Works by 100 Mile House area artist, Bryan Austerberry, are in the main floor exhibit at the Station House Gallery until April 26.
Titled Pampered Pencil, the show represents works he has created over the years.
During the opening of the show on Thursday, April 3, Austerberry said he enjoys drawing with pencil because it represents the age of black and white movies from his childhood.
“It takes a lot more, in my mind, to get something that attracts people without colour, that’s why I do it," he said. "I do put colour in the odd thing. I’ll put colour in if I think there’s a reason for it."
As a teenager in Hamilton, Ont., where he grew up, he developed his talent through a four-year specialized art course at high school that taught everything, he said.
“At the end of it, a company came in and hired me. Right after graduation, I went to work for them in advertising, which was what I’d specialized in school for because that was what I wanted to do.”
He worked at various places in advertising using different mediums. There were no computers at the time so everything was drawn by hand.
In 1972, he moved to B.C. and opened an advertising company in Chilliwack.
His artist bio notes he created drawings, page layouts for newspapers, pamphlets and brochures, plus silk-screened sign work and built major mall displays.
When he retired he returned to drawing with pencil, choosing topics he wanted instead of what others wanted.
Before retirement, he purchased a cabin on Deka Lake in the mid-1980s and owned it for about 10 years until he bought another place on Sulphurous Lake where he lives with his wife Siana Kelly, a fibre artist.
“I love the Cariboo,” he said. “They say if you can’t get inspired here you can’t get inspired anywhere.”
On average his drawings take between six and eight weeks to complete.
He works on one piece at a time, with one exception. Austerberry is one of the artists at the community centre market where he is stationed every Friday.
“At the first show at the beginning of May, I start a new drawing and I work on it only Fridays until the end of the market,” he said. “People watch it grow, and they keep coming back just to see how far it is. I try to have it finished for the final show which is the Christmas show.”
Some of his artwork has been purchased throughout Canada, the U.S., and into Hong Kong, Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Holland.
When asked if he’s ever done a self-portrait, he said he did one of himself with his wife.
“I was a lot older then,” he said, chuckling.
Austerberry has been drawing since he was seven
“I had tremendous support from my parents, especially my father," he recalled.
Everyone can draw, but some parents might say drawing is frivolous or irrelevant as far as a career goes, he said.
“Many people stop at a certain point, but it’s always in there,” he said, patting his chest. “When I teach I don’t teach students how to draw, I just bring out what is already inside them.”
