Spring Skiing by Nessa Dziemian
About the artist
Nessa Dziemian
Nessa Dziemian is an illustrator and skier based in Canada. We love her unique interpretation of the skiing experience and the characters she illustrates. We caught up with Nessa to ask her about her background in skiing, art and her favorite parts of spring skiing.
What is your background in skiing?
I started skiing at the age of 2 at Loon Mountain and went up basically every weekend. My dad, brother, and I would count our ski days on a calendar after a day up on the hill. I loved skiing with my family and friends, but I also just fell in love with skiing in the trees and hitting side hits - which translated nicely into mogul skiing. I was a 2x National Champion and on the US Ski team for Moguls for about 11 years. Six of those were on World Cup and the other five were on the development team. After the 2019 season, I was ranked 12th in the world. Unfortunately, I never got to live out my Olympics dreams, I kept tearing my dang ACLs right before the Games which always felt like some type of curse. But, I got to live this dream anyway at the Beijing 2022 Olympics as a coach.
My favourite part of mogul skiing though was jumping. I was maybe one of the first female mogul skiers to attempt a cork 10 on snow in the moguls. I was also one of the first female skiers to land a run with a cork seven grab in competition. I always loved the silence and weightlessness of going big in the air.
Now, school takes up most of my time, but during breaks, I like to tour and ski casually for fun. Sometimes you’ll see me out there on White Heat at Sunday River, competing in the Bust N Burn. I started out just skiing with my brother at ski school in Lincoln, New Hampshire and just kind of fell in love with skiing in the trees, hitting side hits and that eventually just translated into mogul skiing. Dodging trees, turning quickly and all the side hits really got me into mogul skiing.
How did you get into Illustrating?
I pretty much have always had two passions, and they were skiing and art. They always went hand in hand. I would ski during the day on the weekend, then I would go in for lunch at the lodge and draw once I finished eating. Even when I started to compete in World Cup, I would draw during down periods.
I feel like drawing actually helped my skiing because I was pretty inconsistent for a while. I had a coach that was like, “well, you're constantly drawing, so why don't you create a sketchbook that becomes kind of like your to do list?” So I would draw every day and have these checklists like OK did you stretch today? Check. Did you work out today? Check. How much water did you drink? Stuff like that, but next to it would be all of these little illustrations and drawings about skiing or nature. But, the two have always existed together for me.
What is your favorite ski for spring skiing?
My go to would have to be the Devastator just because it's so playful. You can ski anything with it. You can go on the groomers and cruise there. You can go to the park and have some fun or you can go big mountain on it because it's a bit wider and can ski anything. Yeah, I think I'm just gonna leave it to the Devastator for now, but the MSP 91 is a close second.
How are art and skiing related for you now?
Now that I’m not skiing as much as I’d like to, I feel like I still have a lot of inspiration from my memories of my imagination. As a kid, I remember I’d see the snow cats grooming on the mountain, and I’d think that maybe the groomers could see all the animals skiing. Or, when I would go tree skiing and it was so quiet that it felt like something magical was present. So, I feel like a lot of the drawing I do is inspired by all the play that I did as a kid.I create stories, about my own skiing adventures and the challenges, almost like creating little fantasies. An example is one time we were early season touring and the the snow was pretty low up on Blackcomb glacier. There were small crevasses that were hidden below some of the fall line. I was skiing and didn't notice that there was a crevasse like right in front of me, so I had to jump over and I landed on the other side completely fine. But, I remember creating this story like "what's in the crevasse, and what’s something weird that can be down there?" I think the answers to those type of curiosity kinda makes it fun for me and helps inspire things to draw. It's all silly and not serious. Skiing can get serious sometimes, I think just taking that away and remembering that we're all just playing is important.
What is your favorite part of spring skiing?
Oh my God, there are so many. I feel like it's gotta be the sun being out and just kind of thawing out with your friends. Like T-shirt skiing and trying tricks that you haven't tried all season because you're too cold. And just having all of your friends together yelling and ripping warm laps all together, especially in the park or in the slush bumps!
