Hi,
I am a 77 year old woman living in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. Welcome to my little corner of the World Wide Web. What a great new place this is!
I was born in Kirkland Lake on a cold Canadian morning in 1934. My father was a gold miner. During the war he tested engines for Canada's Corvette fleet of ship which I believe were built in Collingwood. For many years my parents owned a summer resort at Wasaga Beach - Kirkland Kabins. After the war we moved to Stayner, Ontario. Stayner is 15 miles from Collingwood so when I moved here from Toronto almost a year ago [2010] it was something like coming home.
One of my first memories is of taking big red apples from my parent's basement barrel, transferring them to a basket and peddling them door to door to our neighbours. I think I was a born entrepreneur.
After many years in the wilderness I eventually bought Walter Cole's Catering. An entrepreneur's dream! Coles was the grand old dame of Toronto Catering Companies. She had been around since 1847 - before confederation. When the Queen of England came to Toronto they called Coles to make fancy little sandwiches without crusts. I worked very hard and Coles was very good to me.
In 1985 I sold the Company. After selling one of the things I did was take a sculpting course at a nearby high school. I fell in love with Art and gradually rebuilt myself into some form of artist/painter. The winter of 1992/93 I went to New York to study at the Art Student's League for 6 months. I lived at the Chelsea Hotel and studied under Knox Martin. He told me to "stay away from school, you are a primitive painter, you have what it takes, go home, paint every day all day". It seems to me only men can paint all day every day - women always have dishes to do. In any case I painted as much as I could and for the most part stayed away from school.
I exhibited my work at the Art Student's League' December show in 1993, had a painting hang in the lobby of the Hotel Chelsea for a few months. In 1995 I exhibited at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition and the Performing Arts Lodge in Toronto. Every August I put paintings in the AWOL Square Foot Exhibition and got some nice press in Eye Magazine a few years ago. I have been invited to exhibit my work in the Florence Biennale but so far have declined the offer.
In 2003 I rented a store on the Danforth in Toronto. It had great windows and good vibes. I named it A Place to Paint and hoped to emulate something like a mini Art Student's League. It was not to be. I am no longer associated with A Place to Paint.
Before I moved from Toronto I had Saturday drawing classes for some great kids. See their wonderful works at http://thekidshanghere.blogspot.com/
Thanks for stopping by. Click on the links above or below to view my work and/or my words. I look forward to hearing from you or meeting you in my blog
http://bettybishophangshere.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL - bettybishop@me.com