Summer at the Banff Centre

Aug 7

In the summer of 2015, after completing the MFA program at Columbus College of Art and Design, I spent some time back in Canada at the Banff Centre, in the Rocky Mountains. With a group of artists and the artist couple Heather and Ivan Morison, we had the privilege to spend almost two months hiking through mountains, enjoying the natural springs, and creating projects all through a thematic residency on expanding art practices outside of the gallery. One project we worked on was a large collaborative dinner called the Impossible Rainbow dinner. For this dinner Heather and Ivan Morison made a special ceramic dinner service, casting various meaningful objects in clay to be used as cups, bowls and plates.

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I fell back in love with printmaking at the Banff Centre studios, and for the first time tried my hand at typography printmaking. Inspired by the Morison’s work, I created nonsensical end rhyme poems. The studio proved to be an ideal place for making something out of my comfort zone and usual process.

A residency continues to be an ideal place for reflection and also getting to understand my work from different perspectives. The artists and architects, musicians and writers I met at the Banff Centre and past residencies, have shaped the kind of artist I have become. I tend to leave a residency partially sad of the farewell, but also with a newfound energy, inspired to tackle a new project at my studio.