Janice Bonish and Don Brimmer were cousins who had drifted apart. But their love of art has brought them closer and led to the latest exhibit at Petrolia’s Victoria Hall.
Bonish of Thunder Bay and Brimmer of Camlachie knew each other when they were young.
“I was born in Petrolia and my mum is from here. We used to spend all our summers here or at a cottage on Lake Huron,” says Bonish.
Bonish is the daughter of Evelyn Brimmer and Brimmer is her nephew. But she says they were “disconnected for years.”
When they did meet up, they began talking about their love of art. “I could see Don had a real interest in painting, so we would talk about it.”
Brimmer says he was just learning how to paint, devouring every book and old TV instructional show he could find.
Bonish had been offered a show in Petrolia and planned to hold it with her daughter. When that didn’t work out, she turned to Brimmer. It surprised him.
“I didn’t think I was ready,” he says adding all of the abstracts he created for the show were new because everything else he had painted were part of instructional courses and he wanted to do something original.
Brimmer normally paints landscapes, but he and Bonish decided he would take on some abstracts for the show.
He didn’t mind because he loves using bright colours.
The pair titled the exhibit and called it Contrasts in Abstracts and Landscapes. It will be on display at Victoria Hall until the end of the month.
At that time, the Juried Art Show will be hung, according to art advisory committee members. The intake for that show will be in early October.