~ by Liz M. Forbes, Chemainus Writers
The smell of coffee and strains of
light music welcome me as I enter
Rosemary Darville's home in Maple
Bay. She pours thick black coffee and
hot milk into white crockery cups
which we carry to the sun porch
overlooking the bay. This is where
Rosemary paints.
"I'm not an artist", she says as I
glance around the rooms filled with
her gentle watercolours, "If something delights me or touches me, I have to capture the essence of it."
Capturing the essence, is what Rosemary does well, whether it is the cottage in Calabria, Italy where she and
husband Harry spent a blissful seven months or the tortured war destroyed olive trees in Israel. Even though it is
five years since they returned from Israel, war is never far from her mind.
"It's sad to know I'll never be back in that country again - I am so upset by what is going on. How can you go to a country and not absorb what has gone on?"
"How has living in Israel changed the way you paint?" I ask.
"It has made it more important to me to paint. There are things I can't express and painting is a way for me to
express them. Every time you paint, you find out something more about yourself. It is the most powerful part of
painting. I am completely free and happy when I'm doing it."
Rosemary, who has painted since she was a child, is a former Montessori teacher - she remains deeply passionate about the effects of war and starvation on the fate of children.
Now Rosemary, at 82 years, "..needs time alone, a lot of peace and quiet. I am trying to progress with painting, I
have to feel I am developing. It drives me on."
She is heartened by her son's words regarding the Maple Bay Painters of which Rosemary is a member. "All you people sitting and painting in these beautiful places - helps balance things in the world."
It is easy to believe Rosemary is still making a difference.
Even though it has been five years since they returned from Israel, war is never far from her mind. As she brought
out her paintings done in Israel she talked of the horrors of seeing whole villages destroyed, olive orchards ripped up
for parking lots, young men whose eyes had been shot out by snipers. She and Harry often joined the group of black garbed women
who kept Friday vigil under the indifferent eyes of passing traffic. Shortly after Rosemary and Harry settled in Maple Bay, they took
a trip to Saltspring Island where one of the first sights they saw was a group of black clad women keeping vigil. They joined them,
knowing they had come to the right place. Now when Rosemary watches the late afternoon sun lighting the slopes of Mt. Maxwell she
recalls the same afternoon sun burnishing the old buildings in Jerusalem.
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