Художница из Ванкувера создает серию из 575 картин с буксирами для сохранения истории морского флота Британской Колумбии

Vancouver Island artist Christina Morrison is painting 575 tugboats to preserve the stories of the vessels and the people who worked aboard them along B.C.’s coast. She calls it the West Coast Tug Project. It started with Morrison asking herself a simple question: “Why not try and paint all the tugboats on the West Coast of B.C., and get all of their stories and paint them all?” Vancouver Island artist Christina Morrison is painting 575 tugboats to preserve the stories of the vessels and the people who worked aboard them along B.C.’s coast. Watch the story below: Each painting begins with a photograph. Morrison looks for images detailed enough to zoom in and capture the smallest features of each vessel. The tugboat known as the Grapple is No. 119 in the project. Morrison says the paintings are about more than recreating what the boats look like, it’s also about documenting the people, memories and stories connected to them. “I think a lot of them have really great stories behind them and the people who work on them too,” said Morrison. Story continues below… Her work at Seaspan has helped introduce her to the industry, but much of her research comes from people who have lived and worked on the coast. She also turns to the B.C. Coastal Mariners Facebook page for information and stories about the vessels. Morrison says retired mariners have also walked into her gallery shows, spotted a tugboat they once worked aboard and immediately started sharing memories. “They’ll see one of the tugboats on the wall they used to work on and they’ll tell me a story,” she says. Corey Wiens, who works with Victoria Tug and Barge, has followed Morrison’s project and says the realism of her paintings is helping create an important record of the province’s marine industry. “It’s amazing what she does,” Wiens said. “The realism is incredible. It’s a great archival of the whole marine industry of B.C.” Wiens says the paintings are also sparking interest among people who have never worked aboard a tugboat themselves. With 456 paintings still to go, the West Coast Tug Project is a long-term undertaking. Morrison is taking it one vessel, one story and one brushstroke at a time.