Public Health Regulations continue...As outlined in last month's newsletter, the current public health regulations [PHRs] continue to apply when meeting at WPP. Until we hear otherwise,- Members must wear a mask and present a BC COVID passport upon arrival
- Masks must be worn upon arrival until you sit down. If you decide to stand up and move around you are free to do, so but you must wear your mask
- No refreshments will be available therefore BYOC
- Limit of fifty people in our space
- Weather permitting, windows and doors will be open so bring a woolly
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VSC Spring ShowShow dates are March 22-27 at the GNS Junior School on Beach Drive. March 21 and part of March 22 will also be used to set up our first show in three years. The COVID pandemic marches on, and who knows what the situation will be in March. Notwithstanding, we're planning and preparing for our show with an opening reception in which every VSC member will a role in preparations and hosting. When volunteers are called for, please, step forward.
Several advertising venues will help to build attendance to our show. Here is one of the proven ways for us all to help build our show attendance numbers.
1. Start now making a list of your family, friends, solicitors, accountants, doctors, dentists, businesses that you deal with, and individuals that have previously bought your paintings.
2. We will have a show poster, in numerous forms, including a suitable one for us to use on email or on social media in our invitations.
3. A month before our opening I will send out personal emails to each of the names on my list. Do not use bcc because it can be easily ignored. Instead prepare models of emails tailored to the addressee, for example, our solicitor’s invitation is addressed to her personally, which also invites her to distribute the invitation to her friends, family, and to the members of her law firm. Then a week to ten days before the show opening I send out a reminder to all but embellish my reminder to those that replied positively to the first invitation.
4. A surprising number of those we invite do attend and often they come with family and friends and they have been known to buy paintings, too.
Cheers,
Larry
President VSC |
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Christmas party, COVID-style at Windsor Park! |
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 | | Agnes discusses picture frame options for VSC members art contributions to the March 2022 show. |
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 | | A Christmas message from President Larry! |
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 | | And happy birthday, Christine!! |
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CNIB Eye Appeal Art Gala For many years, VSC members have been steadfast supporters of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. More recently there were some troublesome issues over the issuing of proper and timely tax receipts for art donated by our members and other artists that donated paintings to the CNIB as part of a fund raising event. The CNIB has made a conscious effort to clarify its policy regarding tax receipts, and to that end, I would ask you to consider donating a piece of your art to the upcoming CNIB Event here in Victoria.
In January, I will be receiving additional information from the local CNIB staff and/or volunteers regarding their coming event.
Here is the date of the coming CNIB event.
CNIB - Eye Appeal Art Gala
Saturday, May 7th, 2022
Union Club Ballroom
805 Gordon Street
Victoria
Cheers, Larry |
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History Corner
by John Lover |
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Maude Lettice, whose association with the Island Arts Club and its Sketch Club successor spanned some 60 years, can safely be recognized as our longest-serving member, and as one who played a pivotal role in bridging the transition from one version of our club to the next.
Her father Robert, a mid-century emigrant from England, arrived in Victoria in 1862 and established a successful business. The Lettice family first resided in a house in Broughton Street surrounded by orchards, where Maude, one of six siblings, was born in 1879. Later, Robert commissioned a residence, Yaxley, in Faithful Street, which was built in 1916. 
After leaving school Maude studied art under Miss Woodward and John Kyle, and became a friend of Josephine Crease of Pentrelew, a charter member of the Island Arts Club, later the Island Arts and Craft Society (IACS), of which Maude was soon to join and establish the unique record of contributing to every annual exhibition from 1910 to 1941, and again in 1947.
Her early paintings were created in traditional British watercolour style, with fine detailing and smooth application of colour. However, Maude showed open-mindedness in adapting her style to incorporate more modern techniques, such as those exhibited in the “Modern Room” component of the 1932 exhibition of the IASC. Indeed, according to Emily Carr’s biographer, Hembroff-Schleicher, Maude subsequently developed a more impressionistic style, larger in format and with brighter colours and more freedom in her brushwork.
After World War II, lessons from Amy Stone of Toronto again persuaded Maude to change her painting style, only abandoned late in life due to failing eyesight.
She was a long-time member of the executive committee of the IACS, chaired the seminal meeting in 1952 when it was decided that the Arts and Crafts Society be known as the Sketch Club, and was elected President of what had become known as the Victoria Sketch Club in 1958. On the occasion of the Club’s fiftieth birthday in 1959, Lettice was made a life member in appreciation of her service, and the Club presented one of her watercolours, painted at Saxe Point, as a gift to Government House.
At the Club’s 1971 annual exhibition, there was a display of 14 pictures of the 92-year-old veteran. Maude, a member of both the Vancouver and Victoria art galleries, having exhibited in both, died in Victoria in 1976.
Her paintings have been hung in galleries in Victoria and Vancouver and private exhibitions in Toronto and Halifax.
On a personal note, while researching for the Club’s history book in 2008, I had the good fortune to visit Yaxley the Lettice family home, and meet Maude’s niece, the charming Evelyn Lettice, who was in the process of leaving the house in which she had spent all of her 88 years.
Evelyn, had spent her entire working life in administration at Esquimalt Dockyard and achieved distinction at a range of sports, including an appointment as a national ice-skating judge. She was happy to share a host of memories about her aunt and past personalities in the Victoria art scene and was able to attend our History Book launch at Abkhazi Gardens later in the year. We were able to renew acquaintance sometime later when some of our Club members participated in an art show at Somerset House, the Senior Care Home, w here we were joined by Evelyn, now a resident there.
Evelyn passed away in 2012, and, interestingly, in 2018, Yaxley, the former Lettice family home, was to achieve heritage status as a fine example of an Edwardian era Georgian Classical Revival building.
Illustrations:
Maude Lettice, photograph, Collection of Evelyn Lettice
Maude Lettice, Summertime Near Victoria, B.C.
Yaxley, the Lettice family home |
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 Mike Pipes' watercolour paintings
Dates: November and December 2021
Venue: Stairwell Gallery at St Philip Church, Oak Bay
Address: 2928 Eastdowne Road, Victoria
Phone 250-592-6823
The exhibit is open for viewing during regular office hours Tues-Wed-Thurs 9:00-Noon and on Sunday mornings.
There are 18 paintings in the Stairwell Gallery including those shown here.
A wider selection of my work covering 45 paintings is shown on my new web site www.cwotic.com [cwotic is an abbreviation of “See What I See”]
Most of my paintings are ½ sheet and 24” x 18” as framed. |
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Artist of the WeekIf you would like to be VSC's Artist of the Week and be featured on our social media channels, here's your big chance! If you've got any questions, feel free to contact Vicky Turner.
Here is what we'll need you to do:- Attach 3 of your art photos to an email which you will send to victoriasketchclub@gmail.com
- Subject line should read: Artist of The Week
- Include a 2-3 line artist statement
- Be a social media superstar
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