West Shore sculptor puts heart and soul into driftwood art

Paul Lewis describes himself as a multimedia artist who also loves to paint.

“I’m nowhere near Robert Bateman’s realistic wildlife and nature paintings but I know my stuff looks like a photograph. It’s pretty good.”

Seven years ago, he traded his canvas paint brushes for drills and screws, creating art from driftwood – his new favourite medium.

Lewis stumbled upon driftwood art in 2018 while walking around Esquimalt Lagoon. There, he saw the McGnarly the Beach Ent sculpture by fellow artist Alex Witcombe.

That chance encounter with McGnarly inspired him to create his very first sculpture using his brother’s drill along with a big box of screws – an experience that taught him a couple of lessons in his newfound craft.

“I made my first sculpture in March 2018 – the bald eagle. I remember going down and collecting shells on the other end of Colwood waterfront because I had this big thing about shells, but for every single one that I drilled through, I must have snapped 10. It was just so frustrating … everybody loved it, but it was garbage.”

He vowed never to use shells again.

Lewis also learned to build his stuff on top of the highest king tide – in the safe zone to protect his work from being destroyed by water, a lesson he learned from Witcombe.

“I built the bald eagle down on the beach and the tide destroyed it. I was picking up pieces for over about a month.”

His work has evolved since then.

“I’ve learned over the years how to make my sculptures more lifelike and that’s been a journey in itself.”

To date, he’s made over 200 pieces of driftwood sculptures, 16 of which are currently displayed along the waterfront: ravens, Canadian geese, eagles, a trumpeter swan, raccoons, squirrel, belted kingfisher, grey squirrel, barred owl and a snowy owl.

All of the animals he has created, with the exception of five Sasquatches, are usually seen around the Esquimalt Lagoon, in Colwood, outside Victoria.

He spends roughly three days creating each piece of art. Of all his creations, Eagles’ Nest,by the golf course at the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre is his favourite.

“It’s my son, Braedon’s memorial piece. He passed away a couple of years ago. The baby eagle has my son’s ashes in it. Mommy eagle, which represents Delaney, my ex, is on a big salmon in the nest. And Daddy eagle, he’s got a 7-foot long wingspan and he’s flying through the trees – that represents me.”

Lewis says ‘Eagles’ Nest’ is a work in progress. He’s adding two more eagles – one for Braedon’s older brother, Jordan, and another one for his mother who helped raise his son when he was away.

Among the projects planned for this year are a cougar perched atop a tree and gazing down at a mother black bear.

“I won’t paint it, so it’ll be brown, hanging onto a tree with three little babies climbing up the tree.”

On sunny days, Lewis drives down to Ocean Boulevard where he sets up his workshop table on the waterfront.

“A lot of times people don’t know me when I’m down here. They’re like, ‘Oh my God, have you seen these?’ I’m just like, yeah I’ve seen them and then I go, ‘I’m actually the artist’ … like, what?”

This is exactly the reason why he loves doing what he does.

“Just making people happy, to me, is the biggest thing. It really is.”

View Paul Lewis’s pieces at Esquimalt Lagoon, here.

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