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.

Driving to Banff

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.

Path to Thom Studio at Banff Centre

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.

Inside Thom Studio – skylight

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.

Squirrel along the trail

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.

Brandy Saturley inside Thom studio at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

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.

Painting made at Banff Centre stretched and in Victoria BC studio

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.

The Work of Art – Making A Painting

There is a famous quote that speaks to the work that goes into a work of art, it references the artist process, and vaguely refers to the creative process. The quote made famous by James Whistler is; “An artist is not paid for his labor, but for his vision.” The Work of Art begins far before the artist puts brush to canvas.

What did Whistler mean by, “paid for his, or her, vision”, was he speaking of paying an artist for their ability to see things others cannot? Perhaps, it is definitely about perspective and how artists make us see things in a different light, but I believe Whistler was also speaking of the time it takes to develop the vision for a new creation, the plan or blueprint to future work. As a painter, the painting is the result of the vision, developed through days, weeks, months and even years. An idea I have for an artwork today, may wait for a year before I have enough knowledge to understand how I will execute the painting. Artists are gatherers of visual, aural and emotional stimuli. We collect experiences, from a hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains, to a symphony. From the way a coffee spills on the ground, to the colours of a sunset. From the words of a writer to the moving pictures and soundtrack of a film. All this stimuli being collected literally and figuratively. A photo I take today may end up providing information for a painting I will create a year from now.

We take all this stimuli and boil it down to a message, a simplified thought or perspective on the world – then the physical work begins. It may be through writing, or sketching or editing images together in Photoshop, whatever the process for filtering the stimuli and finding the focus – a clear focal point, the central message. After solidifying the idea, I sketch the focal point of the future painting onto canvas and then I begin to paint. Over the course of the painting I develop the background and additional elements that will help support the story of the central image, I work from intuition with a a focus on color, form and composition. My goal is to create overall balance to the piece. With my paintings, which are generally 3×4 feet, I spend approximately 70 hours from initial sketch to finished painting. Then comes painting the edges of the piece, application of a finishing varnish and coated hanging wire fastened to the back. If I were to add in the time it took to develop my idea to the point of fruition, I am not sure where I would begin, thus an artist is paid for their vision, as it is impossible to track how many hours it takes to create a work of art.

Below is a peek into my process – the reference photos taken on two different art trips – the ‘selfie’ taken while in Winnipeg at the famously haunted Fort Garry Hotel, an old railway hotel in Canada designated a National Historic Site. The ‘stacked rocks’ photo at sunset was taken on a retreat to a cabin on the west coast at the Point No Point Resort. This past year I was also in Yellowknife, NWT famous for it’s aurora borealis. So many stimuli, collected over the course of a year, that ended up coming together in a painting, a year later.