Art Spot: Sally Benevides Hopkins

Art Spot: Sally Benevides Hopkins

Sally’s watercolour paintings of local scenes are on exhibit at the Wolfville Memorial Library, 21 Elm Avenue, throughout the month of November.

WHO: I am an educator and artist, and I have lived and worked in many places, including Ontario, Calgary, Bermuda, the United States, and Nova Scotia. I am currently teaching a course in the School of Education at Acadia University.

WHAT: I have been painting since about the age of 4. I began taking photography seriously in high school. I took many courses at the college and university level, to learn as much as possible about both these mediums and others. I worked as a freelance and wedding photographer from 1984 until 2005, and have showed both my photos and paintings in various venues since 1980. I taught high school art for several years in Toronto.

WHERE: Wolfville. Some of these scenes date back fifteen years. I take photos while walking through the town, and the nearby rural area, and use these as the basis for my paintings. Sometimes they include people who might be familiar, as they are a part of the town. Places, scenes, and people change, and photographs and paintings offer a record of how things used to be. They can show us how much familiar scenes have changed. My subjects include buildings, more ephemeral plants and flowers, and the cast of characters we meet daily.

WHEN: Through the years I have been a part of a wide variety of arts organizations in the Wolfville area, and have showed my art through the Evangeline Artists’ Cooperative, at the Great Little Art Show in Newport Landing, and in the Acadia University Art Gallery Community Art Exhibit. I am on the board of the Acadia New Music Festival, am a former member of the Town of Wolfville Public Art Committee, and ran the advertising for the Horton High School Harvest Craft Fair for three years. I have also showed in group and solo exhibits in Toronto, and Kingston, Ontario.

WHY: I enjoy recording things visually, and visually is how I mostly understand the world. I definitely have a need to create, and to make and build things. Painting is very subjective, and it gives the artist the ability to inject their interpretation into the work, making new meanings, and changing the scene as subtly as time does.