Ange Constable treats homes and businesses as her canvas
By Kara-Leah Grant
There is a magnificent red dragon looping down my stairs. It’s come to drink from a cascading blue waterfall and sips while poised for flight. I wish it were real, but the tag line on the artwork reads "Suddenly Super Ange’s luck dragon appears," revealing it as the work of local artist Ange Constable. The result of three weeks of intense labour, the dragon is drawn in pastel and blended by hand. It is completely removable if and when I move out of this apartment, but it gives me a compelling reason to stay.
The giant red dragon is not the only example of Constable’s work in town. She has also had murals on the walls of local businesses Expressions and Farfalla. Both jobs came about through serendipity, following a trend that started during Constable’s recent trip to India.
"While I was in India I did five murals," explains Constable. "I was hanging out in a cafe drawing and the owner asked me if I would like to do something on the wall. I said sure. I’d never painted a wall before, but he liked it. Then the guy downstairs asked me to do one for him. The murals were all huge – including a nine foot blue snake, like a python from the Jungle Book, and an old man’s face."
Constable’s work in Whistler came about much the same way. Saifon Woozley, owner of Expressions knew Constable through dancing at Tommy’s together a few years ago and asked her to create a drawing of a Buddha for her.
"She was able to pull out exactly what my vision was from a conversation we had and create the perfect Buddha," says Woozley. "So I decided to hire her to paint the walls of Expressions. It was a really great experience for the both of us."
Constable’s mural work is created using nothing more than junior artist pastels purchased from Lotus Art Supplies.
"They have oil in them so it is really easy to blend the colours," says Constable. "I didn’t know crayons would work so well but I like using my hands to make art and the pastels are the perfect choice."
The gigantic vibrant flowers, plants and waves she created at Expressions led directly to her next job at Farfalla.
"Emanuela was walking by and she stopped in to say hi to me one day – what got her to come in was the flowers on the wall," explains Woozley.
Emanuela Bertioa is one of the owners of Farfalla. She immediately asked Constable if she would create a huge mural for the walls of the salon.
"It’s a huge amount of work. It took a few weeks to do Expressions and a couple of weeks to do Farfalla," says Constable.
"I love working on walls because they are just so massive. I want to go bigger and do more colour because it’s all about the colour."
Both Expressions and Farfalla are overjoyed with the work Constable did. The response from customers has been one of wonder and amazement.
Michael Gallup is a stylist at the salon and he says one of the great things about having an artist create in your workspace is coming in every morning and never knowing exactly what you will find.
"Ange did a wonderful job, the drawings are very colourful and really cool," says Gallup. "Being a hair salon, it adds a creative flow to the space and everyone loves it."
Unfortunately, due to renovations, the Farfalla murals are due to be painted over. Constable says it’s one of the drawbacks of painting directly onto walls, but she’s just happy knowing how many people have enjoyed her work while it was there.
But the drawback of hiring an artist to design and draw a wall-sized mural – the potential impermanence of the work – is offset by the magic of watching them at work. If one ever wondered how a painting came about, this is the perfect way to find out.
"I have a map or a sketch that I draw to start with," explains Constable. "But it usually ends up totally different. I work intuitively, so I don’t choose the colours, they choose themselves.
"The sheer size of mural work is the hardest aspect of the work, because when you start it’s a daunting amount of work to contemplate. But big is good."
Constable’s career as an artist is only a recent development.
"I have no training at all. I did art in year 12 many moons ago but never did anything with it until I came to Whistler," explains Constable.
"My friend Alicat was painting and I wanted to have a go at it, so she encouraged me. Then in the winter of 1999/2000, I lived with an artist called Paul Dearden and I painted there a lot – lots of naked women when I first started."
Constable says she believes that everyone is capable of producing artwork because whether you paint, draw, sculpt, write, carve or etch, all you are doing is expressing yourself.
"I love Chili’s (Thom) stuff. He’s very inspiring because he has done it the hard way and he is just starting to get recognition for his work. His wife KLC also creates amazing art, but she tends to use fabric as her medium," says Constable.
"For me, it’s not so much if I get recognition but if I can keep doing it. That’s why it’s important that I work on walls, because people can see the work."
Constable says she hopes she has the opportunity to continue doing walls and large murals in Whistler, but she knows that eventually she will want to express her art in other ways.
"My art will change along the way. I want to use different mediums – my hands will only last so long doing finger painting," she says.
"It’s just something I love to do and that is what life is all about, finding something you love to do and getting paid to do it. That is the name of the game."
The vivid colours and bold designs of Constable’s work suggest she will have no trouble finding more work but her particular talent lies in her ability to integrate art into the business and homes she works on. My stairs are now the resting spot for a large red dragon, and because of that, the stairs themselves have become a work of art.
