Park City • During the 13-minute ride between her parents’ ramen restaurant at the base of Park City Mountain’s Town Lift and teenage freedom at the top, young Penelope Misa had plenty of time to study the graphics on her skis.

A covert artist in a home where she had been told she had to be a doctor or a lawyer, she peered down at them with curiosity and even a little envy. What kind of design would she make if she got the chance, she often wondered.

“It was in the back of my mind where I was like, ‘Gosh, that would be, you know, a bucket list,” Misa said. “Like, can you imagine?”

Now Misa, 36, knows just what kind of design she would make, and soon skiers around the world will, too.

Last week, professional skiers, Olympians and Park City locals packed into Offset Bier brewery in Silver Summit to celebrate Misa. Her work was displayed in striking, swirling black and white on the top sheets of three sets of skis mounted, gallery-like, side-by-side on a back wall.

The twin-tip skis are part of a new freeski line from Blizzard Tecnica. Aptly named Canvas, the company has deemed it “the most imaginative project in our history.” Part of what makes the line unique is that its graphics will be crafted by independent artists. And Misa, who lives in Big Cottonwood Canyon, is the first.

“To have one of the biggest ski brands in the world, most recognized, reach out to me now?” she said. “I’m still not over it.”

Misa’s black-and-white abstract designs evoke the movement and patterns of snow, whether freshly fallen on a slope or sprayed during a sharp carve. It’s eye-catching, interesting and interpretive.

And yet, it scarcely resembles the art that originally put Misa on Blizzard’s radar.

“We were pretty sure she wasn’t going to put one of the girls on the skis,” said Rick Sorensen, Blizzard’s United States team and content marketing manager, “but we weren’t really sure.”

“The girls” refers to Misa’s Hitchhiker series. Inspired by vintage Lange boots posters, the collection features silhouettes of leggy women wearing little more than ski or snowboard boots thumbing rides to various resorts, including Park City Mountain, Snowbird and Brighton Resort. Those images and her “Cheeky Alpini” series — which also features naked women in ski scenes, only in miniature — dominated Misa’s Instagram account when Sorensen contacted her in 2024.

Misa began drawing her freespirited figures as a way of processing the mental trauma of being caught and buried in an avalanche in Brighton Estates in 2015. She wanted to make skiing fun again, she said. Yet when Sorensen — who had ordered her Alta hitchhiker for himself a year before their meeting — approached her about the Blizzard project, she was ready to try something different.

She told company representatives that what she planned to give them would look nothing like what they saw on her social media accounts. They told her she had carte blanche.

It was almost too much freedom, she said.

“You might think that’s awesome,” she said, “but as an artist, that is terrifying.”

Misa decided to create something that would embody the spirit of the team skiers who had pushed Blizzard to create the Canvas line, which is considerably more playful than the hard-charging, directional skis the company built its reputation on. For inspiration, she asked those skiers to send her photos of their best day on the snow. Then she zoomed in on the photos until they became abstractions. Experimenting with an artistic process called reductive monotype that she hadn’t used since college, she coated a piece of glass in black ink and then “interpreted” the wisps and curves of snow onto it using toothpicks, paper towels, cotton swabs and whatever else she had at hand.

Misa said monotype felt like the perfect technique because it cannot be replicated — much like a snowflake or a ski line. Still, she worried it would be too much of a departure from her previous work or that the team at Blizzard wouldn’t understand her vision.

Sorensen said instead it was met with unanimous approval.

“The fact that she had this connection to skiing is maybe what ultimately helped really connect all the dots in the story and make it all work,” Sorensen said.

“She just did her artist thing,” he added, “and it came out amazing.”

By veering from tradition in terms of both form and function, Blizzard has been able to catch the eye of skiers who previously didn’t think the company’s style meshed with their own. One such skier is Tim McChesney, an Alta-based freeskier who was crowned the 2025 King of Corbet’s Couloir.

McChesney said the shape and feel of the Canvas skis convinced him to sign on as a Blizzard team skier this fall. But Misa’s graphics played no small part in persuading him.

“Graphics are really important for me,” McCheseny said. “All winter, you’re staring directly down at the ski. So, if it’s not something you’re stoked on, it’s not as fun, honestly.”

Misa said Blizzard gave her a full set of skis as part of the collaboration. Yet she has no intention of displaying them on a wall. This art was meant for the slopes.

“I’m ready for a good big winter this year,” she said, “so that I can get out and enjoy them.”

Blizzard launched the Canvas line with the 108s last December. It put the two other skis in the collection — the wider 118s and the skinnier 100s — on the market earlier this fall. The skis retail for between $700 and $975 per pair.