Martha Varcoe Sturdy was never one to follow the rules.<\/p>\n
At 83 years old, Sturdy and her resin, brass, and wooden sculptures have been recognized the world over \u2014 from being featured in Vogue magazine, to being inducted into the Royal Academy of Arts \u2014 and now, she\u2019s been appointed to the Order of B.C.: the province\u2019s highest honour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love making things. I let my mind free to think \u2014 and then I just do,\u201d Sturdy told CityNews.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn one hand, it is not deserved, because I\u2019m just another person who makes things. I\u2019m lucky and, also, I am 83. So, I\u2019ve been around a long time, and I\u2019ve experienced a lot of things, and I\u2019ve learned a lot, and I\u2019ve taught myself. And I never quit. Those are my rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sturdy\u2019s art has taken her to New York, Milan, Paris and Southeast Asia. Her work can be found in galleries around the world, but she always finds herself anchored at home in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the way it is here, and you see it\u2019s not quite dry,\u201d said Sturdy, touring her next piece, using large pieces of bright green resin and salvaged, burnt wood from Pemberton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to influence anybody who is thinking or listening how beautiful this world is, especially in Canada and how fortunate we are to have this world\u2026 The forest burns; that is the reality. And we in British Columbia know about forest fires \u2014 and it\u2019s a very serious, sad thing. But from all of that comes the green leaf \u2014 the little green leaf that just starts to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the next generation of artists, she leaves this message:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you\u2019ve got to do with life \u2014 it is your gift. And you must take it and fill it as full as you can. If you have the joy of the adventure of life, then you\u2019ve won.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sturdy is one of 15 British Columbians being recognized this year for distinction and dedication to their field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martha Varcoe Sturdy was never one to follow the rules. At 83 years old, Sturdy and her resin,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-52734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}