In the summer of 2017, I lived in the remote town of Tahsis on Vancouver Island where I participated in the Tahsis Farm Artist Residency. The Tahsis Farm Artist Residency was one-of-a-kind because it was surrounded by alpine, ocean, temperate forests, and caves. Tahsis Farm was being built as a self-sustainable eco-tourist and research destination for artists. I was one of the first artists to live and work there. During the residency, I used photography to document my everyday experiences in the natural environments of Tahsis, underwater in the Pacific Ocean and on the land of the people who lived and worked at the residency and in the town of Tahsis. I experimented with transferring prints onto scraps of wood that were in abundance. The property had been used by the previous owners as a lumber mill. A lot of machinery still remained and was used to mill fallen and dead trees to build housing, chicken coops, and other structures to grow the property.

An important part of what made the artist residency special was the people. There were people from around the world either passing through as backpackers, Workaways (an international program that allows travelers to pay for their room and food by helping their host with household work needs, projects, or odd jobs), artists and the three owners of the property. Music was an integral part of the experience and a spontaneous band formed named, “Tahsis Farm Band” between four people on the farm. The band included Chris, a Scottish workaway, Carla, a musician from Nanaimo, Laura and Jess who were artists and from Vancouver Island. They practiced and jammed in the studio where I worked alongside a painter from England named Adam. Inspiration was overflowing from this place.

At the end of the summer, we had a music festival named, “Nootka Sound Festival”. Two french workaways, Max and Maxime and a local frenchman Pierre built the stage for the festival out of existing wood from the farm. Local bands were hired from around Vancouver to play and hundreds of people showed up to the festival. The Tahsis Farm Band also played. The music festival was a success and one of the more memorable parts of the experience. Sadly, the residency no longer exists, but Tahsis is still an incredible place to visit.