Competitive strongman becomes professional artist in Saanich, B.C.

Saanich, B.C. -

Jesse Campbell will never forget when he decided to compete in his first strongman competition — as a lark.

“I was never really athletic as a kid,” Jesse says.

So you can image how it felt when he not only realized what his body was capable of, but how competitive he could be.

“That was the first time I’d ever won a trophy or anything,” Jesse says.

It proved to be anything but beginner's luck.

“I’ve been chasing that high ever since,” Jesse says, showing pictures and video of himself pulling fire engines and dead-lifting trucks.

Thanks to countless hours of training, Jesse’s won dozens of local, provincial, national, and world strongman competitions.

He also realized a misconception along the way.

“You think of these big agro men covered in tattoos, and there is a lot of that for sure,” Jesse says. “But it’s more so that we all understand the effort, so we cheer each other on.”

And that, Jesse says, inspired him to be more patient, more empathetic, and more willing to reconsider what he’d first been cheered on as a child.

“Everybody wanted me to be an artist,” Jesse says. “I didn’t want to do what people wanted to tell me to do.”

After spending years focusing on the opposite (studying science in college, along with being a competitive strongman), Jesse felt empowered to step out of the box and put the same effort into art.

“You can’t just think your way into a painting,” Jesse says. “You actually have to do it.”

So Jesse implemented the skill-set that made him successful in sport (including patience and persistence), and became a professional artist — painting almost a dozen murals around the region.

As Jesse finishes his latest mural on a wall at Saanich’s Layritz Park, carrying heavy cans of paint and climbing tall scaffolding, his job is proving to be both physically challenging and artistically satisfying.

“The original intention of this piece,” Jesse says pointing at giant images of birds and bugs that frequent the park, “was to acknowledge the animal athletes in our lives.”

Fittingly created across from a sports field, Jesse's mural features designs he commissioned from a Coast Salish artist. Jesse himself is Metis.

The final product is a balance of images that's similar to the way Jesse is now unifying the different aspects of himself.

“It’s removing the conception that you have be like this or like that. Be what you want to be,” Jesse says. “As long as you’re interested, you can find a way. It’s up to you.”