We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Caitlin Bodewitz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Caitlin, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I care a great deal about the natural world. From an early age, respect and admiration for the wilderness was cultivated through my unique upbringing of being raised in a small remote mountain community in northern British Columbia, Canada.

One of my most meaningful projects was “Mothers of the Mountains”. This body of work was a series of large-scale drawings and silkscreens, accompanied by a 32 minute short film, capturing and advocating for the endangered Woodland Klinse-Za Caribou herd in Treaty 8 Territory (close to the mountain range I grew up on). Under the guidance of West Moberly First Nation and Saulteaux First Nation, I was invited to hike and camp with endangered herd and Indigenous guardians up in the mountains for a week, observing, learning, sketching, and filming. I witnessed 6 week old calves nurse from their caring mothers, experienced the close curiosity of a yearling cow, and heard the sounds of calm grunts during sunsets.

This conservation effort has become the boldest and most successful synergy of traditional knowledge and science to save the Caribou and bring them back from the brink of extinction. My goal with the artworks then created in my studio was to bridge critical conversations around conservations, showing that we all intrinsically linked the health of the natural world and the health of the Caribou. I consider it a great privilege to be a small part of this incredible initiative and story to champion Indigneous-led conservation and saving the Caribou.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an interdisciplinary printmaker, advocate, and mother currently residing in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (amiskwacîwâskahikan) / Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I also have the privilege of being the Executive Director of SNAP (Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists), a not-for-profit Artist-Run-Center that is 43 years old and counting. Prior to my formal role with SNAP, I was sustaining my full-time artistic practice as a studio renter for over a decade. I was able to walk out of my Bachelor’s of Fine Arts with an Honors in Printmaking from the University of Calgary and be a full-time artist because of SNAP’s collective space, resources, and community. Even though I find myself behind a desk more often than behind a silkscreen these days, I do find my leadership and curatorial pursuits are a direct extension of my own artistic practice. In both worlds I’m passionate about elevating underrepresented voices and igniting empathy.

When I’m focusing on my own body of work, I find joy in pushing the boundaries of traditional printmaking. I primarily incorporate bold silkscreens with realistic graphite drawings on wood – drawing inspiration from local flora and fauna, most commonly, species at risk. With my visuals being inspired by the natural world, I am intentional about materials and processes that mitigate waste and take into account environmental impacts to the best of my ability. This includes using water-based inks, biodegradable tapes, reusing containers, and using recycled and recyclable materials and products. I have also had the opportunity to take my print-based work into public and corporate domains – from a 46 foot local street mural, a collaborative community school mural with 900+ students and educators, and curating/creating entire hotel rooms.

My desire to create critical conversations around conservation fuel my passion to educate others whole celebrating and protecting our fragile planet. My laborious, mixed-media composition depicts threatened Caribou, Sea Otters, Mountain Holly Ferns, and many more species at risk amongst geometric shapes and complex arboreal layers. At a glance, they are contemporary Canadiana works of art that are easy on the eyes – but if you want to have a conversation about it, viewers will soon discover the threats faced by all of my muses and our intrinsic links to the health of all ecosystems.
I have the privilege of exhibiting across western Canada, in two permanent museum collections, and the successful recipient of several municipal and grant grants and residencies. In my formal capacity as the Executive Director, some recent notable accomplishments I’m proud of include: supporting Okîsikow (Angel) Way Day (a day that honours all women and gender diverse people who have experienced violence), co-facilitating a university academic class called Humanities 101 that provides post-secondary education to individuals experiencing poverty, and supporting my community of 250+ members/artists with their everyday artistic pursuits at all stages, levels, and experiences.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being able to use art as an approachable vessel to have critical conversations – art can evoke emotion, and emotion can evoke change. We have the ability to create engaging visuals, draw a viewer in, and reach an audience. Gentle, subtle (or not), beautiful, captivating imagery can be a springboard for questions, reflections, and hopefully, insights. When someone who has been drawn to my work because they simply think it is beautiful or engaging, it can be the starting point for a conversation questioning, “if you are interested in this, can you care? Can you change? Can you act?” If I can foster curiosity and understanding, then that feels rewarding. If I can ignite enough inspiration from my work, that it can potentially make someone change their feelings into actions – success. I may not be able to change the world as one artist, but one drop makes many ripples.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Society can recognize that their joy, their comforts of care, their leisures, and their inspirations, are almost always rooted in an extension of the arts! Society should be enthusiastically encouraging folks to have creative pursuits because it may not only give you the next best concert, meal, or mural – it will also simply give you an army of compassionate problem-solvers, which the world needs so much more than ever!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.caitlinbodewitz.com
• Instagram: @CMBPrintworks
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrZRQhPBEfs&t=8s
• Other: https://www.snapartists.com

Image Credits

The “Personal Photo” and 3 “Additional Photos” of me silkscreening in my brown corduroy top – those photos were taken by Buffy Goodman Photography. All of photos provided by myself.