We received this email from a local resident and felt we should share this wonderful story of hope in adversity to let everyone enjoy the art.

Karen Callow shares her very personal Covid experience

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Art during lockdown

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My father, George Eric Callow was born in 1926 and was married for over 60 years to my mother Joan Evelyn Callow. They lived together in a bungalow they bought around 1959.

Very sadly my mother died of Covid19 in April this year.

Owing to my Dad's needs he now has a full time live in carer. In his younger years Dad worked as a draftsman but also loved to draw and was very talented.

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Since memory problems and failing sight set in, he can no longer remember how to draw, so I began collaborative art work with him. First the two of us and then my daughter, Francesca, joined in. I began by focusing not on what Dad couldn’t do but what he could do. He can make choices between two options e.g. do you want to draw straight or curved lines? He is able to draw circles, balls of wool and take a line for a walk (doodle) . We began with felt pens, moving onto water colours, oil pastels and then acrylics. I found dad could point to places he would like a line of masking tape to go, so we divided up a canvas like a jigsaw.

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Dad had definite ideas about colours with a-preference for bold colours but not liking green. He could fill taped sections and given a choice of two colours select paints. Yes he needs reminding to put his brush in the paint frequently but no more than gentle prompts.

After painting together I even found dad would independently fill the paper with pebble shapes using oil pastels or repeat the letters in his and my name. These were innovations of his own.

Once acrylic paint dried we added gold lines and squiggles, to bring the painting to life and add detail. A session of painting can last 3 hours! Dad is a bit concerned it doesn’t look commercial, even though it’s not the point I beg to differ.

I’ve heard people comparing Covid to war time experiences. Dad was in the merchant navy during the Second World War and my mother an evacuee. However I concluded the difficulty very much equates to which loved ones you lose. Despite war time being tough I feel Dad has found losing his wife to covid harder. I’m just glad, that in some small way, we find painting together is an absorbing activity that we can share with a colourful end product. It is a temporary reprieve from that sense of loss.

Dad will be proud to know others might be interested in his art work and I hope recognise it as a thing of beauty. Thank you for reading this, his daughter Karen Callow.

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UPDATE

Sadly my Father died in October 2020 , though one of our last conversations was about our shared artwork and the website article . One day I would be so proud to exhibit our shared art work .