FEATURED ARTIST
GABRIELA ESCOBAR – THE ELK VALLEY QUARANTINE JOURNALS
It is my hope that people learn from this experience , myself included . It is so easy to forget the feelings and emotions during a time like this once everything is back to normal . – Melissa F .
Gabriela Escobar Ari moved to Fernie seven years ago from Bolivia with her husband , Gonzalo . A love of photography stems from her work there , where she documented historical collections as an archeological consultant for the Ethnographical and Folklore Museum in La Paz . Part of her role involved documenting archeological digs in the field ; this gave her the opportunity to photograph local landscapes and residents . Often , villages located near the digs provided even more insights into the lives of rural Bolivians , where , 10 years ago , many homes still had no running water or electricity , and cooking was done over an open flame . Living conditions are changing fast now , she says , making her images all the more important in documenting the development of pastoral Bolivia . Her work demanded a high level of skill and the more it demanded of her , the more she was encouraged to learn about the tools of the trade . She studied camera skills and equipment to get the best from her images . as much of the atmosphere of Fernie as she can . Having just taken the leap into full-time work as a professional photographer , her plans were suddenly halted with the arrival of the SARS- Cov-2 Pandemic along with the social restrictions it brought . Undaunted , she reached out to photographer friends and
Jill Barclay stays busy running her business , Goldstar Cleaning , raising her three children , and offering business coaching for the Women ’ s Enterprise Centre .
Here in Fernie , Escobar continues to practise photography , capturing events , people and landscapes around town . She is inspired by the beautiful local environment and aims to capture
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