Coming Home to Alberta
Hello! Welcome to my first blog post since 2016 (lol!)
Does anyone even read blogs anymore?!!
I've always loved writing, and I have a lot to say, so this is where I'll talk about what's influencing me and what I'm working on these days.
I was born and raised in Alberta, but for the last ten years, my home was the ocean. I lived in the tropics, a few steps from the Pacific ocean, and somewhere in those years I decided that was who I was; a beach girl. Salt air and bare feet, someone who'd traded the crisp Alberta wind for something warmer and closer to the ocean.
A few years ago, something shifted. I started to miss Alberta. I'd visit family and friends in Calgary, and each time it got harder to leave. I missed the big blue Alberta sky and the Rocky Mountains on the horizon. I missed four seasons and the particular beauty of this landscape. I’d put on Ian Tyson (a true Alberta legend!!!) and started painting Alberta landscapes, then wild animals, as a way to feel closer to home. When I painted, I was transported to the eastern slopes of the Rockies and I could almost smell the sweet wind as I painted the foothills. I connected to the spirit of the wild creatures who call this place home, and I knew I had to return. I was being called home.
I've been back in Alberta since April. Coming back was like remembering a language I hadn't spoken in years. The ocean had been beautiful, but it was borrowed beauty. This (the foothills, the big sky, the glow of dusk that seems to never end) was home. I'd seen these things most of my life, but I never really saw them until I came back.
And somewhere in that return - to Alberta, and to myself, I found another love: wild horses.
I didn't go looking for them. I've been allergic to horses my whole life, so they were always something I couldn't actually experience but something in their wild spirit spoke to my own untamed one. I've lived an unconventional life and after ten years chasing a version of myself that lived somewhere warm and easy, here was something that stayed. Wild horses belonged fully to this hard, beautiful, wild land, the same way I was starting to understand that I did too. Free, but rooted and never far from home.
The first horse painting I did, the one that became Grace, Unbridled, painted itself. I just held the brush, watched the magic unfold and thanked the muse for showing up. Everything since then - every painting, every market, every print I'm getting ready to send out into the world has grown out of that same feeling: that I am finally painting my truest expression of myself and my experience.
I've noticed something, though, since I started sharing this work. When someone stops at my both and tells me a painting reminds them of their first trip to Canada, or a summer they haven't thought about in years, or a horse they knew once, I realize this isn't only my story anymore.
Maybe that's the real reason landscapes and wild things pull at us the way they do: they're not just holding my memories. They're holding room for yours too.
This blog is where I'll keep telling my story; what's inspiring me, what I'm working on, and yes, a lot more wild horses. If any of it stirs up a memory of your own, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks for being here for it.
-LW
