Sheila and Buzz

Sheila Knapp Fisher was a friend who died a few years ago. Buzz is her son. He's standing beside some of his mother's  paintings, currently  hanging in our local theatre's exhibition space.

Sheila was South African by birth but left her native country early, as so many young people did who could not tolerate the apartheid regime. In London she met and married an artist and they lived in a Bohemian life in East Anglia before moving to West Wales. Sheila took up painting initially as a hobby while her children were growing up but, although very  accomplished,  she played second fiddle to her husband, who eventually left her for a younger woman.

I met Sheila through a reading group: she was extremely frank and outspoken in her opinions of the books we read and also in her political beliefs and her support for environmental causes. She didn't mince her words or care much what people thought of her.

I  always wanted to own one of Sheila's paintings but her later work was mainly floral and it didn't much appeal to me. When this exhibition opened and I saw her earlier paintings I was thrilled. They are vivid and colourful, full of myth and mystery - and female figures. I have in fact bought the one, bottom right here, entitled Minotaur. Others have been sold too and I hope they will perpetuate the memory of Sheila in the place she made her home, and where her family still live.

Buzz is an artist too, and more besides. I blipped him a few years ago here.