Artist Margriet Hogue creates layered mixed media paintings inspired by "the contours of the land, the distressed surfaces and the colors of the different seasons," as she explains. Born in the Netherlands, Margriet's family moved to Venezuela when she was 6 months old, and then immigrated to Canada when she was in middle school. As a child, her mother taught her various fiber crafts. Buying her first loom allowed Margriet to pay her way through college, and after graduating, she spent years producing textiles and clothing. Unfortunately, the dust from weaving aggravated her child's asthma, so she started a needlework business called The Essamplaire (old French for sampler). "Whenever we would be on holidays I'd make appointments with museums to see their sampler collections and would request licensing agreements to reproduce them in the form of needlework kits," explains Margriet. "Samplers were part of a girl’s education from the 1500s to the early 1900s and consisted of them stitching alphabets, pictorial images and quaint verses." In 2014, Margriet attended an acrylic painting workshop, which she describes as very freeing after the fine and detailed work involved in needlework. Today, when she's not painting, she enjoys road trips through the mountains to the west coast, visiting family who live far and wide, and continuing to oversee her needlework business.