Where River Run Began...
Angela Walsh Noble
Artist · Educator · Art Therapist · Pemberton, BC
River Run Art Studio grew from a simple but persistent question: what might it look like to bring together the things I love most — art, teaching, healing, and this extraordinary place — into something that genuinely serves this community?
I grew up in Pembroke, Ontario (a small town on the Ottawa River) the oldest of four children and the only girl among three brothers. I came west in my late twenties chasing mountains and wildness. Fifteen years living in the Sea to Sky corridor followed, the last six and a half of them here in Pemberton, where I finally feel entirely at home.
This is a place where you can walk into the grocery store and end up staying far longer than you planned caught up in conversation with neighbours and friends. Community is everything to me. I love the layered, deep, and complex history of this place. The thousands of years of Indigenous connection to this land humbles me daily, and I am committed to continuing to learn what it means to be a responsible and grateful guest here.
How I Came to Art Therapy
I have known for a long time, long before I had the words for it, that art does things that nothing else can. I've watched it happen in my students for nearly twenty-five years: the student struggling with anxiety who visibly calms the moment their hands touch clay. The young person carrying something heavy who finds a way to set it down, at least for a while, through paint.
I also know it on a personal level. Mental health has touched my own life and my family in ways that have shaped who I am and why I do this work. I have sat across from therapists myself, and I know what it feels like to need support and to find it. That knowing lives in every session I hold.
Artist · Educator · Art Therapist
I have been an artist since I discovered at fourteen that I could draw. I completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at Queen's University, majoring in painting and printmaking, and my studio practice remains central to who I am.
I have also been an art educator for nearly twenty-five years in classrooms from Kingston to North Vancouver, and now to Pemberton; from elementary school to senior school Advanced Placement Studio Courses. In 2026 I completed my Advanced Diploma in Art Therapy at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute, and I am a Professional Member of the Canadian Art Therapy Association (CATA) and a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor (RTC) with the Association of Cooperative Counselling Therapists of Canada (ACCT).
River Run Art Studio is where all of those identities — artist, educator, therapist, community member — finally have a place to live together.
A Note on Small Community Practice
Practicing in a small community is both a gift and a responsibility. I treasure the connections that make Pemberton home, and I hold the privacy and dignity of every person who walks through River Run's door with the same care and respect I would want for myself.
River Run Art Studio is a confidential, safe, and welcoming space — always.