A Passion for the Mountains - The Alpine Club of Canada

A Passion for the Mountains
by Amy Krause
The
painting on the cover of
this issue of the Gazette was
created by Donna Jo Massie; a Canmore,
Alberta artist who is as well known for her
art classes as she is for the work she paints.
On a cold March evening I showed up on
her doorstep. I was greeted by a warm and
enthusiastic, “Hello! You must be Amy!”
As I stepped inside, I was struck by her
positively tiny pair of running shoes.
Donna Jo has small feet, but I would
decide later, big shoes to fi ll.
Massie has been infl uenced by the work
of Georgia O’Keefe, Charlie Russell and
Andrew Wyeth – all artists who were deeply
moved by the places they lived – and her
comments reveal much of her own love
affair with the mountains she calls home.
“To know a place,” she says thoughtfully,
“You have to know it intimately, not
superfi cially.” She explains that as you
discover a place, “You don’t get bored.
You’re always changing as an artist, and the
place… it’s endless.”
Massie arrived in the Canadian Rockies
27 years ago. She was born in Cherokee,
North Carolina and was studying
environmental education in Florida
when Alberta’s Kananaskis Country was
established. Drawn by the prospect of
new parks, a new environmental program
and a new start, Massie came to work for
Kananaskis Country.
The land of everglades seemed, to me,
to be a far cry from the backbone of the
continent. But growing up in the Smoky
Mountains the hill country was no foreign
place to Massie. Her quiet accent rolls by
me in pleasant waves.
16 Alpine Club of Canada ● Gazette ● Summer 2003
“I come from a long line of mountain
people… generations and generations.
I think I’m very comfortable in the
mountains. Coming here was sort of like
coming home. This just feels like a good
place to be.”
With a degree in Education, Massie
worked part time with Kananaskis
Country’s interpretation program until
1988, when she took the leap to pursue
painting full time.
“When I started painting there was
nothing on mountains. You could fi nd
books about barns, seascapes, fl owers…
but nothing on mountains! I read Walter
Phillips’ work, and once in a while you
would fi nd a reference to the colours of the
trees. They’re not spring green, they have a
warmth to them.”
It wasn’t just colour that fascinated
Massie. “There is something about the light
here,” she says. She compares it to the light
in Santa Fe or Taos, New Mexico. “It has
to do with high altitude and dry air. There
is so little humidity here! It produces this
absolutely crystal clear, pure light.”
“That’s why I thought our mountains
deserved a book on how to paint them.
The colours – alpine glow, larches, high
mountain lakes…”
She recalls a moment on Opabin
Plateau, near Lake O’Hara in British
Columbia. “It was a perfect moment. I
think it’s those perfect moments that keep
you coming back, that make you say, ‘I have
to go up here because if the light is right, it’s
just going to be… heaven.’” She laughs, “I
guess it’s a bit of an addiction.”
Asking her if she painted to express how
the landscape made her feel, she replied,
“Yes, a part of why you paint is to show
your relationship with the place – but I also
paint to get people involved!”
Teaching is as great a passion for Massie
as painting is. Her book, A Rocky Mountain
Sketchbook, is only a part of the story. She
also teaches workshops that, in a small
town, have expanded to 70 people per week
in four separate classes.
One of the fi rst things Massie teaches
her students is to observe. “If they
observe more and see more, they come
to have a relationship with this mountain
environment and in doing so they will want
to preserve it – ‘now that I know it and love
it, I want to take care of it.’ It’s a step further
than the artwork.”
For Massie, this appreciation can be
experienced by anyone and expressed by
anyone, not only those who pursue art
professionally – something she absorbed
while growing up in the Great Smoky
Mountains of Appalachia.
“That painting over there, that was
done by my uncle. My great aunt made
these baskets and my grandmother was a
weaver. Art was not something somebody
else did; it was a part of what you did with
your life. Creating was something you just
grew up doing.”
It is something Massie is still doing,
every day. There is an unfi nished painting in
her studio of a stream, so vibrant; it makes
you feel you’ve been smacked between the
eyes by a vision of water. It glows out of
the darkness, surrounded by plaster white
watercolour board.
I asked her if she thought there was
much difference between what she did in
the mountains and what mountaineers do.
“No!” She looks at me wide eyed. “I don’t
think there is a difference. I have mountain
climbers who are friends. It’s because we
love this place. There’s something about
the mountains that is compelling. We just
pursue our passion in different ways. I
suspect that rapture they get on the top of
a mountain is similar to the feeling you get
when you sign your name on that painting
and go…‘Wow.’”
Massie has small feet, but I’m sure her
students would agree, big shoes to fi ll.
To view Massie’s work, visit her solo
shows at Canada House in Banff this July,
or at the Stephen Lowe Art Gallery in
Calgary in November. Her work will also be
featured in the Wonder of Water group show
appearing at Canada House May 10 to June
20, 2003. Or you can visit her website at:
www.telusplanet.net/public/massiewc/