My art prints of Victoria's Johnson Street Blue Bridge are now available

My painting of Victoria's Johnson Street Bridge
and Upper Harbour is now available in Fine Art Prints.
 

My painting of the Johnson Street Bridge and Victoria's working harbour

"Looking South to the Blue Bridge"

 by Barbara Weaver-Bosson, copyright 2012

 

click on image to enlarge

 

colours in this image may display differently on some monitors

 

Where to purchase my new prints?
Click here for my print gallery locations
http://weaver-bosson.blogspot.ca/2012_11_01_archive.html
 

 

 

 

 New Years Resolution # 1

 Enjoy Life and organize a lot of Pot Luck Dinners

The last few weeks have been a great break from our usual routine.Vic and I enjoyed spending our holiday time with our dear friends Ron and Marcie and Ken and Donna. We all have lots in common and that would be art. Many of us have backgrounds in fine arts, commercial illustration, design and potlucks.  We all became good friends during the mid 1980's due mostly to our good timing and our memberships in the Island Illustrators Society. Ken helped establish the IIS along side many of our other close artist friends. (which I will mention in my upcoming blogs.)
D and K live here in Victoria and R and M lived in North Saanich for hundreds of years and much to our dismay decided to move to Summerland (a small lakeside town in the Okanagan that is dryer, snowier, icier, and sunnier than Victoria). As R and M pulled into town for the holiday, we knew we were in for some heavy art talk, lots of potluck dinners and too much scotch and wine.

COLD TURKEY
For a good two weeks we all enjoyed a busy and upbeat holiday with many late nights, meeting friends of friends, discussing and arguing about art and most importantly how Downton Abbey should be on every evening. Donna, who always prepares far too much of the good food we eat, has been testing the waters of retirement. It is quite common nowadays that many of our friends who have real jobs in government or public sector are looking at retiring. Retirement is a relief for people who had demanding and stress filled jobs and are now finally enjoying their pensions and the freedom to choose the type of day they will have. The transition from working full time to stopping cold turkey would be a shock to anyones system. I know Donna has many cool ideas for her free time but is planning her retirement at a slower pace than just going cold turkey.

RECHARGING
Many of us artists can't imagine retiring but over the last few years have seen a change in pace and attitude of what projects to take on and what to leave alone. In the art world we have our challenges and stresses and at the end of a hectic year, need a bit of time off. These days my ideal ways to relax are finding a tropical beach with free drink service, flopping on the sofa for Downton Abbey Seasons 1 through 3 or combining the first two ideas with visiting friends and family. All or just one of these acitivites allow us to escape our familiar surroundings and recharge for the busy year that lies ahead.

RETIRING OR SIMPLIFYING
 As the holiday with our friends came to a close we had one other party to attend. It was not just another pot luck dinner, it was a birthday party. We were enlisted to help our delightful friend Betty celebrate a very significant birthday. Betty, now 90, knows how to tell a great story and throw a great dinner party but most importantly is one heck of a good painter. We know from previous visits and from the multitude of stacked canvases in her studio, Betty paints most every day. She loves to paint with Ron when he's is in town and her favourite subjects are still life, figurative and abstracts. Betty's painting style is filled with grace and simplicity. With Betty as a fine example and role model, she inspires us to simplify our lives and offers quiet advice ..... keep painting and don't sweat the small stuff.

BUY LOW AND SELL HIGH
The other side of the retirement question is one of money and pensions etc and how a well earned and deserved public or private sector pension is beneficial to maintaining a stable life and keeping a dry roof over ones head but sorry to say, I am sure you will thank me for not getting into that conversation. All hard working artists have a variety of different situations and I couldn't possibly generalize everyones circumstances or give sound investment advice or suggest how we each should proceed into our senior years but I have to mention... remember that silly banking and investment ad that played for years on tv? It still makes me laugh to this day FREEDOM 55!

ENDLESS INSPIRATION AND ART SUPPLIES
Collectively, we as friends and hoarders of art supplies, we may never ever fill up all our sketch books, use up our tubes of paints and fill up all our space on the computers hard drive. As far as the eye can see, we have far too many subjects or landscapes that will inspire us to paint, we have so much more to learn and so much more to experience and so much more to support or disagree about. All I know for sure, is we look forward to getting up everyday and getting into our studios. We may never just up and quit and retire from doing what we love to do. And as they say, "This is a Good Thing" for our arts and culture of Canada. Hopefully all of us will contribute for many more years to come.

In this New Year 2013 I would like to propose a toast to all

Cheers to all our good friends and colleagues! Here's to using our imagination and here's to visually making the world a more interesting and colourful place to live in.

To view Ron and Marcia Stacy's website
 visit http://stacystudios.com/