From Accountant to Artist: One woman’s journey to discovering love for painting

“I spent 38 years as an accountant in public practice. I had 38 income tax seasons, and I was always so sure that I had zero art in me that I didn’t even try doing anything,” she said.

But it was a paint night with a friend with Christy Vince of Paintergirl that got the artist she didn’t know was there, out.

“My friend and I thought we were there as a joke and just for entertainment but at the end of the night we both had a wonderful painting. So that was the beginning and I told a friend about that, and she got so excited and she invited me to the Strathcona Art’s Studio to the wwatercolourgroup, so I went there I borrowed her things for the day and I was off and running,” she said.

Winger is now most known for her paintings of homes in the Southeast Hill area. And just like her love of painting, her love for houses came by chance.

“One day I was making a delivery of a chicken painting and the house was so cute, I thought ‘I have to paint this thing.’ So I took a photo of it I went home and I painted it. Put it on Facebook, and a friend of the homeowner tagged her and I was off and running painting houses,” she said.

Now, she said her art brings her a new sense of fulfillment as she enters a new chapter of life, one that sees her making preserving precious memories and making art, that touches those who view it.

“I get tears. People tell me they have tears of joy when they look at something that I’ve done, and that is something I never got as an accountant. The tears I got then were never joy induced,” Winger said

“It gives me a happiness that I never thought I would get out of a hobby,” she said.

Some of Winger’s art can be viewed at the Trek Space downtown at #2 516 Third St. SE

by Tiffany Goodwein

From Accountant to Artist: One woman’s journey to discovering love for painting

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