Thompson paints up some pleasant prairie scenes

Bruce Thompson really knows how to find balance in his life. His work and his hobby both revolve around the beauty and diversity of the Alberta landscape.

The St. Albert painter has a new show opening up this weekend called Mountains, Rivers, Prairies.

“I get a lot of my material from my work as an environmental scientist. I end up going all over Alberta, northeastern B.C. and other countries and I get a lot of themes that way.”

That must be an understatement. It has only been half a year since the prolific artist brought in his last exhibit featuring images of Alberta muskegs. With a busy career involving a lot of travel, one must wonder how he even finds the time to paint so much.

The way he describes it, it’s just a natural fit. He’s been here for 30 years and loved every minute of it.

“Right from the beginning, I was just totally blown away. I’ve never been able to understand why people drive across Canada and say, ‘Oh, the prairies were so boring. They’re so long.’ To me, the long part is really around the Lakehead.”

This is a man who takes real pleasure in the great outdoors. Where other people complain about the vast flatness of this province’s landscape, he relishes in it. Ask him to describe his love for the Marie Reine area just south of Peace River and he’ll recite you a love letter about it.

“It’s beautiful flat prairie. It just goes on and on for miles. I find any excuse to drive along that highway,” he laughed. “I just marvel at the different cloud formations and everything going on in the sky which is so great in Alberta.”

Thompson comes across as a tour guide and his vivid oil paintings are the brochure. It’s obvious how fond he is of every colour and detail. If you come to the show’s opening this weekend, you could probably make some new year’s travel plans just based on his stories.

It’s all about celebrating Alberta and making his images as faithful to the real thing. He said that his artistic goal is to express how special each of these places is even if it’s just a muddy slough.

Past attendees have told him how true to form his work is and that feedback helps him grow, even if just to affirm that he has painted the right colour of mud. According to one farmer, he knows how the local mud is unique.

“She said, ‘That’s real St. Albert mud. You’ve got exactly the right colour for the mud!’ She said that St. Albert sloughs are different from other sloughs; they’ve got a different texture. I was blown away by that.”

Then again, that’s the whole point of doing what he does. He just hopes that people look closely at his work.

“Art and painting really requires you to look at things very, very closely. Once you start, it’s almost an addiction because you end up looking for colour all the time.”