Shelburne muralist has inspiring message

November 27, 2013 · 0 Comments

If you have an opportunity to meet the muralist who’s decorating the soon-to-be opened Health and Reiki Center that’s being established by Jodi Jones, Megan MacRae and Tom Grace at the former site of Shepherd, Osyany and King on Shelburne’s Main Street, the first thing you are likely to notice would be her boundless enthusiasm for art.

And, yes, Grade 12 CDDHS art student Diane Davies, daughter of Glen and Kathy, loves art so much that she aspires to teaching it as a career.

But she also loves nature, and hers might be a classical story of a brave young lady who gained a greater depth of gratitude for the beauty of this area because of adversity.

She suffered a concussion some time ago when, she says simply, “I fell into a brick wall.”

She doesn’t talk much about the accident or the prolonged treatment but says she would take back all the doctors and the medications but keep the life lessons she learned.

The essential lesson appears to have been one of being grateful for the beauty and all the things that nature has provided.

To some extent, Diane’s nature lesson is reflected in the mural. It is a simple mural, reflecting not only the beauty of a tree but also the connection to the spreading root system. It might be described by a non-artist such as this writer as an illustration of how all things in nature are inter dependent.

Diane says her art aspirations were inspired by both her mother and her grandmother and by nature itself. She began drawing early in life and took her serious interest in art by Grade 8. One of her earliest memories if of drinking her mother’s prepared water colours as a child; she doesn’t recall that it had any taste but did decorate her lips.

Now she is striving to succeed; to attend university, advance her art, and become a teacher of it.

Diane considers her mural project to be “a real opportunity,” and she’s grateful that her proposal was chosen in a competition at CDDHS. “It’s exciting to see it come to life.”

She said her art teacher, June Surrey, approves the project.

By Wes Keller