I’m not good at hobbies. I either go at everything full steam ahead or play dead if someone mentions that I should try doing X or Y because I might enjoy it. Well, I wouldn’t.
The local fitness center was having a promotional campaign to attract more customers. A young woman phoned me and asked if I would like to take out a membership plan so that I could enjoy keeping fit along with all my friends. The lady made sympathetic sounds when I said that I had no friends and didn’t want to get fit in case it made me live longer. She hung up before I did.
Jan wanted to take art classes at the Wonthaggi U3A center, but I was adamant that I didn’t want to sit in a class with a lot of windy old ladies. He reminded me that I would fit my description of the class perfectly, so I reluctantly agreed.
At our first class, the teacher, Faye Seaton, showed us her wonderful artwork but I still wasn’t convinced that I wanted to paint.
Faye handed out to each member of our class an outline of an arum lily and asked us to colour it in, reminding us to be aware of shading. I sat there with a crayon and angrily scribbled away like a two-year-old possessed. I was annoyed at having to play ‘colouring in’ at my age and was shooting daggers at Jan as he approached the task with due care.
Faye scrutinized each person’s work, offering advice or simply admiring their effort until she came to me.
‘Oh. I see. Very good. You’ve shown how much you hate arum lilies. Art has to be a combination of skill and emotion. ‘Now,’ she said as she handed me a fresh outline of the lily, ‘see if you can produce what you love about arum lilies.’
Faye and I exhibited our art work together at Inverloch and other venues for some years until she passed away in June 2021.
I admired Faye’s courage during her illness, and her persistence with me in spite of my reluctance to conform. I see her face in my mind’s eye and thank her for the pleasure her teaching of art has given me, and for her friendship.
