Powderlicious

This painting was commissioned by a friend in Nova Scotia.  When he reached out to me, he asked me to paint his wife slaying some pow because he wanted to gift it to her for Christmas.  Like most people who reach out, they like the vibrant colours and whimsy captures in my style, which evoke the emotions associated with a passion for skiing.  Dan was no different.

Other than Facebook and a t-shirt order from his company a few years ago, I hadn’t been in contact with Dan for about 20 years. As I started painting this piece, I would send him photos of the progress, to get his feedback.  He was always positively encouraging.  Through text messages, he would tell me a little bit more about how he’d been.  It started with how his family had a property near Wentworth where they would spend their winters skiing.  I also knew that Dan grew up skiing and through Facebook posts, I knew he joined some boys on a trip out west to the mountains nearly every year.  Then one day he sent me a picture of he and his wife, and he was in bed with a neck brace.  The physio side of me couldn’t help but ask why?  

Dan told me about a ski accident he’d had while skiing with his family at Wentworth.  He had been bed-ridden for nearly a year with frightening neurological symptoms every time he tried to sit or stand upright.  After relentlessly seeking medical attention in Nova Scotia, reaching out to an extensive army of health care workers, Dan came up empty handed, no solutions for his predicament. Eventually, with lots of research that he initiated, he found but three physicians in North America, who could help him.  But there was a catch…all three were located in the US, we were in the middle of a pandemic, and there was no health coverage for the whopping $300,000 procedure that could get him back on his feet.  

Eventually, Dan told me that I may be documenting one of his last days on skis. I was truly sad to hear this.

This painting is special in so many ways.  When I finished it, Dan told me he was indeed going to the US for the procedure in the fall.  They were unsure how they would foot the bill, but fully realized that he was much too young to live his life in bed when there was a fix.  

He told me how hard things had been for him and his family and that there was one person who had been by his side the entire time, one person who had dug her heels in deep and shouldered the demands of the family with three kiddos, a person with incredible strength and resilience that helped him through the toughest part of his life…and this painting was for her.  I wanted the painting to reach him before he left so I sent it before I was able to have it photographed professionally.  

As I followed Dan’s story, it pulled at my heartstrings.  For all the fun days on the hill, you just never know when things can change for you in an instant.  Dan lived that.  But he also lived to see an entire community coming together to help him achieve his goals of recovery.  I hope to one day see Dan back on his boards, but for now, Powderlicious is a celebration of people coming together and supporting one another…his wife, his family, his friends, and his entire community. 

That’s simply so special.