Laine Dahlen was born in Edmonton, AB and grew up in Dawson Creek, BC. He began his visual arts training in the early to mid-60’s when he enrolled in a three year correspondence course from the Art Instruction School based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Several years later and directly out of high school he worked for CJDC Television in Dawson Creek, BC doing graphics, shooting, developing and mounting slides for daily advertisements as well as editing small commercial films into movie reels.

 

In 1969, Dahlen's former wife and he moved to Nelson, BC where he attended the Kootenay School of Art in the Commercial Art program. In his 2nd and 3rd year of studies (1970-72) he transferred to the Fine Arts program (with a major in Painting) and during that period of time began doing his first solo and group exhibitions. From 1972-74 Dahlen attended Notre Dame University (also in Nelson) and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis on Theatre Production, English, History and Philosophy. Dahlen's two children were born in Nelson during the couple's time spent there.

 

In 1977 Dahlen was hired by Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek to develop a program in Visual Arts. This soon became the Visual and Graphic Communication Arts Program offering students first year, full time courses in Graphic Design, Illustration (Drawing), Printmaking, Media Development (Painting), Photography and Art History. Of these courses, he taught the first 4 and for several years, art history as well.

 

The program was expanded to Fort St. John BC in 1978 and a course in Pottery was added to the curriculum in both centers. In addition to Dahlen's teaching duties in Dawson Creek, he taught painting in Fort St. John for approximately a decade in order to fill out their program and traveled to Chetwynd, BC for several years to offer the course there as well.

 

In addition to the aforementioned, Dahlen also taught workshops and gave short courses during the 1980’s and early 90’s in Fort Nelson, BC, Hudson’s Hope, BC, Cassiar, BC, Chetwynd, BC, Grande Prairie, AB, Beaverlodge, AB, Fairview, AB and Moberly Lake, BC.  Dahlen retired from Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek in 2009.

 

Associations, Exhibitions and Additional Art Skills Training:

 

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• 1975- Present: Member of the South Peace Art Society

• Former member of the Peace Watercolour Society

• In addition to Canada, Dahlen has has shown work in the US, Japan, England and Italy

• Spring of 1986- Participant in a Metal Plate Etching Residency in Florence, Italy in coordination with the International Studio of the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, BC

• Participation in various local group and solo exhibitions as well as several juried shows which have featured Dahlen's work across British Columbia and Alberta.  His work can also be found in the permanent collections of the Dawson Creek Art Gallery, the Grande Prairie Art Gallery, the Grande Prairie Hospital, Fairview College in Fairview, AB and Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek.
   

Music

 

In addition to the visual arts, Dahlen has always enjoyed playing music. Guitar and voice are his main instruments however he studied piano as a young boy from the age of 10 (Grade 5 RCM) and also became a (passable) bass guitarist.  Dahlen is primarily a self-taught musician but has received considerable help along the way from other players. His main musical influences stem from music that was made in the 1930’s through to the early 1970’s. Dahlen has played many different styles of music in his lifetime but has always loved blues and swing along with 30’s/40’s country music- (read Bob Wills and Asleep at the Wheel.)

 

Dahlen has played in many different bands since around the age of 13 but one of the highlights of his freelance career was playing a weeklong gig at Expo 86 in Vancouver, BC with a band that was representing the Peace River region, his home country. They were called the Dudley Shaw Band.

 

In the late 1980’s Dahlen went through a period in his life where he felt compelled to compose a small body of my own material. During that time and as of late he has written many songs. Twelve of those songs were recorded in a rudimentary fashion with some of his closest playing buddies many years ago but in the spring of 2015, Dahlen and his daughter, Sienna recorded his song “Venezia” in Toronto for one of her albums entitled, Ice Age Paradise. The record was released in the fall of 2016. "What a pleasure it is to hear her sing that song. I feel that my life has come full circle now." Laine Dahlen