After a close call with Penny Precise, the name of my beautifuI power cabinet saw, I began to accept that I needed to find a safer way to use my hands. So I took up drawing and painting.
My partner, Sue, encouraged me to draw. Drawing plans for cabinets or carvings had trained my eyes to translate 2D into 3D on paper. With a pad of paper and a pencil, drawing became an obsession. Every object became a subject. I mean everything. People sitting at the ferry terminal, my car radio/dashboard, dogs walking by, the side mirror of our truck.
Sue would critique my works and I eventually got up the nerve to take a six-week painting course on Denman Island where we lived. I knew nothing about painting. Sue’s words of encouragement were, “You learned the primary colours in elementary school.” I had no idea what she meant.
Looking back to that time, drawing and painting were a refuge from the prospect of my advancing disability. Life had changed and I needed to make the best of a bad situation. The days of hopping on my Yamaha 800 and driving to the front of the BC ferry line were over. Instead I could draw or paint for hours waiting to board the ferry.
The colour wheel became my saviour!
