Alice N. Waldron
The Old Mill
Alice N. Waldron
March 11, 1974
Oil on Artist’s Canvas Board
20” x 16”
Back of The Old Mill by Alice N. Waldron
Sunset Pat Bay
Alice N. Waldron
March 11, 1974
Oil on Artist’s Canvas Board
20” x 16”
Back of Sunset Pat Bay by Alice N. Waldron
Oil on artist’s canvas board, each 20” × 16”
Both signed, titled, and dated March 11, 1974
Purchased second-hand
These two paintings by Alice N. Waldron are both signed and fully inscribed on the back, sharing the same date: March 11, 1974. Together, they suggest a focused period of work rather than isolated studies.
Sunset Pat Bay depicts a calm body of water at dusk, with layered clouds reflecting warm light across the surface. Tall trees frame the view, drawing the eye toward the horizon. The title refers to Patricia Bay, a stretch of salt water extending east from Saanich Inlet on Vancouver Island, near Victoria International Airport. The painting emphasizes atmosphere and light over topographical detail, capturing the quiet transition between day and night.
The Old Mill presents a winter rural scene: snow-covered buildings, wooden fences, and a narrow road leading inward. The composition uses strong linear perspective, guiding the viewer through the landscape toward clustered structures. The muted palette and soft handling of snow give the scene a sense of stillness and familiarity rather than nostalgia or dramatization.
Both works are executed in oil on canvas board, a practical and commonly used support for painters working steadily or informally, and both demonstrate a consistent, confident representational style.
These paintings matter because they show how ordinary days become archival.
Dated the same day, Sunset Pat Bay and The Old Mill feel like parallel observations—two places held in the artist’s attention at once, or perhaps revisited from memory and reference. There is no attempt to monumentalize either scene. Instead, Waldron records them with care and restraint, as if simply acknowledging: this existed; I was here; this mattered enough to paint.
Like many artists working outside formal institutions, Alice N. Waldron leaves behind very little biographical trace beyond the work itself. What remains are the facts she chose to preserve: titles, locations, dates. That specificity gives the paintings their quiet authority. They are not anonymous, even if the artist largely is.
As a collector, I’m drawn to these paired works because they reveal process rather than performance. They suggest a painter working consistently, documenting places that were part of lived experience rather than cultural spectacle. In their survival together, they become a small archive—evidence of a single day in 1974 when painting was simply something worth doing.
Held now in a different place and time, the paintings continue that work: keeping ordinary landscapes present, and reminding us how much of art history exists not in grand narratives, but in small, steady acts of looking.
