Corey Hardeman wasn't victorious, and yet she won prizes for all of Prince George and posterity to share and benefit from.
The local painter, who also calls Wells home, represented British Columbia at the Canadian Art Battle National Championship in Toronto. She earned the position by winning the regional competition at Groop Gallery, then the two-round provincial competition at the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver. From there, it was off to face the provincial winners and returning victors in T.O.
"It was hot and dense downtown and everything smelled like food and cloves and cigarettes and sweat; there was a mass of people on the street of a density I'm unaccustomed to even in Vancouver," she said.
"It's been years since I've spent any time in Toronto, and I had forgotten just how big it really feels; how the whole city feels like a huge, seething super-organism. It's overwhelming and exciting and unnerving, and it was a funny kind of muscle memory - parts of the urban animal I once was, awakened from their long dormancy. I remembered how to navigate crowds, I remembered how to orient myself. I was so immersed in the food and the smells and the feeling of the night that I hardly thought about the next day's competition."
The event was held Saturday night at Maple Leaf Gardens with a live audience of thousands and an online audience of even greater numbers.
Hardeman's sister Kristen lives in Toronto, along with other family members. The competition was partially a family reunion for her and those rarely-seen kin, some of whom travelled large distances to be part of the excitement. She used those familial forces to focus her mind in the final hours before the painting puck dropped.
"Saturday morning I slept in, maybe for the first time in years," she said. "I spent the early part of the day at my sister's house, drawing. I am superstitious, it seems, so prior to driving into town, I made sure I had all the same clothes laid out that I had worn during the provincial competition. I called my kids, I put the little plastic star barrette in my hair that my daughter had given me before I went into the provincials. My sister, her partner and I drove in to town mid-afternoon, and at Jay's suggestion we sought out a burger stand on Queen Street, where I consumed a hamburger the size of my head. I'm not exaggerating, and I have a huge head."
When her family dropped her off at the entrance of the Gardens, that was when she felt nervous for the first time.
"We were competing on 10 separate stages on main ice, and it's just huge in there. The big screens were on, and an armada of volunteers was scuttling around setting up easels and raising lights. Chris Pemberton, one of the organizers I'd only communicated with via email to date, seized me and hugged me, and brought me back to the dressing rooms. Artists were trickling in - painters from all over the country, some who'd been there before, some who, like me, hadn't even heard of it this time last year. I stopped being nervous. Everyone was warm and interested in one another's work and generous with their support. We were hugging and sitting close to one another as though we had all known each other for ages."
They were called out to the performance space at 7 p.m. A thing that is usually reserved for creation was suddenly transformed into a gladiator motif, but Hardeman described sensations of instantly turning the competitive aspects back in on themselves when it was time to paint, because when an artist is called upon to do their thing, the rest of the world fades to the background - even though organizers told them prior to them taking up positions that this was indeed the biggest audience in the world for an art battle.
"It was a very different crowd from the one in Vancouver; people were dressed to the nines (including some of the painters, which I thought was remarkable), and were certainly there to be seen," she said.
The painters were grouped into two heats of 10 each. Finalists would advance from these two rounds and face off in a final round for supremacy. She had rehearsed and had had success in Vancouver with the image of three trout, so in the 20 minutes they were allotted, that's what she set out to render.
"The painting felt good: the lights are so bright and you're so close to your canvas that you don't really see what you're painting, you just kind of intuit and rely on memory. Usually I step back from my work constantly, but you just can't do that on stage. At the end of the round, everyone in attendance was to vote electronically, but the system was overwhelmed. The organizers then tried taking votes by show of hands, and then decided that they would have everyone physically put their tickets on the stage of the person for whom they were voting. There was general confusion, but this is Toronto and flawed electoral systems are nothing new."
She did not advance.
While her feelings in Vancouver were blends of shock and disbelief at winning, her feeling were shock and disbelief in Toronto when the pronouncement was made that she would not be among those moving on to the next round.
"Not so much because I was so sure I'd done the best work, or because I had had the biggest crowd, but because I just felt sure," she clarified.
"All of the work was really solid, and a few really superb paintings didn't advance, so I could hardly feel hard done by. It took me about five minutes to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to win it, and then I was OK, and more than that, I was happy. Watching the final round was an amazing experience. I have always been competing, so hadn't had the opportunity to just watch, to be part of the audience. What I saw was a group of seasoned painters working all-out. I saw incredible talent, almost magical speed and brilliant showmanship. In particular, the now three-time national champion, Yared Nigissu, and three-time runner up Carlos Delgado just danced around their easels. They were fast, they were graceful, they were charismatic, they were fierce. It was a beautiful thing to watch."
Therein lay her prize. It was absorbing that skill, up close, and as a peer. It was having her skills appreciated in constructive ways. It was in seeing just how powerful art - especially her art - is to the human spirit. Those things she brings back to Prince George, along with the gratitude of having been given new views and experiences to pass on to local painters and local audiences when she paints again in the usual confines of studio solitude.
"Art is generous. This was a great reminder of that fact," she said. "The beauty of this thing is that people come, they become a part of the process, they see the act of art making in a way that is rarely accessible. Painters generally work alone, we work out our ideas over time and in isolation. At an event like Art Battle, that spark is right there in the room. Anyone who wants to can reach out and touch it. It is magic, as pure and powerful as any force in the universe."
