The story behind New West's Starry Pattullo

It was a complete accident learning about Mark Prosser’s work: I’m not often on Facebook, but when I happened to log in to my personal account last month, an image of the current Pattullo bridge imagined as a Vincent Van Gogh painting was at the top of my feed.

Fast forward to February, and Prosser and I are speaking over a Zoom call about the swirls of blue, yellow, and green over the very old crossing. I typically have a lot to say, but in trying to express what I’ve seen, it’s hard to put it into words because it’s just so dang incredible.

Prosser lives a stone’s throw away from New West: he’s based in the Metrotown area, but New West has served as a bit of an ‘anchor,’ so to speak, for how he—a young man from Thompson, Manitoba—ended up staying in BC.

“[My work ended up on that page because] I was actually invited to that [Facebook] page from a friend that lives in New West … it took me about a year and a half to accept the invite,” he tells The Anchor, adding that when he posted the work, he was stunned and honoured to receive a spate of praise.

“This bridge holds a special memory for me … before I had even seen downtown Vancouver I stayed with a friend, and one night out we ended up at a house party only a few blocks from it.”

Prosser says he ended up leaving the party to go for a solo jaunt around the neighbourhood, and ended up by the south banks of New West. “[I] just sat on the grass looking over at the river at [the Pattullo] and the SkyTrain Bridge.”

It was these two sights that had him in awe of Metro Vancouver’s local beauty—and he says he knew right then and there he couldn’t go back to Manitoba; that he wanted to stay in BC.

“[I’ve painted] the Lions Gate … then I did Granville [Street Bridge],” says Prosser, but he says the work he did on the Pattullo painting really fell into place, and this piece has become one of his favourites.

Prosser’s goal is to paint 30 crossings in the region—this includes overpasses, as well as train, vehicle, and SkyTrain bridges—inspired by his love of Van Gogh, who is his favourite artist. “I like Van Gogh so much for his dedication and his persistence. He did the art because he loved it. And it wasn’t for money … he struggled, but he chose a path that spoke to his soul before anything else.”

Prosser’s path to painting permanently

There are some similarities between Prosser’s work and the artist he loves so much: he was painting as a hobby, and not as a career. “I’ve always had that knack for art as a child. I grew up eight hours north of Winnipeg,” explains Prosser, noting that the town’s main driver at the time was mining. “There were just no outlets for art as a child, so I kind of put that to the side, moved to Winnipeg, had a mid-life crisis at about 23, and then I moved to Vancouver, and I started getting into sales.”

Prosser spent 20 years in sales, which was a relatively steady gig—until the pandemic hit.

“Things slowed down. We had this time, and my wife convinced me to just buy some canvas. I painted for 20 years as a hobby, and I always did sales jobs that gave me the opportunity to focus on my art,” he says. “[I would take shifts that ended at] 1 or 2pm, or [work] the 3 to 9pm shift in sales.”

After some self-reflection, he figured out this was an opportunity to try something different: realizing everyone was at home watching their screens, Prosser chose to challenge himself.

“I did a little bit of a goal: I said, ‘paint five things and five days for yourself, Mark.’ Because before that, I was doing commissions for people. People liked my art, but it didn’t really have that soul [where] you combine your technical love for it, but also the spontaneity.”

He started with a lion, which was followed by a big cat series that included a tiger. He began to post the work online, and Prosser says it was genuinely a fun experience because he had no expectations.

“I was hooked. I couldn’t stop painting. I even went and worked [in sales] that whole summer. Plus, I was painting. I was getting up at 6am, doing a painting, then going on the road doing door-to-door sales.”

If you can name the local landmark, odds are pretty good that Prosser’s probably painted it: Playland/PNE, Oakridge, Prospect Point, the Port Mann Bridge—and what’s more, you shouldn’t be surprised if you happen to see some of his paintings glow, through the use of UV reactive painting.

While he decided after that summer not to return to sales, he says much of what he’s done in sales has been transposable to the world of art.

“I worked in the stock market in downtown Vancouver for 10 years. I wore a suit, I woke up every day, met brokers, I did that whole finance thing, so all these little things kind of helps.”

Prosser says he’s always honest with visitors when they come to his studio: for him, he’s not selling his work to make money, he’s selling his work so that he can keep painting. “It’s a mindset … you need one before the other, but if I can paint and I love it, and someone loves it enough to purchase it and spend their hard-earned money, that allows me to keep painting.”

And this is not to say that the road has been smooth: Prosser has had days where he’s not sure whether he’s made the right decision—with a high cost of living, and inflation to boot. But somehow, things always manage to work out in his favour.

“Being consistent, it is number one, but there's definitely been challenges and times where I've been like, ‘this is too stressful, and I don't want to do it.’ But for some reason every month, if I've got a couple days left and things need to happen, the universe has just come through for 30 months in a row. It's insane.”

Not only does he credit his ever-growing belief in himself, but he says he owes a lot to his wife, Richelle, and their son, Tommy. Richelle was actually the person who provided the five canvasses for him during the pandemic. “I had relegated myself to doing [my art] when I was retired, but … she’s always believed in me, and she’s always been so supportive.”

Prosser says he’s also grateful to the community for supporting his work.

“There is so much support out there for arts and for artists, but you have to find these people, right? They're not going to just knock on your door, so, you know, sometimes you have to be vulnerable. Sometimes you have to really go out of your comfort zone,” says Prosser, who says he very much feels that it’s in our DNA to help one another.

The next way this talented artist plans to challenge himself? He’s hoping to make an appearance at some local shows, something he hasn’t really done before.

“If you put it out there, you know, you give it to the universe, and if people respond to it, then, great. I mean, you know, you just you never know unless you try, right?”

To learn more about the work Prosser does, be sure to visit his Instagram page and his website.