It is now time for Amy Robertson to step out from her husband’s ever-expanding shadow into the full sunlight—a place where her quiet power and personal strength will meet the responsibilities and opportunities that have been thrust upon her with Gregor’s election as mayor. And although she’s ready to take on her new role, in this exclusive interview, she shares with Rebecca Ephraim her angst around being the best she can be.

Photo by Angela Fama
famaphotography.com [1]

Part of Amy Robertson’s charm is her self-doubt. I don’t mean the kind of nagging “am I good enough” or “smart enough.” She’s plenty that. It’s more like, “Will I ever be able to use my new role to give Vancouver everything it deserves?”

Her humility around this is endearing. The woman is salt of the earth. The good South Bend, Indiana, kind. She’s serious and pensive, with a soft spot for helping out however and whomever she can. The kind of woman you’d want on your side—or at the very least, on the side of your city.

I interviewed Amy in mid-December at a rare and defining moment: at the intersection of powerful changes conspiring to force an almost complete overhaul of her life. A stay-at-home mom facing empty nestdom, cobbling together a personal life for a workaholic mayor-husband (who, she says, still loves to play). An emerging artist with her first exhibition slated this month. And, perhaps above all, finding her footing on the public stage as Vancouver’s new first lady.

“My main role is on the personal level in supporting Gregor,” she says resolutely. “But I need to figure out what it is that I can pursue on my own because it’s my interest and I’m not seen as riding on the coattails of Gregor.”

As a serious artist, she worries that by forging a role as a leader in the arts and culture community, the screaming issue of Vancouver’s homeless would not get the attention it deserves. “When you start to compare it to issues that your partner is standing up for, such as homelessness, I think, ‘God, what am I doing? I’m sitting here weaving a basket. I should be out helping people get off the streets.’ It’s challenging to be an artist in this day and age,” she says, summing up her quandary, “because it does feel sort of selfish.”

Dig a little deeper and you’ll find her actively exploring with the Crafts Association of B.C. how she can help convene programs around art as therapy to support community well-being. For instance, with her own craft of basket weaving, she would work with people of Aboriginal descent to reconnect with their roots through crafts that have been part of their heritage. Having spent most of her life outdoors (“I’ve never had a desk job”), she’s experienced and nurtured nature on many fronts. Her art is no exception.

In West Coast Aboriginal style, Amy harvests bark from the north side of cedar trees (the only safe way to not endanger the trees) when the sap is running, spring to summer. “For me, gathering weaving materials is an excuse to go for a walk in the woods. One of my favourite things to do is be out-of-doors and with the luxury of having access to the trees.” She crafts her cedar bark baskets mostly while sitting at her kitchen table, the busy intersection of kid traffic and family life. The finished baskets with their rich, textured patterns and subdued colours have a simple elegance, much like the artist herself.

Trusting the River’s Current

Poised to become an oil painter upon completion of her art degree from Colorado College (in Colorado Springs, where she met Gregor), Amy found her future taking a sharp turn. “After I graduated, the only things I painted were fences, houses, and boats. Not on the canvas, but the actual things,” she muses. “So art completely lost focus, and part of that was having three children in four years and running a farm and a business.”
One of the boats she painted was a 40-foot 1957 sailboat that she and Gregor restored and lived on for nearly a year and a half while sailing the Pacific as newlyweds. Amy readily admits that this was his dream, but that she loved it, too.

As she recounts the meandering course of her life, it becomes clear that much of it has been propelled by her husband’s ambitions. Gregor most often staked the path to adventure and to her it was always new and always intriguing. “It sounds a little lame that I’ve just gone along with it, but it’s been so exciting, so why question it?” she says. “You know, we’ve followed these great paths, and life has pushed us in the right direction like the current of a river.”

Post sailing, they landed in New Zealand and took up organic farming. She recollects working in the farm’s slaughterhouse while pregnant. “Disgusting,” she murmurs, though she says the farm’s abattoir was small and humane —she is a staunch critic of factory farming—and in the same breath remarks how extraordinary such experiences were.

Returning to Canada, Amy and Gregor transplanted their organic farming expertise to the Fraser Valley, where she managed their commercial farm and headed up the B.C. Association for Regenerative Agriculture, one of the province’s largest certifying bodies. And then onward to settle on Cortes Island to raise their family: Hannah, now 18, Satchel, 16, Terra, 13, and their 18-year-old foster son, Jinagh, who’s lived with them since he was 16.

Amy says that Gregor, though a workaholic, still loves to play.

As Gregor began commuting between Cortes and Vancouver overseeing Happy Planet, the juice company that emerged from the fruits of their organic farm, Amy took the lead in parenting, chaired the local school board, and pursued “some serious self-sustaining farming practices.” When they moved to Vancouver, Gregor’s hometown, Amy recalibrated her passion for living off the land to embrace urban life.

For city dwellers who don’t get their hands dirty, the next closest thing to the ground is the local farmers’ market. Amy sees these venues as the Holy Grail of food security. Her tranquil voice amplifies with her passion for this issue as she describes how factory farms and our industrial food system ravage the environment. “What’s important is that people develop a relationship with farmers and know where their food comes from. Chemical-free is really the way to go, and ideally it does not have to come from California. It’s going to come from those farmers we influence and support, who live right here in the Fraser Valley.”

As a board member of the Vancouver Farmers Markets, she says one of her organization’s goals in working with the city is securing permanent locations for farmers’ markets. I half-jokingly suggest that, given her husband’s new role, this should be a slam-dunk.

She balks at the idea of leveraging her position but adds, “I think about that, and there’s this very fine line I need to be walking; that will take some figuring. Yet I also think there will be opportunities I should be taking advantage of because I am the mayor’s wife.” tvw

Rebecca Ephraim, publisher of Today’s Vancouver Woman, revels in having such a savvy, green, and soulful woman grace the pages of our newly titled publication.

Meet the Artist

The opening of Amy Robertson’s first exhibition of her cedar basket work takes place Feb. 27, 6-7:30 pm, at the Jericho Arts Centre in Point Grey (1675 Discovery St.) The exhibition runs through March 14. See jerichoartscentre.com [2]