Lynn Jones had never even met a gnome.
The 80-year-old Chemainus resident has lived what she describes as “an adventurous life”, moving all over B.C., from the water to the wild, restoring and reselling houses for a living with her husband.
“We moved a lot,” said Jones. “We’d buy places, fix them up all over interior B.C. We had time out in the wilderness, we lived on a boat one time at Maple Bay Marina and we used to scuba dive. I’ve done a lot of different things but I've never met up with gnomes. I didn't know what they were!”
That all changed last summer when her daughter Cindy Doumont was painting the exterior of her own house and came across several old ceramic gnomes in her garden.
“They all were in really bad shape," said Doumont. "I hauled them all out, brought them in the house saying, ‘one of these days I'm going to paint them.’ But I knew very well that three years later they'd still be sitting there waiting for me to find the time to do it. I thought, well, I'm going to ask my mom and see if she would like to.”
A lifelong artist, Lynn Jones has been painting canvases for years, but she’d never painted gnomes before. Her artistic touch quickly transformed the worn and weather-beaten garden guardians.
“It just seemed to come natural to paint these little characters,” Jones said. “You'd laugh because I talk to them the whole time I'm painting them. They're personal to me. I got up at seven o'clock one morning because I thought, ‘Oh, Jack! Jack is sitting in there and I gotta get Jack done!’”
Jones thoroughly enjoyed the project but Doumont was now out of gnomes. She wondered if there were other people in Chemainus with gnomes in need of a glow up. Neither Doumont nor Jones is on Facebook so they enlisted the help of Doumont’s daughters to post a call out on the social media platform in local groups.
The response was overwhelming.
Doumont and her daughter set about picking up the gnomes-in-need from local residents, carefully tracking each gnome to return them to the correct owner once restored. They even had to take the post down when Doumont’s vehicle was packed full of gnomes, almost 50 of them, to give Jones a chance to catch up.
The family was not prepared for such a huge response and couldn't have predicted the impact Jones’s gnome makeovers would have on people.
“We had people that were crying, because most of the stuff that comes to us has sentimental value,” Doumont explained. “Gnomes aren't as popular nowadays so if people have gnomes, they usually have been handed down and they have sentimental reasons for keeping them. So we've had people crying, just really thrilled.”
And Jones is just as thrilled about her little painted friends.
“They almost become real to me by the time I finish them,” said Jones. “It's rewarding.”
She meticulously cleans each gnome before getting to work, using her artistic skills to make them appear lifelike, all while chatting to them as she paints. The gnomes are so detailed they seem like they might just talk back, and people often comment on how real their eyes and faces look when they pick them up.
Community support extended beyond donations of gnomes; a local business also contributed. When Doumont’s husband told the people at Country Chic Paints in Duncan what his mother-in-law was doing, they generously donated paint to the project.
Jones sticks to a schedule, spending her mornings painting gnomes for three or four hours a day before heading out on her regular afternoon walk. She also takes on responsibilities around her apartment building, touching up paint and beautifying the interior and exterior of the building. She likes to stay active and engaged, especially since her husband Keith died a few years ago.
“We met when we were 15 and [were] married for so many years, so it was hard because he's always been there. It's hard when you're a widow all of a sudden.”
Jones is grateful for the community she lives in where she knows people and can be useful around the building. The gnomes help too.
Once Jones had finished the first round of gnome restoration, her granddaughters made a second post looking for more gnomes she could paint. But with the change of seasons, the response has been smaller this time and Jones is waiting for more gnomes.
“I’m gnomeless,” she quipped.
Anyone who thinks her lack of gnome projects means she’s left twiddling her thumbs has obviously never met the spry octogenarian. Jones encourages other seniors to find a fulfilling hobby and keep busy like she does.
“We've all got things that we can do, that we enjoy doing. Just because you get old doesn't mean you sit in a chair and stare out the window,” Jones said.
“Life's short. You’ve got to do the best you can in your life while you’ve got it.”
From making over houses around B.C. with her husband to making over gnomes at her home in Chemainus, Lynn Jones is bringing life back to local gnomes and joy to the community. And the joy she gets from painting, and talking to, her little ceramic buddies is evident.
“It's a blessing,” she said. “It's a real blessing for me to be able to do each one of them.”
Anyone with gnomes they'd like Jones to work her magic on can visit the Facebook page, Lynn Jones Painted Gnomes.
