Reflections
Field Notes: In Conversation with Liz Toohey-Wiese, Amy Huestis, and Maria Anna Parolin
Liz Toohey-Wiese; Amy-Claire Huestis; and Maria Anna Parolin
Liz Toohey-Wiese: How did your educational leave make you think differently about research and the importance of it in your practice?
Amy Huestis: My original research was very geographically expansive, following birds on their migratory flight paths. I was working with communities on the Pacific Flyway—the research included Alaska and different parts of BC. But then I couldn’t continue that project at all—I developed a neurological condition that requires staying home, and then also work in the States got so complicated with the new US administration. I had to change my research and go inward and make my work more local. My ideas about the places that I study shifted from being broad geographically and kind of external, to honing in on my own community and going deeper here. That was a big shift.
Liz Toohey-Wiese: That seems like how in research you must consider the scale of your research question. it sounds like the scale had to change in your project
Amy Huestis: Yes, it did, and then when you go inward and local, then you can go pretty broad there too. It was definitely a scale shift.
Liz Toohey-Wiese: Another consideration is how research pivots. Maybe people don’t think about the fact that research is not always a straight line. You have to trust when a new path comes forward and maybe the parameters of the research have changed, and you have to go with it.
Amy Huestis: I think there’s absolutely something about artistic practice where we have to always be cautious of trying to exert too much will being more open to following our nose and taking things as they come.
Maria Anna Parolin: For me, my educational leave gave me time to really reflect. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with a research assistant right from the start, which made me think carefully about being clear about the focus of my research. That way, I could guide the student effectively and keep the project moving in the direction I wanted.
My work slowly ballooned out to so many different branches. I realized just how much more there was to explore, the overlaps, the connections – it was fascinating. Amy mentioned the role of community, and that became a big part of my project too. I hadn’t really thought about how my garden could influence my neighbors and the neighborhood. People would stop and talk, they would help out, and kids would come plant seeds. Watching the plants grow, showing them how the plants produce more seeds that they could take home and plant in their yard. It became an exciting way to share the cycle of life.
It was mind-blowing to see how gardening became a common denominator that connected people of all ages: kids, older couples, everyone sharing stories, helping each other. I started introducing people to each other, giving plants away, and it just kept expanding to include more insects, birds, even squirrels which added another layer to the whole experience.
It made me realize that I want to keep researching, keep asking questions, and see how everything overlaps. That curiosity and exploration is what drives me.
Liz Toohey-Wiese: Yeah, also like both of you talk about that sense of community, which I think in all of our practices, I think there is a community-based aspect, but it sounds like yours went from both the human to the non-human. And like, and you’re like, whoa, okay, you’re all here.
Maria Anna Parolin: Oh, yes You’re all here, I know.
Amy Huestis: One place where our practices do overlap, Maria, Anna and me is being in community with the human and more- than-human is part of both of our practices.
Maria Anna Parolin: And how important that relationship is? You realize how fragile both sides are, and how dependent we are on the pollinators and how dependent they are on us to keep their world healthy.
Amy Huestis: So beautiful, what a transformation you can make and how much biodiversity you can create. And if you have property, how being a steward of any small piece of land, how much biodiversity you can encourage and create on a small piece of land.
Maria Anna Parolin: In a very short period of time.
Amy Huestis: An important thing that happened with me on my project was thinking about human intervention into the animal world. So for birds of prey, they’re in such significant decline and they’re really struggling. And studies are showing that birds do better if there is human intervention. And at the OWL wildlife rehabilitation centre, where I volunteered for my project, there is a huge intervention. They’re taking in birds from all over the province and rehabilitating them. And that work is so important to keep the numbers up of the birds of prey. So, I’m just thinking more deeply in my practice about human intervention. I guess, Liz, you’re thinking about that as well.
Liz Toohey-Wiese: My research changed in the context of my educational leave. For me, it’s to do with the ability to go to these places and through that realizing how place-based my work is. Of course, it’s relevant all over BC, but going to the sites of these burns and then being in community with people made me realize I also didn’t want to be a fly in, fly out academic. I don’t want to just gather my research and then leave. I like actually building relationships with places and communities over time, and there’s the trust that comes in that.
I also think about the privilege of being an artist and not doing traditional academic research– I think it’s easier to build trust because people aren’t your research subjects. You’re not actually making people sign waivers and like going to the ethics board and stuff. I can just have these offhand conversations, but those conversations over time have made me an expert on this topic. I’m just so interested and talk to so many people. I can talk to the activists and I can talk to the loggers and see both sides. I talk to wildfire fighters and to local politicians. I get to be listening to many different conversations, and then I’m the person who gets to synthesize it all. that’s the type of research that has to happen in the place -all of our work is site specific in some way.
Liz Toohey-Wiese: Did anything unexpected come up in your research and your ed leave? Where are your recent research interests after this time away now? Have you gone in a new direction?
Amy Huestis: Yes Donald Trump was elected, and everything fell apart. I was going to go to Alaska and work with scientists there–I had that all set up and I’d gone the year before. And then a lot of it just became very unsteady ground to work with those scientists, because their funding was being cut, and their world was being turned upside down. So that was quite unexpected that suddenly this place that I had been doing research and seemed unfriendly or, you know, that there were now just so many obstacles and problems and threats, so that was major.
