Making Peace With The Empty Space

The gas station attendant knows your name because you are the only artist for sixty miles.

In most places, being an artist is about blending into a scene or fighting for a spot in a crowded gallery. Here, in the vast stretch of Northwestern Ontario, being an artist is often a solo mission. The geographic reality means that your closest peer might be a three-hour drive away on a highway that is currently closed due to snow. It is easy to let that isolation turn into a feeling of stagnation, but there is another way to look at it.

This empty space is where your originality grows. When you are not constantly surrounded by other people’s work, you stop subconsciously copying their style. Your innovative mindset flourishes in the quiet. You start to look at the local materials around you—the wood, the stone, the specific light of a Northern winter—and you find ways to incorporate them into your practice. This is resourcefulness in its purest form: making art out of your immediate environment.

We often talk about the challenges of high travel costs and smaller audience bases as if they are walls. They are not walls; they are just different terrain. A smaller audience means you can build deeper, more meaningful connections with the people who do see your work. High travel costs force you to be more intentional about where you go and why. You learn to make every movement count, which is a level of discipline that city artists rarely have to develop.

Growth on your own terms means rejecting the idea that you are 'stuck' in the North. You are not stuck; you are planted. And the soil here is incredibly rich if you know how to work it. You create opportunities by being the person who organizes the pop-up show in the community center or the one who starts the regional creative newsletter. You become the infrastructure that you wish existed.

Exhale and let the pressure to be everywhere at once fall away. You do not have to compete with the noise of the world. You just have to be present in the quiet. There is a profound dignity in creating something beautiful in a place that the rest of the world considers empty. It is not empty to you, and that is what matters.

Northwestern Ontario Arts, Culture and Recreation

Rooted in Melgund Township, Northwestern Ontario we're exploring arts, culture, and recreation programming that brings our communitiess together. From creative workshops and local exhibitions to youth activities and cultural events, we support rural artists, strengthen community connection, and celebrate the creative spirit of Northwestern Ontario.

Through community-based arts initiatives, recreation programming, and cultural gatherings, Melgund Recreation, Arts and Culture fosters creative expression, collaboration, and long-term sustainability in the northern arts sector. Our work connects residents, empowers youth, and builds pride in local talent across rural Northwestern Ontario.

Learn more about our programs, events, and opportunities at Melgund Recreation, Arts and Culture.