One of my pastimes, or better said – community volunteer ventures – is that of being an auctioneer. I’ve done charity auctions as an animated, loud, fast-talking auctioneer since about 1992 or so. I started auctioneering when I was stationed in Hope at the Hope Curling Club, and the adventure of auctioneering has continued since that time…taking me far and wide to some pretty hoity-toity events.
I do a lot of events on the Sunshine Coast and am grateful for the opportunity to help community charities and the like with my “talent”. Sometimes Joy comes with me and enjoys supporting whatever event I’m working at for the evening. In the fall of 2013, Joy was at one of these events, “providing support” at the silent auction tables. She was trying to bump up the values of various items by bidding on them, but one item actually ended up stalling at her bid. When the dust had settled and the evening was over, Joy had purchased a “staycation” so to speak. She’d bought a night in a cabin and a supper at the restaurant of the Bonniebrook Lodge, right here on the Sunshine Coast. In fact, Bonniebrook Lodge is located at Bonniebrook where Joy and I walk weekly all year round. It’s about a six-minute drive from our house.
Well, we thought, no use wasting a fine prize! So, we embraced the idea of a night out and booked the supper and cabin for an evening in the spring of 2014. And on that night, we might as well have been a thousand miles from home as we relaxed and enjoyed every minute of our short staycation. In the evening, before supper, we walked across the road to the small grassy park area that belongs to the Lodge. Looking out over the Salish Sea on that clear, calm evening, it was a perfect place to relax and savour the area that we are so fortunate to live in. To say that we looked at the Salish Sea differently at that moment would be an understatement. It’s amazing how much your everyday surroundings can show you things you’ve never seen or felt before as a result of just slowing down, feeling the breeze on your face, breathing in the ocean air, and simply taking a good look around.
The scene was simple and serene, but it caught my artist’s eye in a way that it never had before during those weekly walks with Joy. That lonely log and the wisps of fresh spring grasses at the ocean’s edge provided a perfect frame for the view of the Salish Sea and Vancouver Island in the background. Even its horizontal and linear shape suggested the very format of the painting itself. “THE VIEW FROM BONNIEBROOK LODGE” is a simple statement, really. It says to me, and I hope it says to you, “Let’s all slow down and enjoy the simple beauty that’s around us here every day…right here where we live, on the Sunshine Coast.”
