Rural Life is the theme of Pince George artist Rick Mintz's latest fundraising calendar.
In 2019, Mintz started to create the calendars by putting a collection of his paintings together to raise money for the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. The goal is to sell 400 calendars each year and he’s already sold 300 this year but is looking for that final push to meet his goal of a sellout.
Mintz is this month’s Artist in Residence at Omineca Arts Centre so he’s taking the opportunity to offer the calendars at the centre.
Mintz mostly works in acrylics but there’s one water colour in the collection that is on display at Omineca Arts Centre.
“People keep talking about my style but I have no idea what my style is,” Mintz smiled.
He started painting in 2016 and it started when Mintz and his wife would notice the modern art hung at the dream home lottery houses in town.
“One day I said to my wife, ‘you know, I don’t understand modern art – a monkey could paint this,’ so that Christmas under the tree I found all the stuff that I needed to do what I called ‘monkey art’. The only thing is, it’s not that easy. So I turned to more realistic painting,” Mintz said with a chuckle. “So that’s how I started painting.”
BC Children’s Hospital helped more than 130,000 children in 2022 and more than 10,000 of those children came from Northern Health and Interior Health and made more than 20,000 visits to the hospital.
“I think it’s important to support them as they support our children,” Mintz said.
Mintz is hosting a free painting workshop on Saturday Nov. 18 workshop from 2 to 5 p.m. and everyone is welcome to attend.
To see Mintz’s art exhibit the Omineca Arts Centre is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Rural Life calendar is on sale for $20 each.
For more information about Mintz’s work visit www.ramart.ca.
