Heidi, Carmen & Ted Thompson

I was born and raised in Vernon, British Columbia, but after graduating from high school I moved to Switzerland. It was there I made the decision to study art. I entered the Kunstgewerbeschule Zurich (University of Art & Design Zurich) and continued to study there for four years, majoring in Photography.

Following my studies in Zurich I moved to Nurnberg, Germany, where I began an apprenticeship with painter, Oskar Koller. For one year, Oskar taught me about drawing, watercolour, composition, painting, printing and framing. My apprenticeship taught me many practical skills. With Oskar's encouragement I entered the Nurnberg Art Academy, where I studied anatomy, history, and life drawing.

During this time I became friends with the German painter Klaus Schmidt, a former student of Oskar Kokoschka. His style of painting appealed to me. It was a cross between the emotional, humanistic paintings of Kokoschka and the shifting, cool distortion of Francis Bacon. I probably learned more from Klaus about European art than from all the history classes I had attended.

Klaus introduced me to the art of El Greco, Titian, Goya, and Rembrandt. His philosophy of art was:

Throw your feelings down. Paint everything: figures, faces, still lives, architecture, and animals. Strive to express the life-force behind the subject. Build up the painting; shift it; distort shapes and lines. Destroy it and build it up again until the expression is reached.

After a year at the Nurnberg Academy for Art, I left to study at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Art in Budapest. The Hungarian way of life was very different from the western European. It was still under the control of communism. The people were compassionate, emotional, expressive and very solemn due to their long history of defeats. I identified with their feelings and, strangely, felt more at home there than in the other countries.

After eight years of travelling and school, I decided to return to Canada. Back in Vernon, I began making my living as an independant photographer. The work was always new and challenging. Although my training was in art photography and journalism, I enjoyed doing family portraits, weddings, commercial brochures, graphics, and endless different things. I also set up a black and white and colour lab and did all my own processing.

In 1984, I married Edward Thompson, a guitar maker and luthier. We have a daughter, Carmen who is now 12. We live in the Coldstream and have enjoyed 18 years of marriage.

While I was operating my studio, I also painted and exhibited my work in the New York, Vancouver, Victoria, and in the interior--Kelowna, Vernon, and Grandforks. In 1994 I began a publishing company called COLDSTREAM BOOKS. I published two books:

LITTLE BEAR BOOK

:                  RECAPITULATION A Journey

Recapitulation won the VanCity book award.

I am also very interested in film production and am in the process of developing a feature film based on the life of Sveva Caetani.
Over the years I taught art in various schools and art centers. In 2001 I earned my B.F.A. through B.C. Open University and then entered the Post Degree Professional Program for teaching art in Secondary Schools through the University of Victoria. In June 2002 I became a B.C. certified teacher. Vernon Secondary School.