very grateful that these women were generous enough to trust me. Most of the women hadn’t sat for portraits before and were very patient with me, as I was sort of learning as I went. They would leave the studio, and I wouldn’t be done, and they just had to have faith.”

   That said, Hodgson was heartened that, despite being put in a very vulnerable position, many women enjoyed the experience.

   “Some of the women said it was just nice to be looked at,” she says, adding that women over 50 can sometimes feel invisible in a culture that often regards youth and beauty as synonymous.

   Hodgson is very quick to stress that the paintings are not intended to be perfect, photorealistic representations of her subjects. Though she was tempted to go back in and fix mistakes she saw in some portraits, she restrained herself as much as possible. Knowing that oil painting is a forgiving medium that lends itself well to making adjustments, Hodgson vowed to stop once she had captured something about her subject that she felt was honest or relayed one small but significant truth she had seen in their faces.

   Given that Hodgson was not provided the life stories of many of the women who sat for her, it’s all the more exciting that writer Claire Festel became involved to reveal the women’s personal histories. As the story goes, Festel and Hodgson were having dinner at a mutual friend’s home, when someone pointed out the pair were working in similar creative territory. Festel, who had been writing a series on Yukon old-timers for Yukon, North of Ordinary, had become increasingly interested in writing profiles of people who’d chosen to live and stay in the Yukon. As fate would have it, when Hodgson and Festel began to talk they discovered that Festel had just finished an interview with Goody Sparling and Hodgson had only recently finished Sparling’s portrait.

   Working together seemed inevitable, so Festel began tracking down the women who had already sat for Hodgson, drawing out their life stories much the way Hodgson had drawn their images--taking just a few hours to get a thumbnail sketch of what made each woman unique; how their lives had been enriched by the Yukon; and how they in turn had enriched the Yukon with their presence.

   Surprisingly, Festel’s interviews didn’t unearth any common thread or distinct trait that could be ascribed to all the women, beyond a shared geography and a willingness to tell their stories. Certainly they were connected to each other through community, as Hodgson’s method of recruiting subjects proved, but by and large they were a diverse group, each with a unique and riveting history.

   Festel’s major takeaway was not some simple archetype of a typical Yukon woman, but, rather, she found the richness of the women’s lives inspired her to take a more active role in creating her own story--to follow her dream of writing. To that end, when it was suggested that Festel take her profiles and Hodgson’s paintings and turn them into a book, she jumped at the chance. Remarkable Yukon Women, published by the Lost Moose imprint of Harbour Publishing, will be released June 2, in tandem with Hodgson’s art show.

   “I’m so excited to start this phase of my life,” says Festel. “This is what I’ve always wanted to do. To really be a writer. And this is just the beginning.”

   As for Hodgson, she is understandably done for the moment with portraits. When asked about the fate of the portraits after the show, she says some are, understandably, in demand by the subjects or their families. While she’d originally intended to unveil the paintings to the women at the opening of her show at the Yukon Arts Centre, she made a last minute decision to send each subject a photograph of their finished portrait in mid-April.

   Clara Dionne, speaking just a few hours after her photographed portrait arrived in the mail, was overwhelmed by the results.

   “I can’t believe how much it looks like me,” she said over the phone. “Just the eyes and the expression. Even my husband said, ‘Wow, she really got you,’” says Dionne, her voice filled with emotion.

   “I had never in my life sat for a painting before, and the day I went into Val’s studio was the first time I’d ever met her,” she recalls. “I was curious and uncomfortable at the same time. I was sitting there, and she would just stare right into my eyes, and I guess I was trying to smile, like you would when someone takes your photo. But I’m not a smiley person, that’s not who I am.... And Val said to me, ‘No. There’s something that’s not working. Just be yourself.’ So I decided that’s what I would do. I’m not going to pretend to be a smiley person. I’m just going to be me.... And now, I’m just so happy that she’s really captured who I am. There was a special connection that I can’t even describe. All the emotion and pain and experiences I’ve had in in my life are right there in my eyes. I have tons of photographs of myself, but today I opened up the envelope and there I was.”

   With reactions like Dionne’s, Hodgson’s portraits are sure to be sought after as individual works, but the artist expresses a slightly different desire for the fate of her “ladies.”

   “Their real power is as a group,” says Hodgson. “When you see them all together, you just know that that’s how they should be.” Y