The saying goes that a journey must start with a single step, but for local artist Shirley Chinneck, a very important step came later in her ongoing and continuing journey.
Avens Gallery will host Artistic Journey, a retrospective of Chinneck’s work on Saturday, Oct. 3, with the opening reception being held between noon and 4 p.m., with Chinneck addressing attendees at 2 p.m.
“I went through my closet and found a painting – that started this,” Chinneck said. “It was a painting that I had given my parents as a wedding anniversary gift and it was something that I had painted 64 years ago. I’m starting with that and what I’m trying to do is have a painting for each of my years in the show – 87.”
Chinneck didn’t start her professional art career until she said goodbye to her first career as a nurse.
“When I was growing up there was really only the options of being a school teacher, or a secretary or a nurse and I always wanted to be a nurse so that’s what I did,” Chinneck said.
“I married my high school sweetheart, and he turned out to be a mining engineer and he travelled the world, so I got to go to Africa and India, but I didn’t go to a lot of the places he went because I had three children to look after. But that’s how I got to go to these places and he would work and I would go out in the streets and do my thing.”
Her thing, of course, was and still is art. From landscapes to portraits, the artist says she’s never shied away from trying new mediums over her career.
“I didn’t start really painting in earnest until 1987. I lived in Montreal at the time and I saw a little lady standing on the corner with an art case and I talked to her and I found out there was an art group not far from where I lived, so I started going,” she said.
“I learned how to draw by going to nude models at a studio that had it and I went two to three times a week and I picked the brains of all of these smart professional artists – I didn’t know anything about foreshortening or anything, but I soon learned.”
Artistic Journey starts in 1951 and goes right up to the recent, with the artist saying if she knew she would one day hold such a large exhibit she would have held on to more or her paintings.
“When I first started, I didn’t know how to draw, it was mostly using a pallet knife and landscapes, but very simple. When I spoke to my husband and said I wanted to retire from nursing and wanted to see what I could do with my art, he said, ‘Go for it,’ because everyone should do something they really love in their life and that was great – he was a great support,” Chinneck said.
“When I first went to this studio I was told I should concentrate on one thing, but obviously I didn’t listen because I’ve tried every medium and I think the exhibition will be interesting because its has oils, oil pastels, mono prints, water colours and gouache (acrylic).
“But at the beginning of my career, I felt honestly that if you were going to be an artist you needed to do faces and figures and that’s how I started – going to the art group and going to live sessions. It was mostly nudes, but I would concentrate on the faces … You have to do your own thing as an artist.”
