Patricia Richardson Logie's annual studio open house at her home in Hopkins Landing always offered a great browse. I remember arriving at her studio, along with other visitors one summer day, to be astounded by the depth and diversity of her paintings. "But wait until you see inside her house," one of the visitors told me. Logie showed us her many walls of art: nudes rendered in mellow natural colours in a semi-classic style and landscapes, many of them familiar Coast scenes. Her portraits, particularly those in the series known as Chronicles of Pride, represent some of her greatest life's work.
This weekend, some of Logie's artist peers and colleagues from the Gibsons Landing Gallery have mounted a display of her work, In Retrospect, to be shown at St. Bart's Church in Gibsons from Sept. 2 to 5. Logie is 80 years old now and admits she is slowing down, though she is still active, as she has been for the past 35 plus years, on the Canadian art scene.
Her list of accomplishments is long, but she prefers to talk about the early days when painting professionally was a far-off dream.Ê In an interview with artist friend Coralie Swaney, Logie recalls at twelve years of age, living in Niagara Falls and dreaming of becoming the best portrait painter ever. Later, she was able to take classes from a local painter, Tom Layton. At 17, the family moved to Vancouver.
She recalls her proud father with one of her pieces in hand, knocking on neighbourhood doors and exclaiming, "My daughter did this!" At 21, Patricia married Robert (Bob) Logie and the next several years were devoted to child raising; they had three sons and a daughter.
Patricia recalls the house being a hive of activity always, with many of the children's friends often being present for meals.
"Oh, I can remember stirring the soup pot with one hand and painting with the other," she says.
When Bob retired in 1970, Patricia knew her opportunity to pursue her dream had arrived.
Undaunted by having 15-year-old twins in tow, the couple packed upÊ and headed to England with the primary purpose of studying art. When they arrived in London, things seemed to fall into place.
Logie applied to and was accepted into the Sir John Cass College of Art where she indulged in her passion, painting and sculpting the human form. Eventually, she decided to devote all her energies to painting. She glows with pride when she recalls the experience of being able to paint in the National Gallery in London. She also painted with the Cass Group, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Society of Women Artists and the Pastel Society. "It was while I was in England that I really bloomed," she says.
After her return to Canada, she taught classes at university and was commissioned to do portraits of members of B.C.'s elite. She gleefully recalls being commissioned by then prominent Vancouver lawyer and now judge, Alan Thackery, to do a portrait of a Delta potato farmer and local celebrity, Chung Chuck, who posed proudly for his portrait surrounded by potatoes.
Logie was a founding member of the Canadian Institute of Portrait Artists and a signature member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. Perhaps her crowning achievement was her series Chronicles of Pride, a seven-year undertaking in which the artist, disillusioned with the manner in which contemporary aboriginals were portrayed in student texts, set out to illustrate these people in a more positive light. She produced 31 paintings in all which were formatted into a book, published in 1990. During the Pope's visit to the Dene Nation of Fort Simpson, NWT, Logie was invited to be a guest. She was presented with the highly prized Silver Eagle Feather Award for her contribution to the native community.
More recently, she has turned her talents to bold abstracts. In 2004, the Gibsons Public Art Gallery held a show of her work to date that was warmly received. She's at the point in her life where she'd prefer to see her works on the walls of art appreciators rather than cluttering up the floor space in her studio.
"I've still got a couple more paintings in me," she says. "But I believe I've done what I was supposed to do. I'm thankful, and I can't ask for anything more than that!"
Logie's show opens on Friday, Sept. 2 (tonight) with a reception from 4 to 7 p.m. and continues Saturday, Sept. 3, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 4, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. and Monday, Sept. 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at St. Bart's Church in Gibsons.
