About two years ago when Carol Reynolds was 71, her daughter-in-law in Regina wrote a letter to Reynolds’ doctor in Nelson. But she didn’t send the letter to the doctor. She sent it to Reynolds.
“The letter asked the doctor to check me out,” Reynolds says. “It was quite a letter — long, detailed, well written.”
It described how Reynolds was forgetting things. Too many things.
“They figured I was not as sharp as I used to be. When I saw the letter, it was feeling of, yeah, I kind of already knew.”
Reynolds took the letter to her doctor.
“He immediately referred me to a neurologist and psychologist. Results came back, and the label was on me. I had dementia. I don’t know whether it is vascular dementia or whether it is Alzheimers.”
Reynolds, a retired elementary school teacher and well-known Nelson painter, had watched her mother progress through Alzheimer’s and die of it. Her own diagnosis scared and upset her.
“I am here alone, I have no relatives here, but I have such a good supporting group of friends. At first I was not sleeping well. I did get depressed in the beginning, and there are times still when I get depressed by it. But I think of people my age who have cancer. I don’t have any pains, I don’t have to go for any horrible therapies. I do have something that will end my days for sure, but I am comfortable.”
She says she is trying to look at the positive side. She’s accepted the disease, and she’s fighting its progression.
“I use my brain. I do Sudoku puzzles, I do the hard ones. I was a prolific reader and it is harder now because I can’t read if there are too many characters. I can’t remember who has done what or who is who. But I still read.”
She says she looks after herself, looks after her yard, gets lots of exercise, has a good diet, and has many friends.
“I go to the pub every Friday night with a group, we have done that for years. I have good neighbours. If I called any one of them they would be here. My life right now is good. I know it is going to get harder, and I will eventually need help.”
Perhaps most important, she can still paint.
“I am very lucky that way. I am not painting as long hours, and I am not as able in applying for shows and all that, but people ask for my stuff, people come and see it.”
Reynolds’ Rosemont house is a gallery of two decades of her paintings and clay work. Her studio is obviously the work space of an engaged and busy artist, with one painting on the go and some recent ones propped on chairs and on the floor.
Reynolds says she has wanted to be an artist since her earliest days. When she was in grade seven an art teacher sent a cut-and-paste pattern she’d done to an exhibition in Toronto.
“I was really surprised when I won third prize. It started me thinking. I knew I always liked to draw. I have always known. But that was the first time I was recognized for it.”
Reynolds got married, became an elementary school teacher, had two sons, got a divorce, and in 1994 moved to Nelson. She taught in Slocan and Salmo (“grade ones are my favourite”) while attending art classes at the Kootenay School of the Arts (KSA), then took early retirement in 1999 to fulfill her dream of becoming a full time artist.
“It was very exciting. I worked all hours, very long days. I love teaching and I am good with little kids, but art was always there, I always wanted to do that.”
In the meantime she had two grandchildren whose photos grace her fridge door.
At KSA, one of her teachers was the Nelson artist John Cooper.
“He taught me more about colour than anyone. When I graduated he said, ‘You’ve got what it takes. Now what are you going to do with it?’”
What she’s done with it is become one of Nelson’s most best loved and most respected visual artists.
Krista Patterson, coordinator of the annual Columbia Basin Cultural Tour, says Reynolds’ studio is one of the most popular stops on the tour, which guides visitors and tourists on a circuit of artists’ studios across the Kootenays.
“She is a terrific host, very lovely and very gracious,” Patterson says. “A lot of people make a point of seeing her work every year. What is exciting is the quality of the work. The range and her subject matter is always changing.”
Reynolds’ painting Wild Ones is part of an Alzheimer Society silent auction that culminates at the Alzheimer Walk at Lakeside Park on May 7 from 11 a.m. until noon. Potential bidders can view the painting at Investors Group, 515 Vernon Street during office hours.
