Heather Pant was always an artist. However, she did not pursue a full time career in painting until she married her husband Mel Pant and moved to Calgary eight years ago. The rich scenery of Alberta sparked her passion painting and now she is full time artist who paints the province’s changing landscape.
Heather Pant started oil painting at the age of 11 after her adoptive mother Charlotte Boesenberg gave her a paint set. Heather Pant says her mother wanted see what abilities and talents she had.
“I just picked up a paintbrush, and that was it.”
She grew up in Elmhurst, IL, right outside of Chicago. The area was rich with art and architecture, which helped fuel her passion. However, this passion only extended to Heather Pant, the rest of her adoptive family did not share this interest.
In the beginning, Heather Pant painted portraits but she always had a desire to paint landscapes. As Heather Pant grew older however, she landed a job as a designer for a big U.S. publishing company where she designed marketing material for 20 years. However, she continued to work with oil paint and on the side painted portraits to make extra money.
When Heather Pant was 30, she found her birth mother. Pant had been painting her whole life and so had her birth mother Paula Carlson. Heather Pant was an artist painting in Chicago while her birth mother was painting in New York.
Heather Pant first met her husband Mel Pant when she was 15, at a boarding school in Arizona. After high school graduation Mel Pant went back to Calgary and Heather Pant moved to Chicago but they never forgot each other.
Twenty-five years later, and one marriage and divorce each, they found each other again on Facebook. Heather Pant began to visit Mel Pant more often and they would go camping and fishing in the Rocky Mountains.
After they got married, the couple decided to settle in Calgary and Heather Pant began to paint the scenery in Alberta full time.
“It’s like the land called me and I came,” she said.
Heather Pant believes Alberta is where she belongs; the land is the perfect match for her creativity. Her favorite place to paint is Moraine Lake because it has the valley of the ten peaks. “There is so much character in those mountains they’re each so different,” she said.
Heather Pant enjoys incorporating colour and movement into her paintings. Pant paints the scenery she sees and her pieces display who she is as an artist.
“You just gotta let it flow out of your hand.”
She finds every season in Alberta is rich with character. In the winter, “the snow on the mountains looks like icing and it’s really fun to paint.”
During the fall, she loves to paint a multitude of colours especially orange. In the summer the turquoise and greens of the lakes help to accentuate her paintings. During the spring, the runoffs bring new depth for her paintings.
Heather Pant’s paintings are shown in galleries across the province and internationally. Heather Pant sells some of her paintings for charity work, the main causes she donates for is pancreatic cancer and diabetes.
You can check out Heather Pant’s artwork at HeatherPant.com.