Still fishing!

Shoal Point Ccffee at Fisherman’s Wharf located at the end of the wharf at what is called Shoal Point has hosted BarbWilson  artwork for a number of years. Currently many original drawings of her boats remain on display along with three of her more abstract paintings.

Photographic prints of these originals are available at the actual size of 11×14 for a price of $40. Mailing cost would be additional.

The entire show of framed originals currently at Shoal Point coffee  is for sale at a price of $2000.

Barb will continue to draw and paint at the wharf this summer where  she enjoys  greeting  the many international visitors who enjoy walking on the docks. Children often are delighted by the appearance of seals that can frequently  be seen in the water at the end of the dock.

Art Heist

While quietly exercising in the gym at my condo a few days ago, the building caretaker came over wearing a very sad face and told me to check my storage locker as there had been a break-in overnight. I have two lockers, one only for paintings, but I had always chuckled to myself that no criminal would ever want one of Barbara Wilson’s wild paintings. Indeed I did check the paintings locker to find it open with padlock cut, paintings somewhat disturbed and a suitcase there that wasn’t mine. Not wanting to disturb the crime scene further I rushed to a nearby local shop for a new padlock and then it dawned on me. All the large and best framed paintings were missing. I hadn’t remembered frames in the disarray of the locker. Checking it out against my written inventory list – indeed twelve paintings were missing. Ha ha – they knew the good stuff! But how could anyone who was a thief really like “that kind” of art? They were pieces that wouldn’t easily fit into even a large a car, and how would a crook unload them in the city. A close friend in the art gallery business told me to write it off, as I would never see them again. I was a little sad, but still perversely flattered that the theft had occurred. For years I have left valuable paintings outside the various places I’ve lived- an outdoor gallery was my garden yet no one ventured to take a piece.

That night I went to sleep easily but awoke in the night with the realisation of just how much had been taken from me. There was very significant financial loss. My paintings had been my money in the bank, my hopes for future travel and a small legacy for my family. More importantly, it was the experience of losing a soul – a real soul in a significant body of work. True, as a practicing artist, one must early on learn to part with one’s own work, but the soul had been lost here, because I had failed to follow through on documentation and thus would have no archival memory. When the police called the next morning to initiate investigation I promised photos, which I then couldn’t find. They could have sample images sample of my work but not a numbered image for each piece lost, according to my inventory list. Photos had been taken but were mislaid on someone else’s computer.

So here’s the happy ending. Four days after the heist, the Crime Reduction unit of Victoria Police Department knocked on my door to say they believed they had found the paintings, and after confirming they were mine they delivered them into my living space. There was no damage to paintings or frames despite all the handling they must have endured. I remain deeply grateful to the police and to others who helped solve the mystery.

Lessons learned? Get out there and paint more. My (and your) work really has a value. It has a meaning in the scheme of things. Do the work to find the exhibition space to have it shown, rather than having it languish in a locker – risk testing its real world value, critical and financial.

Were friends there when I needed them? Yes. They rallied to help document the loss and went on to document the even newer work that was stored elsewhere. Considering it urgently prudent, I engaged a professional photographer friend to shoot a record of the newer work.

The more important long term big step is to find help to document 60 years of painting from a patchwork of records, fragments of artist statements, and news clipping. And finally maybe there is a story to tell – what it is about art that is so important, that we have to lose it to find it.
Post script.
In a less stressed look at the inventory there is one missing painting still out there. It is called “First Painting of Summer”, size 30 x 24 , acrylic, us framed . It is valued at $750.

 

First Painting of Summer

First Painting of Summer – on the right easel