Using images from 100 Mile House and Williams Lake, local artist Rick Mintz has put together a calendar as a fundraiser for the BC Children's Hospital Foundation.
Mintz retired a few years ago and took up painting in water colour and acrylic along with pencil sketching to keep himself busy.
He spent a year making art before he decided three years ago to start taking lessons with well-known local artist Betty Kovacic.
As part of his volunteering life, Mintz is the local chair of the Community for Kids, which raises funds for the B.C. Children's Hospital Foundation. Although the hospital is located in Vancouver, it serves families from all over B.C., including 3,000 from Prince George and Quesnel in 2018. The overall count for 2018 is 279,000 visits to the hospital from 93,000 children in the province.
The Community for Kids group used to organize an annual golf tournament but there just aren't enough people on the committee to support such a big event any more so Mintz thought he could do something himself and contributed his own art work to build the calendar he is selling for $20 with all proceeds going to the B.C. Children's Hospital Foundation.
"After traveling up and down the Cariboo Highway, I've seen all these old interesting buildings and I thought I'm going to take pictures of all these and paint them and then when I did that I thought I should maybe just make a calendar as a fundraiser for the hospital," Mintz said. "It took me about a year and a half to paint them all."
Calendars are always available for sale at Studio 2880, 2880 15th Ave. To meet the artist Mintz will be at Omineca Arts Centre, 369 Victoria St., on Fridays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. to sell the calendars.
Mintz would like to extend an invitation to those who might like to volunteer to be part of the Community for Kids to contact him.
For more information call 250-964-9182 and for e-transfer information for out of towners wanting a calendar, email rmintz@shaw.ca.
