Motivations in Art | Bev Mazurick

A prairie place in sunlight and memory

A short travel-and-painting story from a historic village on the edge of the badlands.

Rowley, Alberta, sits just off Township Road 324 and Range Road 204, not far from Drumheller. Thanks to our prairie grid system, that pinpoints it neatly on the map.

Rowley, self-described as a historical village, is occasionally used as a movie set. Until the 1920s, it was a small but thriving community. The dustbowl of the Great Depression saw homes and businesses left to weather. Rowley became one of many derelict hamlets dotted along railway branch lines. Today, Rowley is a gentle collection of weathered buildings in an expansive landscape of grass, on the edge of the badlands.

_{Rolling prairie near Rowley Alberta, photo by Bev Mazurick}

It was an idyllic summer morning after a night of steady rain. We drove our truck and Retro trailer east on secondary highways from Water Valley through Didsbury, passing near Three Hills and beyond. Getting to Rowley included an anxious few kilometres along a slick, prairie gumbo-like grid road. You dare not stop, speed up, or slow down. It evoked early childhood memories of trips to the farm near Westbourne, Manitoba.

_{Derelict farmhouse in Rowley, photo by Bev Mazurick}

Free camping, by donation to the community, is encouraged in Rowley. The mown field set aside for visitors must have been several acres, but we were the only overnight guests. That pervasive calm of boundless sky, grass, and prairie memories drew me to paint a plein air study of an old home.

It was a typically haphazard arrangement: a small dwelling with numerous add-ons and outbuildings. Its once-white picket fence followed its own path to disintegration. My original intention to feature that fence was, unfortunately, lost within the constraints of an 8 × 10-inch composition.

_{Some of the derelict outbuildings in Rowley Alberta, photo by Bev Mazurick}

I first learned of Rowley several years ago, when former Alberta Society of Artists member Donna Miller scouted painting spots in the Drumheller area for our plein air group. Donna is gone now, one of life’s quiet victims of cancer. I can’t say we were friends, but I remember her fondly for her energy and joy in painting outdoors.

One year we paired for a day of painting along Highway 12 near Sylvan Lake. We were frustrated by thick smoke rolling in from forest fires on the other side of the Rockies. People and place are entwined, holding space among my memories. All of it touched by the bittersweet passage of time.

_{Plein air sketch of derelict farmhouse in Rowley; photo by Bev Mazurick}

Ski Boots & Sketches

That’s not me shushing down the slopes—that’s my cousin. She invited me to spend a week with her at Fairmont Hot Springs. Although I don’t ski, I couldn’t resist the chance to soak in the scenic winter wonderland—and, of course, it is a hot spring! Fairmont has been a family favourite since childhood, filled with memories in every season.

One afternoon, we were treated to crystalline beauty as sunlight edged the mountain ridges, making them sparkle like faceted glass. The rest of the week brought overcast skies, but that didn’t stop us from pursuing our passions. My cousin carved her way down snowy slopes while I expanded my visual memory—capturing scenes with photos, sketching in coloured pencil from the warmth of the lodge, and completing a small watercolour dancing with the contrasts of light and dark.

The view that captivated me most was a stunning late-afternoon tableau. Unnaturally dark clouds backlit a ridge of snow-draped trees—an exquisite study in elegant contrast.

As I sat drawing and painting in the upper lounge, I became entranced by the rhythmic clomps of skiers making their way across the floor, navigating stairs with stiff, cumbersome ski boots. On the slopes, they moved with fluid ease; here, their torsos swayed and lurched like marionettes, contorted by the mechanics of their footwear. The muted, mechanical sound of their boots on carpet was strangely hypnotic.

Watching these kinetic performances, I couldn’t help but think of Umberto Boccioni, the Italian Futurist who celebrated dynamic motion. His sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is charged with angular momentum and layered planes—expressing the relentless energy of bodies in motion. In that lounge, I saw echoes of his vision: living sculptures propelled through space by the mechanics of their boots. It was a delightful, impromptu composition of Futurist art—a symphony of rhythmic motion, and sound.

Discovering Boccioni’s work was a pivotal moment in my artistic development. The bold idea of depicting intangible forces—like the blur of speed or the displacement of air—opened my eyes to the power of conceptual art. Capturing unseen energy and movement became as compelling to me as the subjects themselves, adding new dimensions to my creative path.

My cousin? Safe & Sound.

Fairmont Hot Springs ski hill, watercolour sketch, January 2025

Esquimalt dockyard paintings

at the Campbell Clinic

Located on southern Vancouver Island, Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt has been a site of military importance since British colonial times. CFB Esquimalt or dockyard paintings have been an ongoing series since 2017, although inspiration came from just one sunny, September day more than thirty years ago.

My husband is a retired Canadian Forces Marine Engineer. While he was still a serving member on Vancouver Island we spent an afternoon walking in the Esquimalt dockyard. For anyone who has been on southern Vancouver Island its natural beauty is mesmerizing. Historic dockyard buildings seem to have evolved from the topography of the island – some constructed in combinations of red brick and island rock. Arbutus trees majestic with colour and undulating form created a visual tapestry around many of these historic buildings. The seemingly haphazard evolution of period infrastructure to meet evolving military needs added another visual element. It was my intention then to paint from many of the photographs I took that day. Unfortunately, in the days before digital photography and during our move to southern Alberta, the prints and negatives were lost. Happily I came across them.

Interestingly and perhaps because of the distance in time, my perspective as an artist changed. Many subjects became interpreted increasingly as conceptual and abstract.

