When Cecila of teenybotanist first moved to Banff almost 7 years ago, she lost touch with her art. She was a lithographer in her life before the Bow Valley, which involved working with glorious limestones, but the specialized facilities for lithography weren’t available here. Sometimes she felt like she had traded in her art practice for mountain adventures as she adjusted to her new home. Her creativity found a few small ways to shine, but she gracefully retired her title as “artist.”.
Then in 2020, along with so many others, Cecilia lost her job (you know, the big C) and Banff became almost 80% unemployed. For her, like so many of us, this period came with lots of confusion and processing, but also beauty and joy. And that’s ultimately how teenybotanist came to be – talk about silver linings! Cecilia says she channeled endless unrestricted time into many things – working out, learning something new, spending time outside, cooking tasty meals with rescued food, and being creative. All of her time was dedicated to focusing on her purpose outside of her previous reality working at the Banff Centre where she recruited people to the residency programs.
One day, Cecilia decided to challenge herself to do 30 days of painting. One small piece, every single day. She quickly found herself painting multiple pieces a day that “weren’t good enough” and would often paint until 3:00am. After the 30 days, she was very relieved to not have to paint, but did find herself wanting to paint. Since this small breakthrough, everything changed. She was thankful to have her job at the Banff Centre back, and began navigating the new normal of working from home. In that, she finally found the balance between work, the mountains, and her art practice that she’d been searching for. She’s now celebrating herself for being an artist AND everything else that she is.
