Painting Georgian Bay Landscapes
with Willi Wildman and the Group of Many
By Judy Ross // Art by Willi Wildman
As a young woman, Willi Wildman trained in voice and music — but it was art that she always loved. When she took up painting, she decided it was, “Much more fun than anything else.” And later, as an adult, she discovered that teaching others to paint was equally fulfilling. She had found her passion.
Her joyous approach to art, and life, has inspired hundreds of students for more than thirty years. In this area of Georgian Bay, she has been nominated and won numerous juried show prizes for her landscapes in oil. And she’s played a role in almost every visual arts initiative from the Georgian Bay Arts and Crafts Association to the Blue Mountain Foundation for the Arts. Her influence in the community runs deep.
But it is at home, in her studio in Thornbury, where her passion for both art and teaching is most evident. The house sits on a quiet street, just steps from the shores of Georgian Bay and the rocks, water, and cloud-filled sky that inspire her paintings. Before Covid interfered, students would gather three afternoons a week in the studio at the back of the house. On warm summer days classes would spill out in the garden with its expanse of grass and a welcoming swimming pool.
“When you’re feeling miserable and you start a new painting, it’s like therapy. You become fully engaged. Putting colour on canvas is cleansing for the spirit. That’s how I feel about it.”
Hanging on the studio walls and propped on easels are her bold, moody oils, and amongst them, the varied work of her students. This is not a typical solitary painter’s hideaway. It’s a communal place where students come to learn, laugh, and savour the joyous company of Willi. She believes in the synergy of a group. “In Europe people painted in groups,” she explains. “They taught each other, shared ideas, got on each other’s nerves. It’s all good.”
As we enter the light-filled studio to look at her work, my eye is drawn to a large oil landscape of snow-clad boulders, the soft blend of colours appearing luminous in the winter light. But the first thing Willi points out is the bar at the other end of the room. This is obviously part of the fun. “On Fridays,” she says with a smile, “we quit class early, pretend we’re in Paris, and have drinks.”
One of her long-time students, Heather Adams, remembers the congenial atmosphere.
“I loved going there to paint with Willi,” she says, “When I first started, she had lunch, often a big pot of soup, so we would eat, chat and eventually paint. It was so supportive and really a fabulous time!”
Willi’s approach to teaching art was to, “Let the students paint what they want — not what the teacher wants them to paint.” She would encourage them to bring photographs of favorite memories, of holidays or happy times. Her students claim that she had a special gift for teaching and she believed in using the group for critiques. “She wanted us to discover our own gift,” says Heather Adams. “And I always remember her advice to paint what we see, not what we think we see.”
And she kept everything casual. It was never intimidating to go to one of Willi’s classes. Students never signed a contract. They could come to any class they wanted, sign in and drop $25 in the honor box. “My students were a mixed bag,” says Willi. “From amateurs to very accomplished artists.”
Willi (Willhemina) was born in Holland and emigrated to Winnipeg with her family when she was ten years old. After marrying and having children she moved to Ottawa where she studied visual arts at the University of Ottawa. But her path to painting and teaching art really took off in Belize, the Centra American country where she went to help friends open a hotel in the late seventies. She created paintings for the hotel walls there and also met her future husband Edward, a land surveyor and builder.
It was in Belize, inspired by ancient Mayan ruins and the jungle beauty of her surroundings, that she began to take painting seriously. She particularly liked painting Belizean fishermen in their colourful boats. Art supplies were hard to obtain so she learned to make her own paint using ingredients like tea, boiled onion skins, and wild ginger.
When the couple moved to Collingwood in the mid-eighties, Willi started art classes above what is now the National Bank building on Hurontario street. “There was very little available for anyone wanting to learn to paint in those days,” she says. “The landscape painting group (Blue Mountain School of Landscape Painting) was already established but it was seasonal, and expensive. I wanted to offer classes that were reasonably priced, attainable, and available year-round.” In those early days, Willi also offered art classes for children. She discovered that you have to be more entertaining when teaching kids than when teaching adults. To keep them focused and happy, “You often have to spit nickels and stand on your head.”
With her belief that art should be available for everybody, she was always on the lookout for venues to show her work and that of her students. When the L.E. Shore Memorial Library opened in Thornbury, she booked the gallery space for art shows. For years the Willi Wildman Studio group shows were mounted in the gallery. “Artists need a place to exhibit,” she maintains. “And the library gallery here is a great space for exposure.”
At 79, Willi is facing some physical challenges but her spirit and humour shine through. When asked to reveal her personal philosophy about art, she muses, “When you’re feeling miserable and you start a new painting, it’s like therapy. You become fully engaged. Putting colour on canvas is cleansing for the spirit. That’s how I feel about it.”
