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UVic Elder Academy offers artistic discovery sessions

Becoming an Artist runs Saturdays in January
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Smart Crowd by Jenny Waelti-Walters

Research shows that learning something new is an effective way to keep the brain active and healthy. The UVic Retirees Association Elder Academy shares the experiences of four different artists in its Becoming an Artist series.

Each of the four women discovered or rediscovered their artistic expression in several different forms of art. This will be a fun and sharing experience and an opportunity to see some of their creations and learn what motivated them to create some of their pieces.

“It’s giving people interesting things to listen to and useful things to learn. It’s kept separate from continuing studies because they keep it really cheap,” says Jenny Waelti Walters, the first artist up, who also worked at UVic at 30 years. “A lot of (the lectures) have been about health and bodies. Dave (Docherty, chair, UVRA Elder Academy Program Committee) thought it would be nice to have a change.”

Speakers over the four-week course areWaelti Walters, Fran Baskerville, Agnes Ananichuk and April Caverhill. Each will recount and illustrate the paths they followed in the discovery of the various forms of creativity that attracted them.

“There are people out there who say ‘I’ll do some art when I retire’ then they retire and they haven’t,” she says. “Each of the four of us who have quite different backgrounds… all came to it after we retired. We’ll just talk about how we actually mad e the transition, how we got into art, what that led into and what we’ve been doing since we’ve been full time artists.”

One is a life-long artist, whereas the other three went to art school in the late 1990s at retirement from careers in government and teaching at UVic. Over the years they have developed their crafts and honed their skills as they built the courage to name themselves openly for what they are now in the world: they are artists. Join them in January and maybe test the possibilities for yourselves after you have heard what fun and adventures they have had over the course of their journey.

Becoming an Artist runs Saturdays, Jan 6, 13, 20 and 27 from 10 a.m. to noon in UVic’s MacLaurin Building D114. Cost is $20 for all four sessions or $6 per session.

To register, email registrant name and method of payment to uvra@uvic.ca, or phone 250-472- 4749.


 
cvanreeuwyk@oakbaynews.com
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Sun Umbrellas by Jenny Waelti-Walters


Christine van Reeuwyk

About the Author: Christine van Reeuwyk

I'm dedicated to serving the community of Oak Bay as a senior journalist with the Greater Victoria news team.
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