Jason Carter & Bridget Ryan discuss a decade in Canmore & World Juniors stick art project

ROB MURRAY: I’m speaking with Jason Carter and Bridget Ryan from the Carter-Ryan Gallery. Happy anniversary to you! I understand you’re celebrating a major milestone here this week.

JASON CARTER: It was 10 years ago that we opened the doors to the Carter-Ryan Gallery and Live Art Venue on Main Street in Canmore.

RM: I actually don’t really know the origin story of the gallery. What made you decide, hey, we’re going to start an art gallery on Main Street in Canmore?

BRIDGET RYAN: Jason and I were walking down Main Street. We were both working for City TV at the time. We just thought, you know, this is kind of what we both wanted to do.

JC: I mean, look at how beautiful Canmore is. Wouldn’t it’d be amazing to have an art gallery here?

BR: And there was just art everywhere you looked. It was just teeming with arts. I, of course, come from a theatre background. Jason was visual arts, a sculptor and painter, and while he had galleries that represented him all over the country it was also very hard for him to have that impact when you walk into a gallery and it’s like, boom, this is who I am, unless they’re doing a show with all Jason’s works. Legacy was something that both Jason and I really thought was important. We called our landlord, Eugene Lipinski, who thought we were just two crazy kids.

JC: We called on a whim. It was a giant sign out there that said “For Lease”, like the biggest sign ever made.

BR: So if we were looking for a sign, literally, figuratively, we saw the sign!

JC: Without any plan we walked in and had a meeting with him, and three weeks later we were moving in.

RM: I saw on your Facebook post – I think you said that in the first weekend you were open you sold, like, one book the entire weekend.

JC: They paid $20!

BR: Yeah, it was like, this is not going to work! The growth has been slow and steady. It really has been all about the people. We can talk about the accolades, and the ups and the downs, and we’re all in this together I think, but it really has been a tremendous community. It was the best decision we’ve ever made, the best lifelong schooling that we continue to get on business, in dealing with people, and in a life in the arts. It’s been amazing. Then, of course, it culminates with the release to the world that Jason has been working on – these hockey sticks for Hockey Canada for the last two and a half months.

RM: Jason, tell us a little bit about this project for the World Junior Hockey Championships.

JC: It was super cool. They reached out about six months ago and we discussions about what it could look like. I’m under the impression that it’s the first time that they’ve ever done anything like this with a local artist. I was honored and totally excited about it, also a bit intimidated by painting 150 paintings on these tiny little sticks. I love painting big and large-scale pieces, so for me it was a challenge for sure. As I was halfway through, I realized I’d put too much detail into this little painting. It was also about halfway through that I was thinking about how cool it is that these sticks are going to be going to the player of the game for the, you know, 70 games that they play. These phenomenal athletes at the pinnacle of their careers to this point are going to be able to walk away with a piece of my artwork to put a timestamp on their experience here in Canada. It was pretty cool, and it’s been a phenomenal project to work on.

RM: That’s amazing. It’s certainly not the only big project you’ve also had the honour of being able to work on since you opened the gallery here in town. I know there was that massive commission with the Calgary International Airport some years back. It really seems like things have taken off for you.

BR: He got that because we opened the gallery. It was an amazing thing because it was a global art call. It’s because of taking that risk, opening the art gallery, having them sort of vet Jason without him knowing it, like literally secret shoppers coming in to make sure that this artist was credible and in it for the long haul. That’s really what we’ve realized. After the first year we were like, we love this. We love this community. I think Jason being an Indigenous artist and one artist in the gallery – talk about a legacy that’s in the works. This Hockey Canada thing – people’s reactions to it have been quite profound in the sense that one artist painted all of these sticks. I think when Jason says around the hundredth stick mark he got quite fatigued, but then found inspiration…it’s sincere. It was a daunting task that hasn’t been unlike the last 10 years where you get this fatigue that sets in…

JC: Then you find that inspiration and continue moving forward.

RM: Not only do you create great visual art at the gallery, but performance art as well. I know that’s your forte, Bridget, and right now you have a great show going on at the Fairmont Banff Springs. How’s A Christmas Carol going?

BR: It’s a wonderful show. I mean, I’m just going to give a shout out to all theatre companies right now doing theatre in a truly unprecedented time. That seems to be the buzz word that I never want to hear. Where’s the precedented times, Rob? It’s wonderful. We have limited capacity. masks are mandatory, proof of vaccination. Doing theatre right now is kind of like we’re in for the fight of our lives to try and keep it up. My hat goes off to the actors, to our stage management crew, to every person who is sharing their passion in these times that are forever challenging. And I thank you – in the last 10 years, Rob, you have been just a tremendous advocate for us in support to let us get our voices out into this beautiful Bow Valley.