This is where the Prairie part comes in...

I was born and raised in Alberta. Not the rocky mountain part, or the desert part and not the foothill ranch land part... well I was born there but not raised. Often times I think people assume Calgary = Alberta.  Nope, I was raised around the rolling fields of wheat, alfalfa and barley.

"In  the wee hours"

Detail on back of  "In the wee hours"

Growing up I never really thought about the landscape much. All I thought about was getting out of Dodge! I was the girl who couldn't wait to leave her hometown. I wanted to bust outta there so bad! Eventually I did... to Calgary... but after two years of studying art there (and two years of driving in spectacularly horrible winter conditions to Edmonton to see my boyfriend, now husband-score!) we decided to jump ship and move to a city we could both study in Vancouver! The plan:  finish two years of school (print making for me, writing for him), graduate and move back home to Alberta...which never, nor will ever happen.

Detail of sun - "In the wee hours"

Detail of fence-"In the wee hours"

We loved Vancouver! Water as far as the eye could see, sky scrapers, trees as big as sky scrapers and mountains-all in one City! The gray skies were a little hard to get used to but doable.What shocked me the most about this move was my physical reaction to the landscape change. I wanted something new, I wanted to live somewhere other than where I had grown up, I wanted this... you know that saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder"-well darn it, it's true! I began to long for openness, solitude and a horizon. Skip ten years later and we haven't moved back to Alberta, but here I sit in my yellow farm house on a flat piece of  land that looks rather prairie-ish nestled by a rolling mountains in the background.

" Quietly"

I guess in a very round about way, my claim is this - if I had never moved away from the prairies, my prints of  grain elevators never would have existed. I'm not sure I  would have appreciated what the prairies had to offer me and I'm not sure I would have realized how ingrained it is in me to this day.

  

Detail of Railroad - "Quietly"

Detail of sun -"Quietly"

Recently, in the last year I've had quite a bit of interest around my grain elevator prints. Mostly it's been interest from people who have moved away, like myself but for these recent prints it was for a person who I grew up with in Alberta and now lives in Saskatchewan (nobody offer her condolences like everyone did when they heard we were going there for our holidays last year... Saskatchewan is a beautiful province). On these prints I did something a little different this time, I don't know why I didn't think of it before? I hope you like it as much as I do!

Detail on back of "Quietly".

 Lisa loved horses growing up and now, as it should be, raises horses herself!