Timothy Allan Johnston
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Feature story with photogrtaphs in the March, 2023 issue of Kerby News
​
Calgary’s Urban Sketchers
Story and photographs by Tim Johnston
 
Calgary’s Sunalta Park and its community centre aren’t exactly showcases for modern urban meeting spaces within our city. One of the city’s oldest parks, it is hemmed in on the north by the C-Train elevated span and station and the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. To the east and west along 10th Avenue SW, vintage commercial buildings mark its corners. Walk-up apartment buildings hedge its southern reaches. 
 
Within the park one Saturday last September, about a dozen folk could be found scattered throughout the area, all sharing a few similarities. Comfortably encamped in his or her space, each person was focused in the general direction of the old community center building. Assortments of pencils, pens, colors and sketchpads were at hand for each.  These people were members of Calgary Urban Sketchers. They were visiting the park to record a bit of the story of the place through images that would be produce during a two-hour visit.
 
As they observed and drew, I talked with them and made photographs of what they were recording. They spoke of their enjoyment of on-site sketching, working with fellow artists and viewing and interpreting a common local scene. Experience levels ranged from retired high school art teacher to novice beginner, skill levels from highly advanced to “first attempts”. Using a park bench as both a seat and easel, Nicole spoke of skills she is learning by working together with other sketchers and how the encouragement given by the group is so supportive. Georgia told me that she likes the immediacy of on-site sketching. 
 
On-sight sketching is one of the tenets of Urban Sketchers, a non-profit organization started in Washington State by Gabriel Campanario, a journalist and illustrator. Since its inception in 2007, Urban Sketchers has grown to 374 chapters in 60 countries and counts approximately 120,000 members who visit sites in their localities and make sketches of what they find. Calgary’s chapter, officially chartered in 2018 by Peter Norman, Rod Zillman and Jeff Dickson, reorganized an earlier group that had become dormant. I met with Rod, a retired architect, in his teaching area at the Kerby Centre. He explained that through Urban Sketchers, members cultivate a talent and passion for urban drawing. Through their drawings they record stories of their surroundings at a given time. “We try to be as truthful as possible to the scenes we witness,” Rod said, “but each artist is encouraged to express his or her vision of the scene in their own manner.” Shortly after our visit, Rod left for Italy on a sketching vacation.
 
On the following Saturday, I drove to the Saskatoon Farm, east of Okotoks, to join the sketchers at a new location. A lot of work has gone into making this farm an attractive place to visit and shop. It’s also a wonderful place for artists to find and record images of buildings and features of the farm as well as the beauty of the natural setting. The broad valley of the Highwood River is the view to the east and that is what some of the sketchers set about to record. Others found inspiration viewing an old International pick-up truck that had been decorated with abundant autumn produce. That’s where I spoke with Janice who had established her station on a nearby picnic table. 
 
A graduate of Sheridan School of Visual Arts, she told me that finding local places to illustrate was, for her, meditative and grounding. Nearby, Deb was recording her interpretation of the same scene. She spoke of how important the act of sketching had been during her recovery from a serious concussion, of how applying pencil to paper is both calming and inspiring. With a stack of pumpkins as foreground, Jerilyn spoke of her enjoyment of scrapbooking but how she wanted to try other forms of expression. She began drawing during the pandemic, learning by way of on-line programs, and sketching from travel photos. “I get so much pleasure and joy from this experience,” she said. “I draw each evening just to slow down and relax.”
 
I found Norm working on an illustration of the farm’s main building. He has been with the group since it began and likes that it provides opportunities to be out in public with fellow illustrators and friends. “There is usually a get-together after each outing and those I very much enjoy.” Norm has had some of his art displayed locally and explained that members can sell their work privately if they wish. 
 
My final visit with the sketchers occurred in October and I joined them near the home of the Alberta Ballet Company. Several artists had set up just south of the building, once the parish hall of St Mary’s Cathedral and, until 1971, the passenger depot of the Canadian National Railway. Across the street, I found Louisa, a recent newcomer from England, who had a view of the cathedral from Rouleauville Square. This vantage point gave Louisa something special; as well as a nicely framed scene of the front of St Mary’s Cathedral she had a first-person view of a family and its friends arriving for a beautiful wedding.
 
At the end of each sketching session, I watched as the artists collected their pictures into little galleries. Each person then spoke of how he or she had recorded the scenes and what techniques they had used. Fellow sketchers added observations and encouragement, thus highlighting three important tenets of Urban Sketchers; nurturing individual styles, supporting each other and showing the world one drawing at a time.
 
In December, I met up with Belinda, a key member of the Calgary chapter, who read a draft of my story and confirmed names of the members I had photographed. She had just returned from a vacation in Portugal and shared with me some of the highlights of her trip through three small sketchbooks filled with illustrations. Belinda asked that I emphasize four things, the first being that information about Calgary Urban Sketchers, including upcoming sketching locations, is available on their website and also on Facebook. Second, membership in the group is free.  Third, all levels of ability are welcome and fourth, anyone can join simply by showing up at a sketching site. 
 
Thinking back to my first visit with the sketchers and the images they had made at Sunalta Park, I realized that my early impressions of the old place had changed. Through scenes captured by the sketchers, I glimpsed some of the unique beauty of the old park, learned a bit of its history and came to understand the enjoyment the artists had found by interpreting their visions of the place, one sketch at a time.