Lifetime of art, skill on display at retirement home art show – Woodstock Sentinel Review

From needlepoint to painting to square dancing, the lifetime art of many of the residents at Woodstock’s Chartwell Oxford Gardens was on display Wednesday.

The resident art showcase ran for two days, featuring the varied works of 50 residents in an open house, and was often busy as residents appreciated the creativity of their neighbours and friends.

Kathy DeWeerd, community relations for Chartwell, said the show provided an opportunity for residents to showcase their talents, often honed over a lifetime of work, and for neighbours to learn a bit more about each other.

Sybil Chandler, a wood carver and square-dancing teacher 

Chandler and her husband learned and loved square dancing for much of their lives. Eventually, the pair started teaching square and round dancing, travelling to competitions across Canada to compete. Chandler also liked quilting and needlepoint, making clothes for her daughters’ dolls. She also took a night class for wood carving at Fanshawe College, and made wood carvings for several years in the early 2000s. 

“The dancing was 30 years of our lives. This was a big part of our lives, before and after we retired … It was the kind of dancing I always did. My husband … had to learn, but I always danced as a teen. This was a merit award we got. If you got the trillium merit award, you’d done OK.”

“With the carving, we went to a boutique and they were selling beautiful carvings. I saw a beautiful owl (carving). They wanted $800 for it. So I thought, I can’t afford that, I better learn how to make my own.”

Helen Turvey, a quilter and needlepoint artist

Turvey has always made needlepoint and sewing a hobby from the time she was young, and carried it through life – everything from making herself an outfit for work on her first sewing machine to later teaching sewing to 4-H girls in Embro.

That’s how Turvey ended up with some of her most elaborate needlepoint pieces: She would tackle one stitch or section every week, bringing it to 4-H to show her students the skill. This year will mark the 50th year Turvey has donated quilts to the London Children’s Hospital; while she’s never kept count, she estimates donating 10 quilts a year. Now, she has a bit of carpal tunnel – but that’s not stopping her. 

“My grandmother was a talented seamstress. I would go (to my grandparents’ house) as a young kid, my sister and I, and my grandpa wanted to teach us cribbage. I knew she was in the other room sewing, so I kept peeking, but if he sneezed or turned, I was gone.”

“I’m self-taught. Doing smocking … my niece was starting school. I was 20 or 21, (and) she had to have a dress for school. I am from Brantford, and there was a little store that sold just smocked clothes. So I would go in there, and if I didn’t see anyone, take a little piece of paper and figure out a pattern, and I picked it up. I made a couple little dresses for her to start school, and that’s what started me.”

“(These quilts) are what I send to the (London) Children’s Hospital. You have a child in bed, they don’t want anything too heavy … they might have serious illness, they put (a quilt) on the bed to suit them. Last year (the doctor) was telling me about flying this girl in … asking what colours she liked. She said pink and purple; they had a pink and purple quilt put on the end of her bed. And I thought ‘wow if I can keep doing this.’”