This year’s Calgary Stampede brings a great chance for some creative Calgarians to share their talents with a wide audience.
The visual artists are also getting an unusual opportunity to showcase their work, piece by puzzling piece.
Calgary company StumpCraft Puzzles prints the artists’ paintings onto thin wood and uses laser machinery to cut it up into puzzle pieces.
“I’ve never seen puzzle pieces like this before in my life,” artist Cecile Albi said.
Albi and her fellow Calgary artists Ruolin Shi and Alison Philpotts have had their paintings of mountain landscapes transformed into puzzles.
StumpCraft sells many of its puzzles online to buyers in all kinds of places.
“Our puzzles have gone as far as Australia, Germany, across the US and Canada,” StumpCraft’s Jason Robillard said. “Our puzzles go across the world.”
The artists are looking forward to the reproductions of the work being shipped off to such faraway spots.
“It’s fantastic,” Albi said. “As artists, it’s wonderful exposure.”
Having that exposure is a welcome step forward in advancing their careers.
“It’s great to see people take away part of our western Canadian landscape and see that spread out in the world,” Shi said.
Philpotts and Albi are also showcasing their paintings at the 2023 Calgary Stampede, as part of the art show in the Western Oasis area at the Stampede.
“It really brings new eyeballs to our work,” Philpotts said. “so it’s fantastic.”