Things that shaped Pat Dyson's Art.

As a kid I was never happier than when dipping my paintbrush in my tea, and sipping the paintwater by mistake. Though my talent was evident early in life, being a girl from British working class stock, any tips or encouragement I got were never intended to inspire me to be an artist; it could only be a hobby.

When our family emigrated to Toronto in '57, I had a chance to attend Danforth Tech's art courses, but I was in culture shock; as well as dealing with puberty. Teen angst overwhelmed any desire to think about a carreer in art. It wasn't until I followed through with life's expectations of being a wife and mother, and saw it fail, that I came full circle with another chance to attend Danforth Tech's art classes in the early 60's.

A girlfriend, whose family emigrated the year before us, encouraged me to get out two evenings a week, and take Fred Winterbottom's "Still Life Drawing & Painting"

classes with her. It was like waking a sleeping volcano.

Fred introduced us to the work of the masters, and the basics of several mediums. It was so intoxicating, I was awed with the results of what I could do with one winter session that I enrolled for the next one. This threw me into a decade of intense experimentation; relishing how art expresses some inner essence of our being that words alone can't do. Piccaso puzzled me, but I loved Salvadore Dali and Goya, and am still awed at some of the exquisite detail of several masters.

I did sell a few along the way, but mostly the stuff I liked best was given as gifts, which bailed me out as Christmas, birthdays, and weddings arose.

In '72 I was invited to be a resident arts and crafts instructor at the Alliston Youth Centre. It was an LIP grant funded venture that lasted all summer. When we returned to the city, my brother and I opened a store in Toronto, at Beach and Queen. After two years,as my son reached twelve, I was ready to take him away from the city with it's growing drug problem.

There were two things I wanted to do: get back to the land, and live by the ocean in a tourist town where I might be able to make a living as an artist. We lived on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, for four years; to my chagrin I discovered homesteading, as a single mother, leaves little time to paint. It was a hard life, but I wouldn't change any of it. We both grew up.

We came back to Toronto when he could legally leave school; there was no work on the island. I tried a series of part-time jobs that I'd hoped would give me time to paint, but that dream was like building castles in the air too. Two years of college didn't help get a good paying full-time job either; it turned out to be the management trend to hire part-time (to opt out of paying benefits) that was the problem; not any lack of education. The thing that ended my sales career was that even half an hour less than 40 hours was now part-time; coupled with rotating shifts, and working on commission.

The old saying, "Hard work never killed anyone," turns out to be a lie; I was fortunate to have my son as an anchor, and a reason not to give up on life.

When the stress of the rat race put me out of commission, my brother encouraged me to get back into painting. He commissioned me to do quite a few portraits; plus he bought most of the newer stuff in the late 80's as I experimented with acrylic, before anyone else even saw them. It took six months to start feeling like myself again.

So my stuff is scattered, even as far as Britain. My claim to fame is my watercolor portrait of the Beatles, which they autographed for me in '65, on their last Maple Leaf Gardens concert. It was auctioned off at a Sotheby's memorabilia event, to help me finish college in '85.

Like many of the masters, big news events of our day inspired artistic expression from me, and a major change in my life has shifted my expression more to writing than art. In '92 I became a serious Christian, and I lost interest in focusing on portraits. Not creating graven images threw me for a loop, but I was given my talent for a reason that goes beyond my own pleasure. Until I knew what it was, I chose to revive the art of Illustrated Manuscripts.

So here I am, 66; retired from the rat race, with time to take my place in cyberspace; to contribute my talent and knowledge to The Net. I want a page to share my essays too: starting with the piece I wrote while getting back to the land; we did the survival bit before it was a popular t.v. show. I had wanted to warn others about acting on romantic notions. But that will come, I have enough irons in the fire for now, as I'm doing this by myself.