When you learn something new about a person you've known almost your entire life.

A couple of days ago, I realized that after all of the years that my step mum, Margot Hallman, and I had shared a common interest in art and painting, we had never really gotten into the discussion of why this even exists between the two of us? How did she get here after spending most of her life as a lawyer and a mediator? And so I took a trip down to her place, and we chatted over some tea.

Izzy: What interested me about you as an artist is that, I see that you built this whole life around being a lawyer and a mediator, and you had this whole other life, but then you kind of picked up art along the way somewhere later on. What made you want to pick it up?

Margot: Well, I always wanted to pursue something that allowed me to express myself. Practicing law, I mean mediation which I also do, allows me to express a certain kind of creativity, but I actually started by learning to sculpt. I was interested in the tactility of three dimensions and over time I became interested in watercolour, which is an incredibly demanding medium, and then from watercolour I moved into pastel because you could correct a lot more easily. From pastel I really started to integrate oil with my pastels, so I have sort of evolved into the different mediums based on what I have felt like doing, and right now, I've been pursuing this about fourteen years, and so I am only beginning to feel like I am an artist. That I really like what I am starting to produce, not just like it in the moment, but actually, you know, have it sit around for six months or a year and come back to it and still like it.

I: That's interesting, so why now? To you, why have you started liking what you create now? What has changed?

M: Well, I am only now beginning to master the kind of technique that I wanted to master, and I only do landscapes at this point, but I really focus on expressing something about that landscape where I have been after having spent a lot of time there and really having an emotional response to the landscape. I am trying to express the emotional response that I have in the painting.

I: I was going to actually ask why landscapes, but now I am curious to know if landscapes do something for you emotionally more so than portraits or anything else?

M: For sure, I mean I remember even when I was in preschool I would wander into the forest, I have just always felt a sense of awe being in nature, I mean most forests are sort of second growth, but when you walk into a forest that has been virtually untouched for a long time, it makes you aware of the complexity of nature, it's beyond man-made, it's beyond something that we can engineer, it is something sacred in that way to me and as a result I really love painting the landscapes because they connect me with something far bigger than just being a human being.

I: That's powerful, that reminds me of when we used to go on nature walks when I was a little kid and you really getting me to look around at the scenery. I think that's the first time I noticed anything past my feet in front of me.

M: (laughing) I am so glad you remember that, you were about 3 or 4 years old.

I: (laughing) Of course I remember, but it just came into my mind when you said that last bit because I can look back and see that the beauty of nature has always been present in your life. Do you find that painting the landscapes kind of connects you even further with the places that you are painting?

M: Oh yeah...

I: Or is it the process? Is it the actual painting process of the place? or is it the process of the adventure in finding those places to paint?

M: Well finding them is really important and experiencing that sense of awe, I mean I started to paint a lot of scenes from the west coast, but it took me about three or four years to really feel emotionally connected to those places. I went back to them because of friends and family and it eventually started to feel...special, you know, It became special. I'm not sure I'm answering the whole question.

I: Oh no, you're hitting most of it on the mark, but to further reiterate, does painting then bring you closer to those spaces?

M: It does, I finished a painting of Chesterman Beach last year, and it's mauve and green and sensuous and misty and it made me feel a different resonance to that place after I had painted it, so it changes the way I experience the landscape too.

I: So can you give an example of a way one of your paintings has changed the way that you viewed that landscape? Just pick your favourite or the one that stands out to you the most.

M: Well this one I was telling you about, when I finished painting it, for a period of time after I had very sensuous dreams of lying in the ocean that I painted on that beach with the mist against my skin.

I: It kind of captured all of your senses.

M: I was able to inhabit it in a different way.

I: I can't believe we've never touched on this before, for the longest time I just figured you liked to paint landscapes because they were pretty, and I mean part of it is that they are pretty and they are gorgeous but it's a lot more than that for a lot of people.

M: And it's also a sense that human beings are eating away at that nature through all sorts of ways.

I: Would you say it's a way to preserve the nature through the things that your painting?

M: It's to honor it, and hopefully people seeing it might resonate with that too and to honor the beauty of the way things are without pollution, without deforestation, without all the things that human beings do. Industrialization, I mean Burtynsky does beautiful things with industrial photographs, but they are weird and alienating to me and I'm hoping that these paintings are more accessible and pull people into something bigger than they are.

I: We are so focused on ourselves in this world right now, that people kind of forget how small we really are compared to what is around us.

M: Yeah, and for me I think that when I eventually stop practicing law, you know it's nice that I have been accepted into my first juried exhibition, but even if nobody in the outer world ever really appreciated my work, I love painting for friends and family and that is enough of a feedback and a pleasure for me to continue to motivate me to do it.

I: That's wonderful, thank you for opening up a little about your journey!

M: Was glad to, thanks a bunch.