MAPLE CREEK, Sask. — Geoff Phillips lets art tell his story.
Tall and lean, the soft-spoken artist likes to tackle large art projects, with canvases measured in feet instead of inches.
“Going big really helps me open up as an artist, gives me lots of room to play. It helps me frame in my mind, learn about composition more,” he said of the whimsy, bold colours and lines that characterize much of his work.
“It’s just important to paint from the heart, be prolific and paint all the time.”
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His wife, Connie, who paints and also creates jewelry, added: “It’s the passion that matters most.”
She called Geoff modest.
“He knows he has a talent, a gift, but prefers to let art speak for him.”
Connie manages much of the social media, website and marketing, with expertise gained from operating the Untitled Art Society and Art Central in Calgary, where they met.
Geoff is more sensitive than her, and admitted it’s difficult to deal with rejection from galleries.
“My heart is involved,” he said.
Connie called art a personal endeavour.
“If you care about what people are thinking, a lot of people would never try to be (an artist),” said Connie.
Geoff said it’s important to view others’ art and paint often, noting he draws inspiration from the Group of Seven and native artwork and pays special attention to bold lines.
“It’s Picasso meets Group of Seven,” said Connie.
The couple became artists-in-residence for the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park and have been involved in the program ever since, teaching and advocating for art.
Melody Nagel-Hisey, a naturalist with the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, said both bring their strengths to the program, which draws visitors and other artists to the unique landscape of lodgepole pine forest set into the rolling hills of southwestern Saskatchewan.
She said it allows the artist to create and the public to learn about how Geoff’s unique art is made.
“It’s vibrant and colourful and almost whimsical. He’s been totally inspired by the landscape,” she said.
Nagel-Hisey said the Saskatchewan Arts Board-supported program further benefits from Connie’s organizational skills, creative ideas and contacts in the broader arts community.
Their Maple Creek home is a gallery of their works, with oversized paintings by each anchoring the two ends of their main living area.
The town of 2,000 residents offers a lower cost of living than the big city for the parents of two preschoolers.
They hope the launch of The Art House in their home studio this fall will help them be more self-sufficient as artists. Geoff now works at the local Co-op while Connie is at home full time.
“Kids need art,” she stressed, citing Messy Mondays as one program where children will create and play.
“I want them to be free. Making art is more about the process, not the end result,” she said.
Geoff, originally from Lumsden, Sask., has a bachelor of fine arts de-gree from the University of Regina, where he specialized in inter-media.
He has served as artist-in-residence at the Canadian Film Centre’s Habitat New Media Lab and has painted large-scale murals and paintings for the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, the town of Lacombe, Alta., and Maple Creek’s Main Street Revitalization program.
Geoff looks forward to each new creation.
“I just want to see what I paint next, what happens next, “ he said.
