“The Tibetan in me comes out in a really big way when there’s this much snow,” Roshan James said. “I just love it!”
James is a local artist, community builder and author of poetry collections such as Pink Moon, Breaking and This is my Story, This is my Song.
We met for a walk at the trail at Highway 8 and New Dundee Rd. in Wilmot a few days after the region was blanketed in the biggest snowfall of the year.
We climbed down the hill at the trailhead into a glittery wonderland. The sun came out as we braved the cold and deep snow to walk amongst the trees and discuss art, community, and their points of intersection.
The term ‘interdisciplinary’ may well have been coined to describe an artist such as James, who works at a high level in visual art, poetry, spoken word performance and music.
“I’m just playing and experimenting,” James said. “[I’m] feeling out what feels like the right form of expression whenever it’s coming through. I mix disciplines a lot when I’m creating…I’ll be working out something on a canvas, then I’ll be scribbling down words that could potentially go with that.”
James published her latest poetry collection, Pink Moon, in 2023. She has multiple art pieces that can be seen in the area, including on shipping containers at Gaukel Block and at the Downtown Community Centre. She is part of the team behind The Soundcheck Experiment, which provides mentorship, collaboration and recording opportunities for local musicians.
“I really love connecting with people through art,” James said. “I have this pull towards making people feel safe and welcome and connected…with as much politics and divisiveness that is at play right now in the world, creating connection and community is more important than ever.”
Our walking trail holds great importance to James as a site she has come to with friends and family.
“[I try to] root into nature,” she said. “[I] meditate a lot, commune with trees. Through moments of contemplation, that’s when ideas come through,” she said.
We arrived at James’ favourite section of the trail, where the path led to a cluster of trees looking like something out of a fairy tale. James grew up in Whitby, spending time in conservation areas with family, instilling in her a life-long need for green space.
James feels an equal pull between the old and the new worlds explored in her art. “I do love analog tools, and then there’s so much to play with and learn on the digital side,” she said.
James uses the digital sphere when creating soundscapes with beats and instruments, as well as enhancing visual art projects. For one of her murals, James embedded digital codes into the piece which, when activated, gives the audience further details on the community artists in an augmented reality setting.
These murals feed James’ current fascination with large art.
“I love anything that feels very big and free,” she said. James resists the bounds of a conventional canvas in her work, bringing found materials and structures to her art. “The bigger, the better!” she said.
Even with the multiple disciplines James already works in, she remains eager to add more. She wants to explore textiles in three-dimensional planes and also feels the draw towards creating site-specific art.
“I think creating art for public spaces is really meaningful because it does allow people to encounter art where they might not typically think they would,” James said.
James feels lucky to be able to sustain an artistic practice in this region, but having that endurance means making challenging choices.
“I got a lot of very…clear signals that I had to just let a lot of stuff go and create space for other [projects] that might be coming through,” James said. “Those [decisions] are hard because…they were things that I was really passionate about. But at the end of the day, I need this time.”
Time to explore creatively, and also time to rest. “
[I’ve] come to realize how important our rest cycles are to all of the other things,” James said. “I hold that as very sacred, and [rest] comes first.”
Leave a Reply