About Sarah
Growing up in Northern British Columbia, you learn to be patient. Patient with the long winters, the slow pace, the bugs in summer, and the time it takes to travel places, but it also teaches you how to appreciate the moments in between. The ones where you have time to just look at the world around you, wander a riverbank, or hike up a mountain. I found inspiration and adventure in those in-between moments, the drive to see more and share it with people.
I grew up outside and cultivated most of my passions through it, hiking and climbing in the summer, split-boarding in the winter, traveling overseas, falling in love with the ocean, and surfing.
All of my creative skill has been a product of passion, patience, and time, I have not had the chance to attend any formal schooling for it, but dont let that hold me back in my drive to create. When it comes to my art, I try to capture it as it was, the way the light caught the peaks and shadows hugged the valleys when I was there, the way it made me feel. This personal connection I have to my work, and the places I showcase with it is deeply connected, I try to only focus on painting places I’ve seen with my own eyes as its hard to really capture a feeling of a place when you haven’t stood on the dirt in front of it. I try to choose spots that make me feel inspired, passionate, and in love with the world we live in or just at home within it.
From start to finish, the paintings I bring into the world are made with love and passion, from the hike or ski it took to get there, to the photo I took and the time I spent on each layer, each brushstroke on canvas. My hope is that my work may inspire you to get outside and look a little longer at the way the valley fades into the distance, or how the shadow fades into the light on an alpine slope.
Shying away from trying something new has never been my thing. Over the years I’ve dabbled in many pursuits, from competing in snowboarding, coaching kids, photography, ski patrolling, and working in forestry, to more recreational pursuits like bike touring, surfing around the pacific, living in New Zealand, Australia, spearfishing, and living in a van with my partner. My goal has always been to drink up every last drop the life I’ve been gifted with, and share it with the world.
Rapid fire Q’s
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I’ve always loved art, and grew up filling stacks of sketchbooks, but I only started painting in high-school, dabbling with acrylic and watercolour.
While I was travelling solo around the pacific, I kept a journal and small water colour kit with me. Slowly I started experimenting with landscapes.
It was only 5 years ago that I truly started doing acrylic landscape paintings, and quickly found my passion for it.
I started selling my work within a year, as fun way of exploring my passion for painting, and paying for my outdoor gear ;)
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I think my biggest interests always come from the outdoors. Surfing, snowboarding, split-boarding, hiking, fishing, photography, they all have a special place in my life. But If I could choose one to do the rest of my life, it would be surfing.
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Take a wild guess.
Nature inspires me, how we move through it and experience it, whether its simply observing how shadows move across mountains, or finding ways to be apart of it.
I love the connection of carving a turn into powder, the lines and shadow it creates, or the way you can see what a wave will do before it even breaks.
It’s these little things, the in between that really inspire me. Without them, the big picture wouldn’t be the same.
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I primarily work in acrylics, but plan to do oils when my studio isn’t four meters from my kitchen.
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My ideal collector is whoever is drawn to my work. Whatever reason it is that you feel connected to what I create, I feel connected to you. We’re kindred spirits by nature, and I’m just happy we found one another.
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I typically aim to only paint places I have a personal connection to, or have been to myself (with the exception of commissions)
Whenever possible, I try to be involved from A to Z, I will hike to the location, experience the place, photograph it, and use my photographs as references for my paintings.
That way, I feel like i’m expressing the piece to its truest form visually and emotionally.
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I typically wake up at 4am, do an hour of yoga, turn my phone on silent and drink only organic, hand harvested green tea while listening to classical and painting as the sun rises…
IM KIDDING.
I try to wake up, and immediately make coffee when I finally do. I try to schedule my week, and follow it, but I’m human and my attention shifts constantly.
I try to paint every couple of days, but running sadly being an artist does not mean I get to paint all day, everyday.
I do listen to classical though.
