There are countless exceptional Canadian women in art in our community we could shine a spotlight on. In showcasing some of them, we’re also recognizing an individual who usually prefers to stay out of it: our Director of Purchasing and Logistics, Susannah Blundell. With Opus since 1996, she has spent three decades shaping what artists across Canada reach for — on our shelves, in their studios, and eventually, in their work.

Susannah’s impact isn’t loud, it doesn’t arrive framed or signed, but it’s there, in the balance of a brush, in the depth of a pigment, in the quiet reliability of a material that holds up over time.

"Separating the artist from the purchaser can be overwhelming in this job," she reflects. There’s always a tension between personal instinct and collective need. "Knowing what works for our customers has been the key to making the right choices for Opus".

Part of her role is scanning the horizon, tracking new materials, new movements, new shifts in practice. Sometimes that’s exciting. "Watching for up-and-coming trends can be really fun." But experience tempers enthusiasm. "It can also be super stressful when a fast trend ends quickly, leaving you with a year’s worth of inventory… Colouring books were the biggest example in recent memory."

She has also watched the industry evolve in how it speaks to artists. "Even the marketing behind art supply packaging reflects positive changes now. Aesthetics and stories are handled much more thoughtfully than they were 10 to 20 years ago," she explains. "But I’ve been in meetings where a sales team arrives super excited about their market research on the female consumer, the basis for their product strategy, and as a woman, my eyebrows definitely raised at what 'the experts said' " she laughs, "don’t get me started on the 15-year-old survey results that claimed all women really loved the colour purple…".

Thirty years brings perspective, and a healthy skepticism. Trends come and go. Assumptions get revised. Artists remain more complex than any demographic.

Anong Beam, founder of Beam Paints, approaches paint making as relational. Rooted in land and continuity, her handmade watercolours foreground pigment integrity and sustainability, inviting a slower, more intentional relationship with colour. You can learn more about Anong’s philosophy in our Creative Lives video, Traditions of Colour: Living a Creative Life with Anong Beam.

Willow Wolfe designs brushes through lived studio experience. Produced in small batches and deeply responsive, her tools feel less like stock and more like collaboration between maker and painter. In our video Beyond the Brush, Willow shares how sensitivity and touch guide her process.

At Stoneground Paint, co-founder Jenny Rowe continues a family tradition of hand-crafted, single pigment watercolours. Made with locally sourced honey and premium gum arabic, their paints avoid fillers and extenders. What you see is what you get, colour in its clearest form.

These different makers share an ethos; integrity over excess.

Over three decades, Susannah and our team have watched materials move from box to shelf to studio, and into the hands of artists who transform them into something entirely their own. What begins as a purchasing decision becomes a gesture, a wash of colour, a layered surface. The quiet work of sourcing and stocking is rarely visible, but its impact is everywhere.

Creative ecosystems aren’t sustained by materials alone.

At the Vancouver Island School of Art, Wendy Welch has built a space centred on experimentation, mentorship, and sustained inquiry. It is less about speed or spectacle, more about staying with the work long enough for it to reveal something back. In our video How to Be an Artist, Wendy reflects on what it truly means to commit to creative practice.

Watch the Video: How to Be an Artist with Wendy Welch

The supplies the school buys the most are Fabriano Watercolour Paper and Winsor and Newton Watercolours and Gouache, as well as Opus brand watercolour brushes.

Across Opus workshops and events, women in art continue that conversation in distinct ways.

Vancouver-based painter Tiffany Blaise brings a deeply intuitive sensibility to the landscape. Of Chinese and French descent, her practice centres on the atmospheric and emotional resonance of coastal environments across the West Coast and beyond. Through layered mixed media, gesture, and bold colour, she captures something fleeting — the shift of weather, the weight of light, the feeling of standing before open water. Her paintings are less about documenting place and more about inhabiting it. Tiffany regularly shares her knowledge, lifting others up, as a prominent presenter for many years through Opus Events & Demos.

Learn more and join an upcoming Tiffany Blaise event. 

Working away from representation, Megan Jentsch explores the tension and complexity of human emotion through structured, disciplined approaches to surface and form. In a time marked by division and polarisation, she searches for common ground through expressive abstraction. With work held in collections including Air Canada, ATB Financial, and Le Germain Hotels — and commissions for La Maison Simons, Holt Renfrew, and Village Ice Cream — Megan balances conceptual clarity with emotional depth.

See upcoming workshops with Megan Jentsch

With a background spanning UC Berkeley, UBC, and Simon Fraser University, and thirty-five years teaching in the public school system, Peri-Laine Nilan brings research, education, and studio practice into close dialogue. Her interdisciplinary work explores systems, labour, and material histories — asking how knowledge is built, transmitted, and sustained. For Peri-Laine, making and teaching are inseparable acts.

Explore the Discover Opus Watercolours series with Peri-Laine

Nadia Aldea works across a wide range of media, creating from a place of healing, acceptance, and exploration. Her work focuses on the female form — layered with hidden details and vibrant colour — capturing the complicated dance between pain and beauty. Bold and physical in technique, her paintings pulse with movement and chromatic energy, challenging viewers to look beyond the familiar.

Find out more about Nadia Aldea’s Colours of Becoming

Interdisciplinary artist Max Black has been creating community-engaged work since founding AlphaSoul Café in 2011 — a space that supported local music, visual arts, and shared cultural experience. Her practice explores the connections between ancient myth, contemporary pop culture, politics, and emerging technologies. Through diverse media, she examines how narrative shapes not only our cultural landscape, but our understanding of humanity itself.

Learn more about the Discover Pebeo series with Max Black

Susannah’s practice has evolved alongside her career. Where she once painted large acrylic works and produced expansive print runs, she now prefers intimacy.

'These days, I prefer a smaller focus,' she says, working under 12 by 16 inches. 'Big paintings take a long time to complete and occupy a lot of space.'

A sketchbook, a watercolour block, something portable, something manageable…

She is particularly drawn to watercolour ground on panel, that subtle tension between absorbent surface and fluid paint.

'I create for me.' Simple, clear and no justification needed.

Thirty years at Opus is not just tenure, it is stewardship. From handmade pigments and artist crafted brushes to classrooms, workshops, and careful purchasing decisions, the women in art featured here shape how art happens in Canada. Not through spectacle, but through consistency and care.

Their marks may look different, bold or restrained, abstract or figurative, visible or behind the scenes, but they share a common understanding: How something is made matters. Who makes it possible matters. And thankfully, it was never just about the colour purple.

Internationally, these are some of the other women-led brands you’ll find at Opus:

• Ampersand Art Panel, USA (Elaine Salazar - co-founder, President, and CEO)
• Caran d’Ache, Switzerland (Carole Hübscher - CEO)
• Colart (Winsor & Newton, Liquitex, Le Franc & Bourgois), Sweden (Jenny Lindén Urnes - Owner)
• Excel Tools & Blades, USA (Kenda Martins - Owner)
• Gelli Arts (Joan Bess and Lou Ann Gleason) USA
• Iwata Airbrush (North America) (Brooke is the owner for North America)
• Kroma Industries (Jessica Schauteet) India
• Lascaux, Switzerland (Barbara Diethelm - Owner & CEO)
• Natural Earth Paint (Leah Fanning) USA
• The Crafter's Workshop (Jaime) USA