Michael Hepher

I am grateful to have had this opportunity to share my thoughts with you and I hope these words have been thought-provoking and challenging to you in some way. For this final edition of this column, I have pulled a few excerpts from the past that highlight my favourite ideas through the ninety...

The first time I entered my art in a juried exhibition there was an opportunity to be part of a group critique organized by the juror. As a young artist, it was nerve-wracking to put my work on trial in front of someone with a lot of knowledge—but I wanted to grow as an artist, so I was eager to...

Decades before John Lennon popularized the phrase, Allen Saunders wrote, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” As an artist I see this truth in action because every painting re-affirms its universality. In art as in life, we can plan and hope, but it rarely materializes...

I have never owned a boat, but I have always loved being around them. It’s endlessly fascinating for me to wander around marinas and look at the variety of vessels. The way a boat is built is a form-follows-function process in which the shape, size, and amenities are precisely governed by the...

When we start a creative project, we tend to think in terms of lines; a sketch becomes the outline we use to block out a project. It’s easy to think about the edges because that’s what defines the shapes on our two-dimensional canvasses—everything inside this outline is a tree, everything outside is...

It’s early season and the bike trails are opening up and down the valley. It’s always Swine Flu that’s ready first, but who wants to ride that uphill on the first ride of the season? Not this artist. I’ll wait until Queen V is open—which it is now except for that section of EcoTerrorist that stays...

When I tackle a new painting, I start by thinking about what colours I need to put down on my pallet by squeezing out a blob of all colours I might need to get started. By the time I’ve got my pallet ready to go I invariably find I have all of the colours, partly because I don’t want to limit my...

These thoughts were originally compiled for the artists’ talk at the opening for my show Where the Three Winds Meet at Elevation Gallery that opened on February 15, 2025. They seemed to strike a chord with several people so I thought it would be worthwhile to try to jot them down before they faded...

We are at an interesting (read: disconcerting) era in the evolution of the creative process. In the past, major changes and innovations to how we make things have been noted as major cultural revolutions. The Renaissance, for instance, was an explosion of technique and thought that affected culture...

Most of us know the feeling of being the last one picked for the team on the elementary school grounds. Whichever headmaster that came up with the Captain’s Pick system of ‘fairly’ dividing kids into groups should be dragged over hot coals. It’s always been a hard lesson in emotional survival or neo...