Committed to creativity Enthralled by art early in life, entrepreneur conceived and crafted a better — and cruelty-free — paint brush By: David Sanderson Posted: 3:09 PM CDT Friday, Aug. 28, 2026

NAROL — Talk about a brush with fame.

Fifteen years ago, Willow Wolfe, the founder of Willow Wolfe Painting Courses and Art Supplies, read about American actor/artist Richard Grieco’s experimentations with a style of painting he’d coined as “abstract emotionalism.”

Wolfe, whose personally designed line of synthetic paint brushes and watercolour workbooks are sold at more than 450 retailers around the globe, mailed Grieco (21 Jump Street, Veronica Mars) a set of brushes she felt would suit his needs.

The two have since remained in touch and this spring Grieco contacted Wolfe again, to let her know about a semi-autobiographical movie called The Painter he was directing and starring in.

He shared parts of the script with her and also placed an order for her Seneca brushes, which function well with heavy-bodied oil and acrylic paints, Wolfe says, seated in her attractive home studio, located on the lower level of her and her husband Darren’s two-storey residence in Narol, about 10 minutes south of Lockport.

Wolfe, the recent recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the International Art Materials Association (NAMTA), a U.S.-based non-profit organization that supports the arts-and-crafts community, chuckles when she is asked if her brushes will be credited in Grieco’s yet-to-be-released flick.

“I’ve only seen the trailer so I don’t know for sure if they’ll be on-screen or not,” she says. “But even if Richard only uses them behind the scenes to create paintings for the film, it’s still a tremendous honour to be involved.”

Wolfe is originally from Brandon but spent the majority of her youth in St. James.

She became interested in art at an early age and by the time she was nine years old, she was regularly turning out paintings for her father, who happily paid her $10 per work, never seeming to mind that “it was probably the same image, over and over again.”

Despite her obvious talents, Wolfe’s plan after graduating from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate was to study law. At least it was until she signed up for a two-week art camp at age 19 in Kleinburg, Ont., 50 kilometres northwest of Toronto.

“I was the youngest person there by 20 or 30 years and it was an absolute joy to witness all these older people realizing what they were capable of, or rediscovering a part of themselves they may not have known was there any longer,” she says.

“I fell in love with the ‘a-ha moment’ of it all and decided then and there that painting and art was what I wanted to do with my life.”

“I fell in love with the ‘a-ha moment’ of it all and decided then and there that painting and art was what I wanted to do with my life.”

In the early 1990s, Wolfe and her mother opened a shop on Grant Avenue near Centennial Street. Willow’s, as it was called, marketed art supplies and had a separate area in the rear of the building where Wolfe taught beginner lessons.

At some point during the store’s four-year run, Wolfe also caught on as a co-ordinator for Graffiti Art Programming, a still-thriving youth art centre/gallery on Higgins Avenue.

Through the store and the centre, Wolfe became keenly interested in how paint brushes were being made, from both a practical and ethical point of view.

“It began with us using brushes that weren’t functioning the way we wanted them to, and me calling companies directly and telling them, ‘You know, if you tapered the brushes in such a manner or made the filaments this length, they might work better,’” Wolfe says, crediting “good, old trial and error” for her burgeoning expertise in the field.

“Show us what you mean,” firms responded, which resulted in Wolfe entering the world of product development, working for brush manufacturers spread across the continent.

Wolfe also held strong opinions on brushes featuring natural animal hair, primarily squirrels, hogs and sables. She’d done her homework on how said creatures were being farmed, she says, and “it was not kind.”

For that reason, she sought out synthetic-brush makers, offering her services to assist them in conjuring, in her words, “brushes that didn’t only exceed natural hair but were so incredible that artists would go, ‘Wow, that’s what I’ve been looking for.’”

Following the closure of her store, Wolfe, who before meeting her husband in 2019 was a single mother of one, operated out of her 900-square-foot home on Wallasey Street.

When she wasn’t aiding brush companies at the design table, she was handling sales-and-marketing duties for them at industry shows and conventions across North America.

(Born Willow Krauchi, she changed her surname to Wolfe almost 30 years ago, prior to the release of her first co-authored workbook. Her then-publisher didn’t like the “sound of Krauchi,” she explains, so in consultation with her parents, she settled on Wolfe, her great-grandmother’s maiden name.)

After more than 20 years of helping to create paint brushes for others, Wolfe finally struck out on her own in 2019, introducing the first of what is presently six lines of brushes, each with its own set of characteristics.

And because she’d already nurtured strong relationships with retailers through her previous role, Willow Wolfe goods, which are produced primarily in Sri Lanka and Japan based on Wolfe’s strict recommendations, were soon being stocked in stores throughout Canada and the U.S., and as far away as England, Germany and New Zealand.

Wolfe has since branched out into other areas. On a near-daily basis, she or her 24-year-old daughter, Nya, who joined the business in 2024, record hour-long tutorials for some 100,000 students, who sign up from all over the world for online courses such as Basic Strokes for Watercolour Flowers and Birds and Botanicals for Beginners.

Willow Wolfe-branded painting books were added to the mix two years ago and lately, Wolfe has been collaborating with Winsor & Newton, a London-based art supplier that has been in operation since 1832, on a custom line of watercolour and water-mixable oil paints.

“We haven’t started teaching here yet, but that’s definitely something we’ve considered, as well,” says Wolfe, whose 400-square-foot studio looks out over a meandering stretch of the Red River, west of Henderson Highway.

“From a teaching perspective, I only work with beginners, but we do have an ambassador program featuring 25 artists who use our brushes and who, under our umbrella, teach intermediate to advanced artists.”

Pamela Mark is an art-education manager for Opus Art Supplies in Victoria, B.C. Wolfe was at Mark’s locale in July, performing in-store demos as part of a week-long series of dates in that province.

“It’s always a highlight for our community. Customers absolutely love the chance to connect with the person behind the products and get hands-on guidance,” Mark says of Wolfe’s recent visit.

Opus Art Supplies has been associated with Wolfe since 2020, and Mark has known her since 2021. (In a March 2026 review, Wolfe’s Callia brushes, which Mark’s outlet carries along with the Seneca and Amavi brushes, were described as being “very versatile” and “ideal for artists who are just beginning their creative journey, and are experimenting with a variety of styles and mediums.”)

“Willow really stands out from her competitors because she is an artist herself — she understands the ‘why’ and ‘how’ behind the tools,” Mark states.

“She’s created a very unique and supportive experience for artists, focusing on education and setting people up for success, rather than just selling supplies.”

As for Wolfe doing all that from tiny Narol, well, that’s another plus, Mark opines.

“It’s always fun to see such a talented artist representing a smaller Canadian community.”

Here’s a question: now that she’s the recipient of a lifetime achievement award, what’s left for Wolfe to accomplish?

“For the first five years of my career I was constantly learning, but I never did go to fine-arts school. In hindsight I debated that decision, and still consider it as an option,” replies Wolfe, citing bird and nature scenes as her areas of expertise.

“I’d also like to do more in-person teaching than I do now. I love the sort of feedback you get in those situations — not just about our brushes, but even about great places to eat if we’re holed up in Vancouver or Calgary for a week, going from store to store.”

Willow Wolfe products are available at a number of retailers in Winnipeg, including Tara Davis Studio Boutique, Artists Emporium and A Little Art Boutique. For more information, go to willowwolfe.com.

david.sanderson@winnipegfreepress.com