It took moving away to Australia for Chelsea Miller to truly appreciate how connected she feels to her home in Prince George.

And even though she’s gone most of the year, she’s fighting on behalf of her northern home through her newfound voice of photography.

Miller’s Portraits of a Pipeline series is thousands of words condensed into a group of shots of Northern B.C. residents who would be affected by the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project running from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat, B.C.
Her subjects, covered in black goop, are a stark contrast to the nearly idyllic wilderness setting around them.

The series was borne out of Miller’s studies at Griffith University, Queensland College of Art where she’s earning her bachelor of photography.

“You can’t just take pretty pictures… If they’re pretty, they have to be about something,” her instructors told her. “That was the first time I actually ever had anyone tell me these things and really introduced me to contemporary photography.”

It was while Miller was back home, taking a year off of school, that she got further involved with the anti-pipeline movement and wanted to add something to the discourse.
Early last summer she shot the majority of the pictures that debuted at the UNBC Rotunda Gallery last November - the same time the quasi-judicial Joint Review Panel hearings for the Northern Gateway project were in town.

“I just threw it up and I was amazed at how many people wanted to be involved,” she said. “It just reassured me that artists actually do make people think about things.”

Before they hit the gallery, the shots were on Miller’s
Facebook page and the response was huge.

Her photos can be seen at pinenutphotography.com.
Miller’s next thought-provoking set is an exhibition
of abstract photos at Nancy O’s, which began mid-
February, where she experimented with the effect of
household solutions (glue, drain cleaner, food colouring,
etc) on film containing pictures of organic materials.
Her struggle to turn an idea into art brought to light
something she was told at school: that artists are not
problem solvers, but problem finders.

“We find a new way of looking at a problem.”

Tasha Wall was sick and tired of being unhappy.
A young woman in her early 20s, Wall would wake
up every day with her outward appearance affecting
her inner wellbeing.

Over the course of a few years, Wall set out to
change her body, and ultimately, her life.
“Once I got healthy, I realized how much better
the world was.”

It was a world where her happiness wasn’t dictated
by whether she felt she was having a “fat” or
“skinny” day. It was also a world where she gradually
felt comfortable enough to show everyone
else who she had become.

Booking photo shoots as a fitness model, Wall not
only gets to take pride in what she has accomplished
by reaching her goal weight, but also keep
herself motivated to maintain it.

“It’s kind of like documenting my success,” she said. It’s also fulfilling a long-time dream and throwing it in the face of the modeling scouts who told her they didn’t like her in Grade 7.

Last year, the 28-year-old went national with a photo in Canadian male magazine UMM, which showcased her as the girl next door.

In addition to being a personal goal, the photo shoots – of which she’s now booking more – also help spread Wall’s name as a certified personal trainer.

After completing her weight-loss journey, Wall wanted to help others attain their goals and got a job at a gym before branching out on her own.

“There were all these other things that were so amazing and after seeing how much better my life was I didn’t want anybody to feel like I felt [before losing weight], it having been such an awful time in my life.”

And while she says she’s not Jillian Michaels, screaming at her clients until they reach their breaking point, she does encourage people to make a real commitment.

The key to making exercise a routine is finding something you enjoy, Wall said. While she loves running outdoors, the P.G. native knows it’s not for everyone. “If you like sports, you can do that. If you like walking, you can do that,” she said, noting it’s a common misconception that you have to go hard and jump into something like P90X. “If you’re dreading it, obviously it’s not something you’re going to stick to for life.”
Find Tasha online at www.Tashawall.com,

www.facebook.com/tashawall.ptrainer or on her YouTube channel (user name Tasha Wall).

When Johnny Rotten growled about wanting to be anarchy,
it became a rallying cry for disaffected youth across
the world in the early ’70s.

When Sheena McConnell sketches a bandana-clad businessman
wielding a gas pump nozzle like a firearm, it
became a rallying cry for those opposed to the Enbridge
Northern Gateway pipeline project.

“It’s something I did to get it off my chest, because it’s an
issue I’m involved in,” said McConnell, who by day works
as a First Nations band manager, and was out of sorts after
an oil-related argument with her sister. “A lot of people
have seen that picture since then and want to use it for the
anti-Enbridge movement.”

That particular piece is a perfect example of everything
Guns and Butter, McConnell’s boutique art studio and
soon-to-be apparel line (T-shirts with the anti-pipeline
sketch will soon be available at www.gunsandbutter.ca)
that she started after moving to Prince George in 2011.
“Some of my art, I just want it to be that expression of what
I’m feeling at the moment,” she said. “The ones that are
more politically driven, I want to make that point to people,
just make them think about that issue.”

For the Victoria native, practice makes perfect. And with
her own aversion to anything art school means the selftaught
painter has put in a lot of practice since she began
her artist journey as a child copying pictures of Betty and
Veronica from Archie comics.

“I’m not anti-art school,” she laughs. “But personally, art
school didn’t work for me.”

In fact, it drove her away from art for a while.

Her first foray into acrylic painting came when she was a
broke university student and recreated a Roy Lichtenstein
piece as a Christmas present for her boyfriend at the time.
Her work reflected that same Second World War pin-up
girl aesthetic until she travelled to Eastern Europe and New
York and was struck by the graffiti art with political messaging.
“It was what I wanted to get across, but never thought I
could do through art,” McConnell said. “Because it’s politically
driven, the best pieces I have are when I’m staying
informed on what’s going on in the world.”