Pat Preston is mad about art, wild about watercolours and crazy for canvasses by local artists no matter where she is living, and she has lived from Toronto to Florida to Salt Spring Island.
The collecting bug only bit a couple of decades ago, but she has made up for lost time, as is evidenced on the walls, floors, surfaces, even the shower curtain of her condo near Beacon Hill Park.
Pat’s husband of 28 years, economist John Tylee, wasn’t much of an art fan before he met her, but has gradually moved into the frame.
“Now I’m a hanger on,” he said with a smile.
“I get involved, express my opinions, occasionally I insist that something is so ugly I can’t have it in our house. But I do enjoy the art very much, and I’ve learned a lot from Pat.”
He tends to like figurative art, while she is into more abstracts, and fittingly the two moved into a condo three years ago built by Abstract Developments.
The building has eight contemporary-style, open-plan units in a four-storey building and the couple liked the artist’s concepts so much they signed up while the project was still on paper — not surprisingly knowing Preston’s penchant for two-dimensional representations.
“We wanted a location where we could do a lot of walking, we wanted a one-floor condo and we didn’t want to garden,” she said succinctly.
The two love the layout, which separates the unit’s two bedrooms and two baths and allows for complete privacy — “very handy when guests visit” — and they also appreciate the fact their 1,400-square-foot unit is one level.
Their previous home on Salt Spring had 3,300 square feet on three floors. “It drove us crazy,” said Tylee, adding another big negative was the double garage, which turned out to be a “great crap collector.”
They appreciate their new location because of its flat walking environment, proximity to parks, Dallas Road rambles and short stroll to downtown — but most of all they love the expansive wall space, generous windows and natural light.
“In modern condominiums you rarely get enough walls to hang paintings on,” said Preston who noted people are often surprised by the condo’s eclectic collection.
In fact, the amazement begins the moment visitors step off the elevator onto the building’s top floor, as Preston has also hung paintings all along both sides of the fourth floor common area.
Inside, guests are met by a collage of brightly coloured sculpture, paintings, ceramics, baskets, and flowers all attractively arranged in a setting that includes geometric carpets as well as bold green, red, orange and yellow contemporary furniture.
The couple’s art collection ranges from a papier-mâché cow that stands by the fireplace, to aboriginal works from Australia, a quartet of women’s portraits on teabags and a painting done in 1933 by a man on his honeymoon on Capri.
Two of Preston’s favourites are a painting by Lisa Hebden, of an older woman in a gold lame bathing suit and another showing the figures of two women standing together. “I’m often beside myself so I love this one,” said Preston.
A large canvas of tulips by Helen Lucas has as many travel points as they do, having followed them from home to home since 1990, from Toronto to Delaware, Sarasota, Vancouver, Salt Spring and now here. (“We liked Salt Spring but it was a little too rural for us,” he said. “Living on a small island is an acquired taste which we didn’t acquire. We wanted something more urban.”)
The condo’s interiors are painted gallery white and were designed by Sandy Nygaard. They feature laminate cabinets, engineered hardwood floors and millwork, and a very efficient kitchen, said Tylee.
“It’s great for two people working together.”
Having moved so often, the couple explain they have downsized and upsized several times, so they are pros, but she admits having made two major mistakes regarding their collection: “I sold a Takao Tanabe that I shouldn’t have, and a Charles Pachter.”
Still, the condo’s walls don’t appear to have any gaps, and they continue to fill.
How did Preston become such a junkie for giclees, oils, watercolours, pen and inks, acrylics, even a beautiful tea towel that she framed and has hanging by the kitchen?
“I cannot tell. We had none of it at home. My parents came through the Depression and saw art as a frill.”
She explains she kind of “fell into it” after graduating from journalism school, after being made responsible for two art collections while working for a large corporation.
Her passion has evolved ever since and pieces include works by Fleming Jorgenson, Susan Benson, Diane Venter and many more, including artists from South Africa, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela, California and more.
Her life is totally focused on art.
While living on Salt Spring she curated the art at a new library there, and since moving here three years ago, Preston has spearheaded a variety of projects including organizing artists’ studio tours for the Victoria Women’s Newcomers Club. She is on the board of the Vancouver Island School of Art and a member of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria associates’ volunteer committee too.
She also curates rotating exhibitions that hang monthly in the Moka House Coffee in Cook Street Village, which has a show opening Sept 5. (see sidebar)
Besides helping hang her art, and the rotating shows at Moka House, her husband, enjoys walking to town, the YMCA three times a week to work out, along Dallas road, to Oak Bay or Ogden Point.
“This city is fantastic … the best place for walking I’ve ever lived in,” and that includes other parts of Canada and his youth in Zimbabwe, previously Rhodesia.
SIDEBAR
WHAT: Bridges Exhibition
WHERE: Moka House Coffee in Cook Street Village.
WHEN: Sept 4 through Oct. 1, opening Sept. 5 from 7 to 9 p.m.
The show features art by dozens of established and emerging Victoria artists - acrylics, giclee prints, photographs, water colours by the likes of Fleming Jorgenson, Ken Faulks, Alan Hopper, Robert Amos - and will also include a silent auction fundraiser for the Vancouver Island School of Art.
The exhibition, curated by Pat Preston, will highlight a variety of bridges.
“I chose the theme to celebrate the new bridge and, more importantly, to illustrate how bridges can bring the community together through art,” she said.
Various artists and art collectors have donated pieces for auction (some framed, some not) and their names will not be revealed until the event.
