Sie Douglas-Fish is a queer artist with roots in 100 Mile House who has made it big in the arts field.
Douglas-Fish, who goes by they/them pronouns, works for Acrylic Robotics - a Montreal-based company that is "creating a whole medium of fine art for the modern age" according to its LinkedIn. The company recently made a presentation on Dragon's Den seeking investment from the Dragons into their company. During that appearance, one of Douglas-Fish's art pieces was used as proof of concept.
"I still can't believe that happened," Douglas-Fish remarked.
Their love for art began at a young age in 100 Mile House when they started sketching on old receipts and pieces of discarded paper before later upgrading to a computer.
"When I was extremely young, before I could walk, I was already picking up tools to draw with, and when my mom would buy me the colouring books with the little money that we had, I would completely ignore them, and I preferred to draw something on the back of receipts and pieces of discarded printer paper," Douglas-Fish recalled. "I was basically drawing every single day, and I think I have ever since."
Douglas-Fish described their parents as arts-oriented people who helped push and encourage their artistic talents.
However, it was not always sunshine and rainbows growing up. Douglas-Fish had experienced bullying - relating to their identity while being a student at Mile 108 Elementary School.
"I was like, bullied a bit - especially being like a queer kid in such a small town, there were a lot of people who would make fun of me for my identity or make jokes about that sort of thing," Douglas-Fish said, adding they used it as fuel to all but push themselves forward.
The derision did not end with just Douglas-Fish's identity - their passion for art was also targeted.
"Teachers and peers would make fun of my art, or they would say, 'oh yeah, art's cool - but like the starving artist thing, where you're not actually going to do something with that," Douglas-Fish stated.
The derision over Douglas-Fish's art continued as they attended Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School - however, there, Douglas-Fish found supporters.
"When I was in high school, I was able to take my first, genuine art classes," Douglas-Fish explained. They point to PSO's digital media program and their arts teacher who encouraged them to pursue their interests in post-secondary.
"Hey, you should go to art school - you should like, really do something - because we think you can do it. And that was really validating," Douglas-Fish said.
Douglas-Fish went on to study art at the University of Victoria - known more informally as UVic, where they saw people who were just like them.
"I was now in a program that was entirely people who wanted to be what I wanted to be, versus a plethora of other people, which is not necessarily a bad thing," Douglas-Fish remarked - adding their first year-and-a-half in UVic was entirely online - eventually going to on-campus learning later.
"Then it became a lot more crucial that we tried to uphold those conversations of critiquing our art and sharing it with each other," Douglas-Fish recalled. During their time, they had a complete blast at the university, achieving consistently high grades.
"It was such a difference between how I had grown up, where it was so small, and there just were not things that were happening, and then all of a sudden there are people from the university emailing me."
Their endeavours in art also earned them a gig doing art for the children's book Sharks Forever, about the habits of sharks, by Mark Lieren-Young, a professor with UVic.
"I got to look at some really interesting animal diagrams, and put a little bit more artistic spin to it," Douglas-Fish said. Sharks Forever was short-listed for several awards, such as the 2023 Green Earth Book Award.
"When I was graduating, one of my classmates had said that she was just phenomenally impressed with me, and while everybody else had an art degree, I had an art degree, and she thought that I was going to be the most successful, and I was completely humbled by that," Douglas-Fish shared when talking about their graduation.
Since graduation from UVic, they have been based in the city of Montreal, working for Acryllic Robotics.
"We work directly with artists to do limited edition prints that are made of real acrylic and real lustre and real texture," Douglas-Fish explained.
As for having art being featured on the Dragon's Den program - it just so happened to air right on their birthday.
"It was recorded in May, I believe, but it was not released until October. But it actually happened to release on my birthday, which was super exciting. My 21st birthday and my art was on national TV," Douglas-Fish said. During the show, the company was given an offer to come back later when they were more developed.
Douglas-Fish said they are immensely grateful for the fact they were raised in 100 Mile House.
"While things have changed a lot for me, I do see it in a positive light and I think it's a wonderful little place to raise a family and pass through - and all the kids that are queer and or going into art in high school, I'm so proud of you, and I hope you keep doing art, because art is so important right now, with AI and technology, I think we need to protect human artists more," Douglas-Fish said.
