Carroll Henderson, Joyce Reid, and Roberta Vyse talk art and local gallery
The Gwen Fox Gallery is wrapping up its year with an expanded selection of offerings in their gift shop and a wide variety of wonderful local talented artists showing at their all members show. Don’t miss a chance to see works in an amazing array of differing mediums adorning every wall, table, and plinth until the end of the season.
Three of the gallery’s newer artists that are taking part in the show are Carroll Henderson, Joyce Reid, and Roberta Vyse who agreed to share a little bit about their work.
Carroll Henderson
Henderson has two wonderful watercolour paintings in the gallery this month.
“[My art is] just everyday things. It’s realistic but I’m not into abstract or realism,” she said.
One of her pieces is a landscape where attention is drawn to logs in the foreground. The other is a floral piece with bright happy colours.
She says that she’s very inspired by flowers because of their colours along with birds and nature.
“I started out just sketching and drawing when I was about 12 years old and then a while later, I started with the colours,” said Henderson.
Her art really took off after she retired as she had taken a pause from her practice to raise a family.
“I got a chance to go to some art classes and so I got back into that. I was fortunate enough to even be able to go to Dauphin for weekend courses because I had family to stay with. So that really got me back into it. We’d go there Friday night, Saturday and then part of Sunday, so, we were really immersed in,” she said.
She is a St. Andrews artist now and grew up in our area but spent time in the Swan River area as well.
Henderson is a newer artist to the Gwen Fox Gallery having joined about a month ago. She originally learned about it as the gallery was recommended to her for their art classes but she decided to participate in the all members show as well.
Her advice to people wanting to pick up a pencil or paintbrush is to give it a try.
“Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. I have a problem with that. I look around because other artists are so good. But we shouldn’t think like that. Just do it because you’d love to do it,” said Henderson.
She invites people to come to the gallery and have a look around.
“I definitely think they should come because we’re not really aware of all of the talent that we’ve got around us and coming to something like this is your eye-opener, and it’s a pleasurable one,” said Henderson.
Joyce Reid
Joyce Reid is a talented mixed-media painter. This month at the gallery she has one abstract style piece and one piece that is reminiscent of the famous Manet piece A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.
“My artwork is eclectic. I can paint anything, anywhere, anytime. It’s just whatever I like. I look at something, and say ‘Oh that would be a great picture.’ And then I just paint it. So, it could be anything,” said Reid.
She’s inspired by the things that come to her but she says she has to really be compelled to create something because of the time and commitment that it takes to create a piece.
Reid says that her art journey started at a very young age.
“I found out that I was an artist when I was between the ages of three and five. This was the 1950s remember and I was standing in our garage and I thought, ‘This garage is so bland.’ It was just a wood structure with boards. So, I thought, ‘Well, I’m just going to liven it up.’ My dad had all these pots of colour. I opened up each one and I painted as much garage as I could with those pots of paint,” said Reid.
She came in from the house that day covered head to toe in oil-based paints and her mother sent her straight to the bath for as long as it took to get that paint off of her but that experience was eye-opening for her.
She continued sketching as a child and eventually used her creativity in her career taking a graphics design course at Red River College and continuing to incorporate creativity throughout her life.
Reid comes from north of Gimli and says that she was looking for a place where she could share her work before finding the Gwen Fox Gallery.
She says that the Gwen Fox Gallery has a little something for everyone and encourages them to stop by.
“It’s well worth coming here. Because there’s something for everybody. If it’s a Christmas card, or a $1,000 painting, there’s something there for you and everybody here is so talented,” said Reid.
Roberta Vyse
Vyse is a very methodical painter from Lockport who plans out her colourful and fun acrylic paintings in a way that captures not just the look of a place but its spirit.
This month at the gallery she has a cottage scene as well as a painting depicting the Witch’s Hut in Kildonan Park in Winnipeg.
“[My practise is] varied. It’s mostly landscapes and some sketches. I use reference pictures like photographs in order to develop a picture. So, I will take several photographs and put them together and come up with a picture. Often, I will have sketches to go with the paintings; often I will sketch them first and then I will paint later. So, when I’m finished, I have a sketch and I have a painting. I’m just beginning, so I’m experimenting with different kinds of things and different ways of painting,” said Vyse.
She says that she’s inspired by landscapes and hopes in the future to work more in the realm of realism.
“I really would like to be able to do more realistic art. I think I’m at the beginning stages and would like to be able to paint something that looks so real you can’t tell the difference between a painting and a photograph,” said Reid.
She says that she found her way to art later in life after initially being discouraged.
“It’s sort of sat in the background for a long time. I retired about seven years ago. We had some paintings from a lady in Miami, Manitoba. She did oils and she started painting after she retired. So, I figured maybe I should come back to it. So about a year and a half or two years ago, I started to take art lessons online, and decided I liked it and continued on,” said Reid.
Her advice to other artists wanting to give a paintbrush a whirl is to have fun.
“There are very few artists around, at least locally who can actually make a living at art. If you’re doing it because you think you’re going to be able to sell [everything you make] well, probably not. So just have fun and enjoy it,” she said.
She and her husband joined the Gwen Fox Gallery about a year ago and she recommends that, like her family, people in or community come to the beautiful monthly shows.
“From what I’ve seen before, and what I’m seeing today, there are some amazing artists here. There’s a wide range between people who are just starting and people who are very, very gifted. If you like art, then I think this is a natural place to come, just like most art galleries, you can find some really unique pieces,” said Reid.
