Kathy Askin Powell

Get back from a trip and most people put together a photo album of memories. But, for artist Kathy Askin Powell, the forays with her female friends deserves nothing less than a portrayal with paint.

written by Mary Hatt
London City Life Magazine

A gang of London women traveled to one coast and then another celebrating friendship and the good life. One of the group, local artist Kathy Askin Powell, chronicled their adventures in a series of paintings. The works are a humorous evaluation of mid-life. They are fun, colourful and brimming with good-natured irreverence and heartfelt sentiment.

It all started with the 50th birthday of Ten Lestins.

What could be more special for her, thought her friends, than a surprise week-long adventure in California's Napa region? In fact, Lestin's had no idea where the heck her pals were taking her until almost at the airport. The eclectic group included a nurse, a travel agent, a sales rep, a seniors recreation co-ordinator, two teachers, a hairdresser, a business woman, an artist and a home-maker. They didn't even know each other all that well, although each was personalty close to Teri.

Thanks to Karen McKenzie and a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who didn't mind renting out her beautiful ranch bungalow with pool near the town square in trendy Sonoma, they got themselves a deal on accommodation and a couple of rented Sebring convertibles for exploring this sunny region of California.

Piling into their two open-air tickets to freedom, these ladies happily re-invented the image of life at 50, at least for a few days. They picnicked on wine-and-cheese, explored markets, vineyards and art galleries, toured villages and picturesque countryside. They also took a cooking class, toured million-dollar model homes and hobnobbed with the locals at restaurants and pubs along the way.

Back home, everyone reported such a good time that when another of the group, Karen Shanks, came up for her big birthday, her husband seeded the idea for yet another surprise to be pulled off by these erstwhile travelling companions. No one hesitated to try re-inventing the magic, this time in Halifax. Once again, they turned to McKenzie for accommodation ideas. As luck would have it, a friend's son, also in the travel business, arranged for them to rent his mother's house.

As in Napa, their accommodation, complete with a backyard hot tub overlooking the harbour, proved a perfect home. Trip number two also sizzled with the unexpected.

Upon arriving at the house, they met the cleaning lady just finishing up for them. As it turned out, she was also a well-known psychic who kick-started their fun with individual fortune tellings. Over the course of their stay - from coaxing a bag piper to herald their arrival like royalty into pubs and eateries, to conventional outings such as picnicking at Peggy's Cove and antiquing in Mahone Bay-travelling in a pack gave turning 50 a fighting chance.

With memories of Napa still fresh, the Sebring convertibles became once again an absolute must-do. The tops were never up once, even in misty Halifax. Three of the group, in fact, have since purchased their own Sebrings back here in London. The eye-catching cars (McKenzie jokes that Chrysler should use her and her friends for advertising) make their own on-road statement bespeaking good times and self-defined femininity.

Within this travelling Ya-Ya sisterhood - right down to their silly hats and tiaras - the Sebring became a mascot for their own special version of getting away from it all.

Askin Powell considers the group's travels, which have also included shorter jaunts to cottages in Ellicotteville and Georgian Bay, within the context of a woman's mid-life. Each may have her own thing going on back home, her own worries and stresses. But for one fun-filled week with the girls, it's all about a collective search for freedom from conventional inhibitions that she describes as mental-pause.

Through portraiture, the artist's goal was to capture the joy and vibrancy shared by good friends having good times.

Her paintings depict this search. Sometimes working from photographs, she has developed a series inspired by her friends' antics and adventures. The paintings may often be humorous but they are never silly.

"We were driving around winery country in California," recalls Askin Powell, "and we ended up in a little bar in the middle of nowhere. This guy comes into the bar and he had just come out of the fields. He had just moved 500 cows from one field to another. He sat down and we started to talk to him. It was very cool. I can't even imagine 15 or 20 years ago taking the time to figure out somebody else."

Her painting, The Cowboy, reflects on their encounter with him. In it, McKenzie poses with her new acquaintance while over her shoulder, a mini-depiction of the painting, Fifty-Year-Old Moon, reminds viewers not to resist the chance to be spontaneous.

"It was the comradery," says Askin Powell of the trip's inspiration for her art, "and just the comical side of getting older. We are getting fatter but, you know, it's ok. I think we all take life a bit too seriously. At the end, how much does appearance really matter?"

She takes another pot shot at appearance, and the extent to which women are enslaved by it, in her painting Wild Thing. On their trip to Halifax, Askin Powell's sister brought along a hair-care product graphically marketed as Freeze and Shine. Even the boys in the band couldn't resist.

"It's probably airplane glue," laughs the artist. "If you put it in your hair, it won't move. You could be in a hurricane and your hair just won't move."

Why her sister actually had a large pot of it with her for a day of sightseeing remains a mystery. However, it started a chain reaction of spontaneous hairstyling when the group took a break one afternoon at a local pub. One friend asked if she could do her hair and before long their enthusiastic gaggle had everyone in the place turning their own hair into crazy do's a la Freeze and Shine.

"Through portraiture, the artist's goal was to capture the joy and vibrancy shared by good friends having good times.

"It is my biggest strength, because I think I am pretty good at being able to read someone and sense their inner being," says Askin Powell, adding that travelling with her friends inspired her own personal version of carpe diem.

After the California excursion, she stopped merely thinking about
painting full tune and started actually doing it. For someone who has juggled the raising of three boys on her own with various part-time jobs as a graphic artist and interior designer, the move was significant. Thanks to a loan of downtown studio space by friend Joe Carapella, Askin Powell has managed to sell about 150 paintings in the last year.

"I am definitely a feeling painter," says the Beat art program graduate. "I am not a technical painter. I have no desire to make something perfect. That is not me. I love colour and I love life. I just need to hone my skills so that I can communicate clearly the feelings I have. I want to continue working on the subject of women and the aging process because this is close to my own life."

Askin Powell, who has had her own share of ups and downs, maintains a soft spot for down-and-outers and loves to paint homeless women. In fact, she says she would make these women the subjects of her paintings more often, if only she could sell them. Ever the realist, however, she has children to support and is now hoping to make contacts in Toronto in order to develop a wider market for her other work.

" Those seemingly endless years of juggling jobs and family are history. It's now time to take stock of priorities for the next phase."

Being a painter, Askin Powell is very much an observer of life, and never more so than when travelling with her friends. From this experience, she has sensed they are making a personal transition together. Those seemingly endless years of juggling jobs and family are history. It's now time to take stock of priorities for the next phase. Of course, real life won't always include the party atmosphere of a trip but, says Asian Powell, it shouldn't neglect the importance of being spontaneous, taking chances and laughing at one self.

So, go ahead. Be like London's travelling Ya-Ya's and, if the spirit moves you, don shaggy slippers and a negligee next time you go to the theatre. It may sound crazy but rest assured, it has been done before. Just ask a certain group of women.

Kathy Askin Powell
Studio: 311 Dufferin Ave.
(519) 672-5033