Meet the Artist

To hear something asks very little of us. To listen places our entire being on notice.
-Terry Tempest Williams

I grew up roaming the sage-covered hills of the Okanagan Valley, where the land became both my playground and my refuge. My cousins and I spent entire days biking, building, and wandering, left to our own wild devices. As a teenager, I sought solace in those same hills. The scent of wet sage and clay after a summer rain, the chorus of crickets and bees, the sudden rattle of a snake, and the silent grace of deer grazing in dry grass—these were my constant companions. Being outside created a deep sense of peace in me, and I would sleep beneath the stars as often as possible.

Drawing has always been my way of understanding the world. I needed something tangible—something I could see—to make sense of life. Art became both my expression and my way to process. By middle school, I was designing my own art curriculums and taking adult classes at the community college. One of these classes, taught by a wildlife artist, encouraged my love of drawing animals, a theme that would become a guiding force in my work.

My studies in Fine Arts sharpened my ability to see, to deconstruct ideas into their essential elements. I explored photography, film, and the relationship between the human body and nature. My degree in Art History taught me that being an artist is a lifelong devotion, where curiosity and endurance are the most prized skills. I was drawn to the lineages of female artists who lived by their muse—Emily Carr, who ventured deep into remote landscapes, and Meryl McMaster, who weaves mythologies into the northern wilds.

In 2009, I moved to the Kootenay region of British Columbia, intending to spend a winter in a cabin teaching myself to paint. Instead, I fell in love—with the land, the community, and a former grizzly biologist turned sound artist who would become my partner of 13 years. He introduced me to the bears, to their foraging grounds, to their language. I learned to read their patience, their gentleness, their presence. They became my greatest teachers and a deep well of inspiration, leading to multiple solo public gallery shows, six murals, four books, and one-night art events that merge storytelling with place.

In 2016, we followed the bears and the salmon run up the Fraser River to Chilco Lake, where I fell in love with the landscape anew. Each place had its own spirit, its own feeling. I gathered twig bundles from each site we camped in, later transforming them into my Rewilding: Fire Starter exhibit. Since then, I have made a ritual of taking extended journeys into the wilderness. The last four trips have been to the Yukon Territory, but I have dreams of exploring places like the wilds of Russia, Finland, Norway and Iceland.

Recently, I completed a Counselling program and have partnered with a gold panner and father of three. Glimmers of how these experiences will weave themselves into my work are beginning to emerge, adding new layers of insight and connection to my creative practice.

I process the world through my body. To live in these landscapes, to move through them, to listen to their stories—this is where my work begins. The art that emerges is not solely my own; it is a dialogue between place, creature, and self. It carries with it a sense of stillness, a quiet invitation into wonder. Time and again, I hear that my work has a calming effect on others. Perhaps that is the truest measure of its success—offering a piece of the peace I have found in the hills.