Painter Angela Thibodeau has been been getting up early and working late this summer, in an effort to catch sunrise and sunset at the Sackville Waterfowl Park as much as possible. As this year’s artist-in-residence for the park, Thibodeau’s goal is to document and share the dawn and dusk colours and activity in the wetland.
CHMA spoke with Thibodeau this week to find out more about her summer residency:
As someone who often works from photographs, Thibodeau says she is frustrated by the limitation of her digital camera in capturing the tones and colours of the light-changing mornings and evenings. “It’s always trying to correct for the low light,” she says. “So I’ll just make sketches. They don’t look like finished paintings, but they help me get to know the colours of the sunrise and sunset.”
Then three days a week, Thibodeau sets up in her makeshift studio at the Sackville Visitor Information Centre and paints.
“I make finished paintings in watercolour and bit of pencil and pen, of all different scenes in the Waterfowl Park,” says Thibodeau. “And the sky always reflects the colours that I’ve seen the morning of or the night before. I’m trying to make a body of work where all of the paintings show the park at those times of day.”
Thibodeau is also open to chatting with residents or travellers who pass through the VIC, though she hasn’t yet been inundated this year.
Later in August Thibodeau will show her work in a public presentation with an artist talk (Friday, August 12 at 7pm at the Visitor Information Centre), and she’s also hosting a workshop for kids on August 6th, where they will create a mini diorama of the Waterfowl Park using watercolour paper.
Thibodeau also participates in the Art Across the Marsh Studio Tour each year (when it’s not cancelled due to a pandemic) and so people will also have a chance to view the work then.
Thibodeau says the goal behind her work is to share an experience of the Waterfowl Park that not many get to have, because most visitors make their way through during the day. “I’ve noticed the nature is much more active in the morning,” says Thibodeau. “Sometimes you’ll see raccoons going down the boardwalk. I just really wanted to share that with people, but also share my practice as an artist. How I sit down, how I compose a painting, how I follow a practice of researching a subject matter and bringing that about into a finished body of work. I wanted people to have access to that kind of process too.”
Thibodeau is at the Visitor Information Centre this week on Wednesday and Friday, and will be back for her final week at the end of July. For more information check sackville.com, or find Thibodeau on Instagram and Facebook.