Category: Artist Spotlight (Page 1 of 7)

Artist Spotlight: Billie Rae Busby

I learned a lot while chatting with Calgary-based artist Billie Rae Busby recently. She took the dive into a full-time art career a few years ago and hasn’t looked back.

It was my pleasure to spend 30 minutes learning from her. I hope you can take some things away from our chat as well!

[Featured Artwork by Billie Rae Busby.]

Billie Rae Busby
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Artist Spotlight: Lorraine Bérubé

I spoke with St. Albert, AB-based artist Lorraine Bérubé recently. She’s watercolour painter who also will jump into acrylics, pencil crayon, and alcohol ink. She has some rich, colourful pieces mostly focused on flowers and scenery.

She is a big part of the St. Albert Painters Guild, serving as vice president and being their go-to person for publicity. That latter role definitely came out in our chat.

Later in our chat, I also had the opportunity to ask her husband, Paul, a question, which was a good piece of fun. I hope you enjoy my chat with Lorraine (and Paul) as much as I did!

[Featured Artwork: “Hollyhock by Lorraine Bérubé. Watercolour pencils on 10″×14″ Arches hot-pressed paper]

Lorraine Berube
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Artist Spotlight: Karen Blanchet

I chatted with Edmonton-based artist Karen Blanchet a couple weeks ago. Our chat went fairly quick, but the conversation was rich in substance. 

I learned a lot about her, including the fact that she learned French… in Australia. Plus, she has such a unique style that her husband coined a new term for it: Neo-mosaic. 

I hope you enjoy my chat with Karen as much as I did.

[Featured Artwork: “Fear No Evil/crains aucun mal by Karen Blanchet.]

Karen Blanchet
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Artist Spotlight: Nadiya Maznychka

I had the pleasure of chatting with Ukraine-born, Edmonton-based artist Nadiya Maznychka this past weekend. It was a wonderful conversation about her and her art, which is very clearly part of her DNA. Currently, she is known for her amazing pet portraits.

I suspect she didn’t realize it during our chat, but she shared some profound insights about the art community. I hope, when you read through our chat, you come away with that impression as well.

[Featured Artwork: Assorted pet portraits by Nadiya Maznychka.]

Nadiya Maznychka
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Artist Spotlight: Linda Finstad

Linda Finstad is an Edmonton-based artist and author. Throughout the pandemic, she painted using coffee. Yes, coffee. Now, she’s painting with cat hair, dust bunnies, cigarette butts, and other truly useless items. Yes, truly.

The England-born artist started out as a horse-show photographer and sort of, kind of fell into an art career because of a combination of cellphones, Facebook, and an art collector from Texas. It all comes together in the interview below.

Linda has a fabulous sense of humour — as you might expect — given her ability to paint with some of the above items. The laughs came a mile a minute during our chat. Enjoy!

[Featured Artwork: “Whole Bottle” by Linda Finstad.]

Linda Finstad
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Artist Spotlight: Gwyneth Leech

Gwyneth Leech is a New York City artist whose pieces have been inspired by the city she has lived in for the last 20 years. Currently, she is focused on the ever-changing skyline and architecture in the city as it goes through a continual transformation.

She’s previously been featured in a documentary as well as the New York Times and was, somewhat amusingly to her, featured on TripAdvisor as a “What To See” attraction in the Flatiron Building (see Question 13).

She was a pleasure to speak with and learn from. I’m glad she agreed to chat and I hope you can learn something too.

[Featured Artwork: “Hudson Yards Rising with Encampment, View from West 30th Street, 2021” by Gwyneth Leech. 36″ x 44″, Oil on canvas.]

Gwyneth Leech
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