The Story of a Painting: A Winter Residency in Banff

It was winter 2022 when we loaded up the Jeep and drove from Vancouver Island through the Rockies to Banff. I had been awarded a two-week artist residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and I was heading into the mountains with an oversized painting in mind.

When we arrived and drove toward the forest trail leading to the Leighton Studios, there was barely a trail to see. It had been buried beneath the snow. We checked into the residence and began unloading the Jeep. I had brought existing paintings with me so I could surround myself with my own work while I painted. I also brought everything I would need to create a very large new painting. With rolled canvas tucked under one arm and a backpack filled with paints, brushes and supplies on my back, I trudged through the snow toward my studio cabin.

The path wound through a collection of cabins and distinctive studio buildings. I didn’t see another person. Only squirrels appeared, occasionally poking their heads out from behind snow-covered branches. Then came the squeak of the wooden cabin door and the familiar ritual of shaking the snow from my boots. I had arrived at the Thom Studio. Named after its architect, Ron Thom, the studio was an extraordinary place to work. Its tall, open interior walls were perfect for tacking up large canvases. A vaulted ceiling and skylights brought in soft natural light, while every window offered a view of the surrounding forest.

The skylights were temporarily covered with snow, but as the morning and midday sun warmed the roof, the snow would slowly disappear, revealing the light again. Inside the studio was an abalone shell with a bundle of sage, offered as part of the space’s connection to the traditions and practices of the place. It was a small but meaningful detail in a studio surrounded by the wilderness. By the end of that first day, I had unpacked my supplies, prepared the studio and begun to settle into my new surroundings.

That night, we slept in the residence on campus, surrounded by the forest and with the monumental Rocky Mountains rising around us.

The next morning, I pulled on my parka and snow boots and headed back through the forest toward the studio. Along the way, I passed a group of deer making their way through the snow. A few squirrels appeared again, along with a crow that seemed particularly interested in my arrival.

It began to feel as though the forest itself was welcoming me to my studio. Once inside, I put music on my laptop and began sketching. The blank canvas was enormous, and I wanted the painting to become more than an image of Banff. I wanted it to hold my experience of being there. As the days passed, I began transferring my sketches onto the canvas. The painting slowly took shape: a woman with dark hair and blue eyes, wrapped in a red parka with fur trim. Towering trees covered in snow. Wildlife encountered along the forest trails. And a beam of light breaking through the trees.

These were the things I was seeing, but they were also the things I was feeling. The painting became a visual story of my time in Banff, a portrait of a winter landscape filtered through my own experience of being there. Two weeks went by quickly. When the residency came to an end, I removed the tacks from the studio wall and carefully rolled the canvases. The painting that had occupied that enormous white wall would have to wait.

Story of a Painting

It was time to drive home.

Back on Vancouver Island, I had the canvases stretched and assembled. What had begun in a snowy forest studio in Banff was finally completed at home. That is one of the things I love about artist residencies. A painting can begin in one place and finish somewhere completely different. The landscape, the experience and the memories travel with you.

This painting still carries something of that winter journey within it: the snow-covered forest, the wildlife, the red parka, the enormous mountains and that fleeting beam of light through the trees. Today, the painting has been divided into two panels, each measuring 59″ x 56″, creating a large diptych that tells the story of a winter place in Canada.

The painting is available for purchase.