Arts and Entertainment
FEATURE ARTIST
K a r e n Ta m m i n g a - P a t o n I am a painter from the Crowsnest Pass, who has a love for Fernie through the connections I’ve made with dear friends and the creative community here. You should at least know this about me: my outdoor preference is paddling down the Elk River over downhill skiing any day because I cannot bear the chairlift for fear of heights. And no, skinning up the slopes does not make up for this problem. I taught jr/sr high school art between doing my own studio work and raising three daughters. Students heard me say these often-repeated phrases during my 30 years in the classroom:
• Art is a language and not just something to match your couch. You have thoughts that can be expressed through imagery. This is a great thing. • It’s simply in us to make marks, whether it’s with sand, or on velvet, or with the end of a charred stick after roasting marshmallows. And it’s in us to love colour and form. We can’t help it, so do it. • Process is more important than the product. Pay attention to it and you will notice that the more you create, the more elegant your work will become.
• Giving permission pretty well summarizes my teaching practice. Especially during the crazy years of adolescence, to let oneself mess with form, line and colour is a big deal. It is my sincerest hope that students would continue to be makers even as adults, that perhaps some kind of creative practice would give them voice for what’s going on in their inner world and they would find solace through it. These days, I’m able to give myself to a fulltime painting practice in my little blue studio in old downtown Coleman. The things I repeated to my students are embedded in how I approach my own
