside of San Bernardino, California, and later as a multi-state real estate agent. But after living just east of Battle Ground at the “Seasons,” Lindquist’s third career has come by way of being a whimsical artist.
Lindquist did not even begin her current artistic journey until 2014, following the death of her husband. What started as a way to stay busy and repurpose items. Among the remnants she salvaged from a property she had sold was a handmade figure crafted from metal items.
She even entered the art piece in the fair and won first place, sparking a continued love for metal art.
Her work often transforms everyday items — tin cans, teapots, bottle caps and scrap metal — into expressive figures, animals, and characters. Many of the art pieces she makes are for sale via Facebook marketplace, local buy, sell and trade groups, art fairs, and of course, the ‘Shoppe of Seasons.’
“I’ve donated a lot of them,” Lindquist said. “And then I just sell them all the time. I used to sell them for $35, and then I decided that $53 was too much because groceries went up, so I decided to change it to $25.”
Each piece reflects a balance of humor and craftsmanship, with carefully assembled parts forming faces, limbs and personalities. Her process is both methodical and intuitive, often beginning with a single object that sparks an idea.
“I’ll sit one day and make just the whiskers and the face to put on it and drilling holes in the spoons to put on for the tails and cutting out ears, hearts,” Lindquist explained. “There’s a little more to the cats than there are to the other ones, I think.”
Lindquist’s materials come from a wide network of sources. Yard sales, secondhand shops and contributions from friends and community members all play a role in her supply chain.
Prior to starting her ICAN Characters, Lindquist’s creativity built up a village of artwork, with free-standing small buildings throughout the current property, like a chapel, schoolhouse and more.
Her artwork really began in the 1990s when Lindquist and her family, that moves “like a pack of wolves,” first arrived at a property that basically hand-picked her.
“We were trying to find Battle Ground Lake,” Lindquist recalled. “I had my two grandchildren from Portland with us at that time. And a woman was hammering a for sale sign in and came over and asked me if you wanted to see the house, and (Gloria’s husband Glenn) said, ‘No, we’re trying to find the lake.’ She said, ‘But if you want to see the house, you can.’ So we got up as far as the next driveway here and drove in and came into the house and we had no idea why we bought this property.”
When Lindquist first acquired the property, she immediately named it ‘Seasons.’ She put her craftsmanship to the test, building an artist’s oasis for her family.
“We named it ‘Seasons’ because it was October, it was beautiful, and the season had changed,” Lindquist said. “And our lives had changed so many seasons from California to Oregon to Hawaii to here and doing all these things, so the changes just made sense of the name ‘Seasons.’”
ICAN Character art and structures by Lindquist aren’t the only craft items found at the ‘Seasons.’ Lindquist’s daughter Lyla Smith, and her husband Bruce offer items for sale through ‘Cedar Builds by Bruce,’ and the ‘Shoppe of Seasons.’
‘Cedar Builds by Bruce’ features chairs, squirrel feeders and more, all crafted out of cedar wood, while the ‘Shoppe of Seasons’ offers a continually changing selection of vintage, rustic, antique and unique items at garage sale prices. They also offer indoor and outdoor plants, as well as Lindquist’s art pieces.
To make an appointment to visit the property and shop the ‘Seasons,’ call Lyla Smith at 360-931-7201.
