Sunday, July 10, 2011

An Evening with Robert Bateman

Although this happened a couple weeks ago, I really wanted to blog about my meeting Robert Bateman because it was such a cool experience! If you are not familiar with his work, he is an incredible Canadian artist and he was one of my heroes when I was a teenager (I was obsessed with painting very realistic-looking animals in my late teens).

My boss is an alumnus of Royal Roads University in Victoria and she was able to get tickets for myself and a colleague to see Robert Bateman. It took place at Royal Roads (where they filmed X Men). It was a great setting for the evening. The old castle is such a neat building.



Bateman did a two-hour talk called 'The Mind of Bateman'. He admitted that the title was kind of pretentious but what he was aiming for was to show and tell about the things that happened to him when he was young. He wanted to explore the events and experiences that shaped his life and ultimately led him up to the point where his career became very successful. I found it very interesting and it seriously didn't feel like 2 hours!



He spoke about many different things; what he did in the free time of his childhood, where he grew up, different 'clubs' he was in, his first jobs, and what his early drawings looked like.

He is a fairly opinionated man. This didn't bother me too much; probably because I pretty well agreed with everything he said. Besides, if I had all the experiences that he has, I would probably be the same. I like to think that at age 81, I will have earned the right to express my opinion. :)

He gave us his opinions and perspectives on a variety of topics including Native peoples of North America and their culture, separatists groups, the short attention spans of today's youth, loss of natural habitat, etc.

It was a very good evening and I took home a book of amazing artwork that he graciously signed for me. Cool hey?!

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