Corey Hardeman had a clear vision for what she wanted out of her Alphabet Project assignment, the letter J.
She used collage - bits of imagery cut from paper and pasted into a larger composite image - to show the letter J in the form of rabbits. The animal was chosen for a number of symbolic reasons, and the way the creatures shaped the letter also had some symbolic meaning.
Call it fate, call it an opportunity in disguise, call it making lemonade out of lemons, but the collage was sent to the Community Arts Council by trackable mail, but somehow it got lost in the Canada Post network. Hardeman had no other choice, after attempts to locate the parcel failed, but to do it all over again.
And it improved. Hardeman, who now lives in Vancouver, took a totally different approach to the rabbits this time. It was a combination of drawing and watercolour painting. The final result was even more pleasing to her artist's eye.
Completely relevant to the scenario was the mire of grief Hardeman was suffering at the time, soon after the tragic death of her sweetheart, actor Timothy Sutherland (for more than a decade he portrayed Judge Begbie at Barkerville). It was sudden and shocking, due to stroke, on July 30, 2015, at the age of 48.
Sutherland was known by many and highly regarded for his skills at acting and life. Prince George actor/director Kennedy Goodkey said "grief is happiness distilled by years and uncorked by eternity" in his tribute to the man. For Hardeman, the uncorking was almost her undoing.
Finding her own happiness again was done through various forms of art. Hardeman clung to her children, her friends and her creative process.
"The first time (I created the J image), I was still really in a sea of despond," she said. "I'd forgotten the deadline and suddenly realized it was upon me, oh crap, so I had that pressure. And something else I do for fun is cut stuff out of paper, so I glued it all down, but I didn't have any really deep feelings about it.
"Then the loss in the mail happened. I have been promised by Canada Post some resolution in June, but I am now and I really was then very annoyed by Canada Post over all this," she said. "The second one, I drew it. I hardly ever do that anymore, because I'm too busy painting. I sketch a lot, but its like a doctor's note: even me I'll look back on sketches and wonder what the hell I was trying to get at. Where is the light source? Where is the vanish point? So this was getting back to actual drawing, and it was something that reminded me of being a kid, and reminded me of who I am, in a way. Part of this art thing is a compulsion for me, but another part of it is how I express love, so to do that without any real demand to make a deeper anything, just do something sweet and good, was a refreshing reminder."
Hardeman said she was relieved to get the letter J as her assignment in the Alphabet Project.
"There are some letters I'm not a big fan of, like T. There are some numbers I'm not wild about. But J has that built-in semicircle, it goes one way then flips up at the end, it has verve almost literally and that's not a word you get to use too often," she said.
A certain mood had started eking back into her daily life, by the time this project came along, and it was a J word and she took conscious note of it: joy. Her grief was melting into appreciation of memory, not ripped by its barbs.
She was also thriving as an artist, at this point. She had to be. Her finances were winced after focusing on Sutherland's final days in hospital, and moving to Vancouver where the cost of living is higher but art clientele is higher.
Still, though, it was a Prince George contingent that came into her online business world at that point. She embarked on a personal challenge, a project to boost her finances and refocus her mind off of thoughts and memories stamped with her loss. She embarked on creating 100 pieces of original art in 100 days.
It was actually 103 when she dropped from exhaustion, and the purchases poured in. Every one of the 103 was sold or dedicated to a key recipient in some way. It recalibrated her psyche and it took the pressure off her bank account.
"I have a really loyal base in P.G. It's so awesome and I am so grateful. People haven't forgotten that I exist," she said. "I get kinda homesick, but it is going well. I haven't had to consider getting a real job. I just paint and teach. And most of my months have not been infused with financial panic. And I couldn't help but notice that all that art I sold had a Prince George address to send it to."
She blames - in the best sense of the word - her expansive P.G. fan base (and friend base) to the efforts of the Community Arts Council to bring visual artists together. Events like Art Battle (she won the provincial title and painted off in Toronto at the nationals), the Spring Arts Bazaar, and now the Alphabet Project in partnership with The Citizen do more than give one artist a chance to show their works among others, there is an interactivity between artists, and art is a solitary endeavour a lot of the time.
"I like that about P.G., that everybody in the community can work together and showcase each others work and there's a sense of mutual support and cross-pollination," she said. "Having done work with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra on their promotional materials is another example of that. I have finished another year's worth of fundraising paintings for the PGSO, this year they are landscapes done on birch panels, and it just includes me again in the way artists of different kind can work together for each other, and that's special. Prince George is special."
She got to make her letter J more special than she intended, but now that the timelines have been put successfully behind her, she is glad of the extra time to think and create.
"I was thinking a lot about joy, actually," she said, which is why the title is Jump For Joy and the image is a pleasant one.
"It was nice to get at something that wasn't dark or heavy," she added. "I knew this would be published in the spring, and I wanted it to convey an expression of joy and hope and fun, and I've spent a lot of time looking at jackrabbits in my life, they have that built into what they do. And it represents a leap forward, you know."
Flip through the below slideshow to view the Alphabet Project art and a link to each artist story:
