Kathryn Bury never took art classes while growing up in Barrie – with the exception of one music class, in Kindergarten.
“That was a long time ago and money was not spent on art,” said Bury, who turns 85 this year. “Certainly, in high school they had the Barrie band, but we really didn’t have art.”
It was a different era, she said. There was no television; instead, she said, “When we were kids growing up, we had a stand-up radio. We sat around it at night.”
There were movies – and a dime allowance was enough to pay for a big bag of popcorn “with a toy,” and the matinee.
“Art and music and things like that – your parents either had to have the money to pay for outside classes, or you didn’t have it,” she said.
It wasn’t until she and her husband Stan retired and moved to Bradford from Toronto, that Bury discovered what she calls her “great adventure”: art.
Retired, new to the community, without a network of friends, Bury decided she needed to get out and meet people. She checked the local papers, saw a course on photography and signed up – only to be told the class had been cancelled.
“They said the only thing they had was this art course with Donnah Cameron, so I said, ‘Why not’?” said Bury. “I walked into class and nearly died of shock.”
Everyone else seemed to know what was going on. They had all brought paintbrushes, paper and water colour paints to the class. Bury had to ask the instructor for a list of supplies.
“After spending the money on the course and the supplies, I thought I’d better learn,” she said – but it didn’t come easy.
Frustrated when she tried to paint trees, she asked Cameron for help. Cameron told her to go home and paint one thousand trees. “She said when I’ve painted 1,000 trees, I’ll be able to paint one,” Bury remembered. “I painted not quite a thousand, but a lot of trees.”
It was just a year later that Cameron encouraged her to enter her work in the Society of York Region Artists (SOYRA) art show in Aurora. Bury didn’t win a prize, but she sold her first painting.
“I was just flabbergasted,” she said. Delighted and inspired, she continued to take art classes and learn new techniques.
Some people have a “natural” talent, “but for most of us, it’s learned - and that’s why we learn from one another,” Bury said. “We’re never satisfied with what we do. If we are, we’re stagnant.”
She has taken “hundreds” of courses – with SOYRA and other groups, on weekends, in the evening - exploring media that include watercolour, acrylics, and alcohol inks and styles that have ranged from realism to the abstract.
One of her abstracts won a First at the Aurora show.
Right now, Bury is experimenting with ‘poured’ acrylic painting, “but I also go back to my old favourites, of my landscapes and trees. I love to paint trees!” she said.
Bury has faced difficult times over the past five years, including her own ill health, and the terminal illness of her husband. Through it all, Bury has continued to paint – finding art not only relaxing but “healing,” and an affirmation of her faith.
Now she keeps busy with daily aquafit classes, her gardening in the summer, her church activities – and painting. She paints in her garage or upstairs studio, weekly at the Leisure Centre with fellow artists, or at the Gibson Centre in Alliston.
For Bury, art has remained “a great adventure, and one which left me biting my fingernails at times. Now, I’ve reached the point where I paint for my enjoyment. I am enjoying it thoroughly,” she said.
She will be participating in the BWG PASSION MADE Artisans’ tour, Sept. 21-22 at Art in the Barn – with fellow former students of Donnah Cameron, including Maureen Joyce and Stella Wadsworth.
The three, and the late Deb Tucker, made up the original Bradford Group of Four – the four artists who launched an artistic revolution in Bradford West Gwillimbury almost 15 years ago.
For more information on the tour, click here.