Liz Toohey-Wiese: For me, what became very apparent through this research process was the gap in my knowledge around wildfires. I have no first hand experience with wildfires. I’m absorbing all this secondhand information from wildfire fighters or people who have evacuated from communities. And it felt very imperative also in studying this, like to build a type of reciprocity, to build a relationship with the subject matter. I decided I needed to get training so I can do prescribed burning. I felt that this topic has been so generous to me, how can I pay it back? I realized that I needed to build relationship with fire itself, and I needed to like be a part of the solution. And it’s one little tiny solution that’s not going to save the world. But during my educational leave, I got my basic wildfire fighter training, which is what I need for doing prescribed burning. In April 2026 I’m going to go do some burning in Smithers with a researcher up there. Friends who’ve done prescribed burning talk about what it’s like to have this embodied relationship with fire, what its like to feel its heat, to see how it moves. You have to learn how to hold a drip torch, how to work fire because you know, you’re trying to make the burn not happen too fast, not too slow. This embodied relationship with fire, I have no idea what that will do to my paintings or to my research. But it just felt so obvious, like that’s the gap in knowledge that I don’t have yet. That’s the new direction in my work. I don’t know what will happen after, but that’s an exciting part of it.
Maria Anna Parolin: For me, I think that a pivotal point is when I presented my research to other KPU researchers at a ‘speed dating’ type of opportunity through the Office of Research. I did a 5-minute presentation on my research and what I’m curious about, for example, the properties of pigments in plants. Sometimes they’re antimicrobial, they’re actually cancer fighting. Orange dahlias contain sulfuratin, which is a compound that’s being used to fight dementia and MS and it’s found in a flower that I grow. When I gave that presentation, researchers from the Institute of Sustainable Horticulture came up to me and said, let’s work together. Then researchers from the Applied Genomic Centre came up and said, let’s work together. This interest made me feel that I can take my research in so many more directions if I collaborate with scientists. It made me think about how organic pigments were used in art in the past, but also used in science, both in horticulture and in genomics. I’m in the process of writing grants for both of those projects.
Amy Huestis: I had something unexpected happen to me, which is that I started to get sick actually when I came back from Alaska on my first research trip before my ed leave. And then I was diagnosed with this condition called cervical dystonia, so that’s dystonia of the neck, and it’s a neurological condition. Where you have involuntary movements and then a dysregulation of the nervous system. One thing that’s really difficult is traveling, being in large group settings, or, you know, the kind of performances that I would do would be very difficult with lights or with moving bodies and stuff like that and organizing lots of people would be really difficult with the onset of all these symptoms. I had to go turn my practice into a quiet one and return to just painting and then working with the birds at OWL Rehabilitation Centre. I used to have quite a quiet practice before I worked with performance. To turn back to that quiet practice has been really lovely— the quiet hours in the studio and that stillness. That was unexpected. But you have to follow what your life gives you??
Liz Toohey-Wiese: How does teaching play a role in your research as an artist, or do you see teaching separate from your research?
Amy Huestis: The more that I can bring my work into my teaching and myself and my soul into my teaching, the more reward I have and the more engaged I am with my students and my classroom. Like Maria Anna said about working with a research assistant, it makes you really focused. I have worked with students quite a bit in the studio and bringing students in, especially for mentorship, one-on-one is great. It creates a full circle, and especially students who are at the end of their degree, to have them step out of school and step into the studio. I’ve had some great experiences there.
Liz Toohey-Wiese: I just really resonate with what Amy said. The more I bring my whole self into my classroom, the more rewarding it is. And I’m not necessarily going to make students especially interested in wildfires, that doesn’t feel like the point, but that they would see an artist passionate about a topic and curious. I’ve been thinking about that – what do I actually want to give the students when they graduate? I want to imbue that sense of curiosity in them, you will still want to do this when you don’t have assignments anymore. I want to infuse that type of passion and I say to them, you should be an artist because there’s no other option, you just must follow these instincts and this curiosity and it’s a way of life. And I also keep saying to them, your creativity is a muscle and you work it out. And if you don’t work on it, you’ll lose it. Or it gets rusty and then it gets hard to get back in the studio. So I think that’s it for me. It’s not like my research is direct information I bring back to my students. I can talk about it and I think our students like to hear us be passionate, but I think it’s more that like the spirit of the research is something I kind of want to bring about that sense of like curiosity that can expand for like a very long time.
Maria Anna Parolin: Yeah, I totally agree about the curiosity. When I was little, I would always watch shows on how things were made on TV and I was like, whoa, is that how it’s made? And as I mentioned at our exhibition, when growing up, my siblings and I were always taught how to make things or fix things and know our materials – materials do have meaning and we all know it. I’m a technofile. I want our students to know that if they have an idea, to ask themselves how can you make it yourself? And it will probably have more conceptual depth if you think about where your materials come from. If you buy it at Walmart, it holds different meaning than if you found it on the street – it might come with different stories and people might relate to it differently. I don’t think I could ever separate my research interests from material meaning when teaching, right? I love showing people how things are made. How it’s made in different cultures and different times in history. I’m just so blessed to have a job that I love. I get to go to work today! And then you cart a bunch of stuff through the door saying, oh this is for this student, and that is for that person. it’s a joy to always want to learn more. I’m constantly curious and wanting to learn more, and what I learn, I want to share.
Amy Huestis: I think we could conclude by emphasizing that there’s an aspect to all our work that is important and teaching and that is modelling a connection and love for nature. I always think about how my grandmother did that for me. She loved nature and she would pick up flower petals and make pictures out of them and pet bees—she was very connected to the natural world. She modelled that for me and she showed me that that was possible, that that was the way to be. And I think that all of us are doing that for our students. We’re showing them that connection.