Ed Boudreau & Max Romey

Forests, Tides & Treasures takes great pride in each artist & maker featured in our Seward shop. They are the pulse of what we do, inspiring our hearts to explore & create our great Alaskan community and beyond!

Meet the adventurous souls behind 
Boudreau Photography & Trail Bound Sketches:

Ed Boudreau of Boudreau Photography
(Instagram: @ed_boudreau_photography)

Town: Eagle River, AK

What’s your favorite thing to see/do in Alaska?:
What is your advice for aspiring artists?
One of the basic rules I tell people is to always look behind them.  I have found "The Shot", more times than not, is the one waiting for you to capture 180 degrees away...

 

(Instagram: @trailboundsketches)

A dyslexic Alaskan artist who found his voice through watercolors and film. Max works as an outdoor videographer all over the globe, but his true passion is being on Alaskan trails in the the community that they create.

When did you start making art & what inspires you to create?:
We are all born artists - which we seem to forget sometime around age 11 or 12. We forget something that we all knew as soon as we were big enough to grab a paint brush: painting is not about a perfect picture, but the joy of putting brush to paper. 

"You can't misspell a painting" on his watercolors:
Compared to the modern ease of taking a digital photo, painting a picture seems to move at a glacial pace. Especially when you are painting that picture on a glacier... Freezing fingers, windy conditions, and watercolors that have to be mixed with moonshine to keep them from freezing are just a few of the factors one has to overcome while sketching outdoors in Alaska.  My work tries to highlight the intersection between place, painting, and the journey, by bringing them all together in one frame.

My work has always been an exploration of movement, from the fast-paced world of trail running to the almost unseeable pace of nature changing. Working within the sports industry that focuses on quick shots and quick social media turnaround, paintings have become a way to disconnect from the headlong rush and turn the camera from the subjects, to the world around them.

What is your advice for aspiring artists?
“I wish I could paint” is one of the most common things I hear from others when I sketch on a peak. I totally understand, that is the first place my mind goes when I see something beautiful too, it says “I will never be that good...” Everybody says it, and that’s OK, but there is a great trick I learned last year that has helped me shift away from that. Every time you hear that little voice remember this:
Stop comparing yourself to where someone else is, and start comparing yourself to where you WERE.
Beautiful paintings are there to inspire us, not intimidate us. You can paint, you will make beautiful sketches in time, and you WILL inspire others from your own mountain tops in the future. It can be scary, but don’t let that little voice keep you from starting and having fun!