Whiteout Workshop Whiteout Workshop

Whiteout Workshop was started in 2009 by Natasha Paterson (hi!) and her love for impacting art. What has been an ever moving road has taken her on this journey to start this company and to grow it to what it is today.

After graduating from Photographic Technology back in 2003 with the goal of getting into professional snowboard photography, which was only natural growing up in Calgary right next to the mountains. She’d be riding/skiing since she was 6 and couldn’t get enough of it. Ready to take on the snowboarding industry she found herself a little too carefree for the crazy life around it and took a step back. Not knowing what to do with her passion for photography the decision was made to head back to school once again studying Graphic Communication. She figured the next best step not being able to take the amazing photos was to design the typography around them. To this day the printed publishing world is a huge love and always creates endless inspiration for her work. After 5 years leading design on many publication in the magazine world it was time to do something new and exciting and to create art for herself!

What started as creating art prints and silk screening on paper slowly evolved into fabric and creating that perfect graphic tee. After designing a few shirts she found herself having trouble finding an amazing local silk screener willing to take on the task, so you had to know she would just do it herself! Months and months of mistakes, trial and error things started to resemble some fun shirts from courses taken in silk screening a few years back. It only seemed like the most natural fit possible from past experience and passion.

Many of the shirts you see today are all created from her photographs and sometimes many of them pieced together to create the artwork you see. Most of the images are taken from the many road trips to the mountains and across Canada and the US hitting up small venues to check out live bands that otherwise would never come to the lovely city of Edmonton (happy this is finally changing), music being one of her other passions.

From the simple beginning screening in her kitchen to moving up, or I guess down into her Dad’s basement, to her first studio in DT Edmonton, onto her large studio in an industrial area of Edmonton and now pulled back to a custom build studio in her home, the story is still being written. Although she has help out at the markets selling she is still the only one screening even piece you purchase by hand and this will never change as it is what she loves to do!

You can find her designs and apparel being sold at local markets around Alberta and three times a year the company picks up and travels all over Canada from as far west as Vancouver and as far east as Toronto. See you out there.

 

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