Past Art Instructors
Alison Tedford
Alison Tedford is an Indigenous freelance writer and marketing consultant from Abbotsford, BC. Her personal essays have been published on CBC, Al Jazeera, Today’s Parent, Upworthy, Good Men Project, Scary Mommy, in print publications and more. Her debut book, Chronic...
April Lacheur
Back in 2007, April was creating art as a hobby while working as full time Registered Nurse in post open heart surgery in Victoria, BC, Canada. Fast forward 10+ years and April is now working as a full-time artist, having traded in her in stethoscope for a paintbrush....
Cameron McLellan
Cameron McLellan’s work concerns the built environment, architectural space and materiality through drawing, painting and site-specific responses. Through form, texture and the meditative quality of repetition, McLellan explores how these connections can be rethought...
Chelsea Yuill
Chelsea Yuill is an emerging curator and textile artist based in Vancouver, BC. As a textile artist, her hand sewn appliqués are wearable embellishments of glamour, costume, and kitschy romance while her weaving focuses on community engagement. In 2018, she completed...
Felicia Chang
Felicia Chang is a documentary photographer specialized in family, newborn, and childbirth photography. Her “day in the life” sessions capture the real moments of your family, documenting the visual story of your life.
Hilary Grist
Hilary Grist’s signature brand of firefly folk dipped in dreamy, art pop envelopes her dulcet, often delicate vocal delivery. A diverse artist, her poignant and playful songs have been featured regularly on CBC Radio and heard on TV shows like: Grimm (NBC), Being...
Ideet Sharon
Ideet is an artist, certified Expressive Arts Therapist, and mom living in beautiful and diverse Vancouver. She Attended the Vancouver Film School and worked many years as a digital animator in the film and TV industry. As an artist, she works out of 1000...
Isidora Nojkovic
Isidora Nojkovic is a Serbian-Canadian cellist who performs internationally as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. She has a passion for contemporary music, having premiered over 50 works, and is active in commissioning and working with living...
Jeff Wilson
Jeff Wilson grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland & trained as a structural geologist. He worked in mineral exploration around the world, settling in Vancouver in 2004, and took art classes at Emily Carr University, kick-starting a hobby that transitioned to a full-time...
Kathy van Gogh
Kathy van Gogh has been a professional visual artist since 2001, although as most artists would tell you, she has been obsessed with colour and creativity all her life. Her formal training began in the USA and in Canada. To further hone her skills, she travelled to...
Kirith Bains
Born and raised in Vancouver, I have grown up appreciating the diverse and colourful landscape. My love for the arts began early and lead me to a major in Art History with a specialization in Asian Art and a minor in Sociology at UBC. I enjoy sharing my love for the...
Leah Gies
As a Youth Worker and Student Support Worker with the Vancouver School Board for the past 14 years, Leah discovered a passion for using art to inspire creativity and self-awareness in the students she works with. She is a life-long lover of drawing, writing and...
Mairi Anderson
Mairi Anderson is a settler from Treaty 7 Territory, grateful to be living on unceded Coast Salish lands. She is a Grade 3 teacher and multimedia artist who has previously taught visual arts and writing-based day camps. She has illustrated two books...
Margaret Joba-Woodruff
Using the techniques of drawing, bookbinding, and printmaking, my art practice focuses on patterns, nature and the body. The materials I work with such as fabric, paper, ink, copper, limestone, wood, and water all help guide the direction of each piece. Ultimately, I...
Melanie Rivers
Mixed Media Acrylic
Melanie Rivers, Tiyaltelwet, is an Indigenous mixed media artist who teaches online and in person art classes to women around the world. She helps women build a joyful and self-compassionate art practice. Melanie says, “Creating art brings me into the present moment,...
Michele Mateus
Hi, I’m Michele and I am so glad you are here! I’m a wedding and portrait photographer, and everything I do centers around creating connection. I get to know my clients and learn the stories they want to tell before my camera ever comes out. Together, we co-create...
Michelle Weinstein
Artist Statement There is a gap between what is known about the nature of existence, and how it is experienced on the ordinary level. All matter, including bodies, is composed of elements that are probabilities (electron clouds). We live in a home of such vast space...
Paula Barrantes
Paula Barrantes is a watercolour illustrator that brings the study of plants and their surrounding ecosystems to the center of her practice. After leaving her native Costa Rica to study in Canada, she went on to...
Rachel Brett
Rachel Brett is an emphatic storyteller and entertainer. Immersed in her natural habitat of mountainous, forested coastal climates, she resides in Vancouver, Canada, as a freelance concept artist and illustrator. Having lived in Sweden during her early childhood, her...
River Kero
River Kero is a queer Canadian artist born and currently living in Vancouver, British Columbia. His practice consists mostly of graphic novel illustration, scriptwriting, prose, and traditional drawing with pen and ink. As an artist who grew up in rural British...
Sarah Higgins
Sarah (Higgins) is a writer and theatre artist currently based in what’s known as Burnaby, BC, on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from UBC in 2016, and has been working in the theatre, at the circus and in...
Sarah Turner
Sarah Turner is a writer and editor living in Port Moody, BC. Her award winning creative non-fiction has been published in various places including Event, the Utne reader, Literary Mama and the anthology Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food....
Taslim Jaffer
Taslim Jaffer is a freelance writer and writing instructor with a special interest in culture and society. Her writing has appeared in Maclean’s, Huffington Post Canada, Unearth Women, CBC Parents, WestCoast Families and others. As the cultures columnist for...
Valeria Ascolese
Valeria is a Peruvian-Italian multidisciplinary artist and educator born in Lima, Peru. A graduate of Capilano University, she has collaborated with theatre companies like Rumble Theatre, Bard on the Beach and Pacific Theatre, while simultaneously working in film and...