I want to thank the practice manager of Campbell Clinics in Lethbridge for allowing me to present these paintings together for public display.

Expressive Wildflowers

I have painted representational wildflowers most of my life, usually delicately rendered in transparent acrylic or watercolour—often on fabric, later sewn as fine craft. This Spring I chose wildflowers as subjects for an entirely new series of heavily textured, highly expressive, mixed media oil paintings. These explosions of colour and texture are fun to create and likely a reaction to this artist’s pandemic stress. Several of them are now for sale at the Crowsnest Pass Gallery gift shop. Crowsnest Pass Gallery, if you are not familiar with it is located on Highway 3 in Frank, Alberta, just a klik or two west of Frank Slide Interpretive Centre. It is a lovely gallery space and one of the public galleries that hosted my first solo exhibition while it was on tour. Here is a link to their website. https://www.crowsnestpasspublicartgallery.com/

A link to my new image gallery of Expressive Wildflowers on this website is also here if you would like a quick look. https://bevmazurick.com/portfolio/paintings/nggallery/landscape-portfolio/expressive-wildflowers

Species at Risk

Species at Risk is the title of an ongoing, new series of art cards I have been creating this Spring. The purpose is to raise awareness of the environmental impact of open-pit coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. I am donating all proceeds from sale of these cards, except for my cost of printing and gallery commissions, to Alberta Wilderness Association https://albertawilderness.ca/ AWA is a federally registered Canadian charitable organization and one of the groups lobbying so hard to protect the Eastern Slopes.

Watercolours in the series are painted specifically for reproduction as art cards. Species at Risk cards are 5 x 7” with envelopes, professionally printed on linen-finish card stock. The back of each card carries a brief narrative about the subject. Cards are priced at $6.00 each and are individually packaged in cellophane sleeves.

In addition to buying cards directly from me, I am arranging with gallery shops in southern Alberta to carry them. Species at Risk cards should be available shortly at Crowsnest Pass Gallery, Lebel Mansion gift shop in Pincher Creek, Gust Gallery in Waterton National Park, Leighton Art Centre near Calgary and AAC Works gift shop in Lethbridge. If you wish to purchase cards from me directly, please email: bevmazurick@gmail.com

Species at Risk as a personal art project developed after an initial conversation with Dr. Ian Urquhart of AWA in January. Open-pit, strip mining or mountain-top removal mining is on a truly massive scale. If you have ever driven toward Butte, Montana you will see the degree of devastation that we may be facing soon.

Working on this series has given me a sincere appreciation for the dedication of individual biologists, environmental scientists and the various other individuals and groups advocating for protection of our mountains and water. I am also thankful to the photographers who have allowed me to use their images as references.

Iconic mountain trees and my first subjects are the high elevation pine trees Limber Pine (Pinus flexilis) and Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis). They are extremely long-lived and slow growing. Both are listed as endangered species federally and provincially. These tree species do not become mature or cone-bearing for 40 and 50 years respectively. Some of them may live for more than 1,000 years

*High Country Pine painted from photographs by Bob Scheele*

The Grassy Mountain Coal Project is an open-pit, steelmaking coal mining project proposed in the Crowsnest Pass area of the Eastern Slopes. Approximately 21,000 Whitebark Pine will be removed for this project alone and it is only the first of similar mining projects proposed in the Crowsnest Pass region. Although Grassy Mountain project approval requires that the company ameliorate loss by re-planting, the natural, high elevation habitat will be gone.

Bull Trout (Salvelinus confluentus) and Westslope Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi) are listed species, classified as “threatened” federally and provincially. Both are native to tributary streams in headwaters of the Oldman and Bow River systems in southern Alberta. There are various risk factors but of looming concern is the effect of open-pit coal mining on habitat.

Water quality and quantity are both at issue. We do not know what percentage of the average annual flow of water in tributary streams will be diverted to feed coal mining activities such as Grassy Mountain, Tent Mountain and other open-pit mining projects proposed in the Crowsnest Pass. These native fish need cold, clear water. Increased sedimentation and the seemingly inescapable leaching of selenium are both harmful consequences of coal mining. Selenium is known to be toxic to fish. There is apparently no effective technology to prevent or remove selenium from the water.

Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos) is another iconic symbol of our wilderness and is designated as being a species at risk both federally in Canada and provincially in Alberta. Quoting from an article published by Alberta Wilderness Association on their website: “The future survival and recovery of Alberta’s grizzly bears depends on the protection and recovery of the landscapes that they rely on.” Disruption of their range, degradation and further fragmentation of natural grizzly bear habitat following from proposed open-pit coal mining in the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains will undoubtedly put further pressure on grizzly bear recovery efforts.

Viewpoints

Contemporary Painting

Viewpoints are an ongoing series of studio paintings unified by their focus on human-made landscape subjects which are geometric or architectural rather than organic. It seems that we attach far less aesthetic value to industrial sites or old alleys than we do natural places. Landscapes are something I enjoy painting and do paint regularly, developed either in the studio as contemporary mixed media work, or painted alla prima outdoors. Non-traditional landscape subjects also have grace and stories inherent in them just as worthy of artistic exploration.

I have been working on Viewpoints for several years now in tandem with other studio work. In terms of pure design aesthetics, graphic shapes and forms are a compelling point of departure in developing an interesting composition. Some are highly expressive or abstracted, others purely representational. Viewpoints often present drawing challenges but have also presented opportunities to explore different approaches to painting with oil.