(ove artist finds ea inspiration in m Pacific paradise , Layne Christensen my News Reporter layne@nsnews.com LIFE is art. A oit’s the credo that artist Charles van fa Sandwyk lives by and the tide of a show of his works at the Seymour Art fae Gallery through Dec. 7. Life is comfortable. @ In cardigan and rumpled cor- fee duroys, Van Sandwvk appears older ae than his 31 years as he sits in an over- stuffed chair near the hearth in his a Deep Cove cottage, pouring tea into a Beatrice Potter cups and serving @ home-made cookies on his grand- mother’s china. Life is rewarding. , Collectors line up in the rain to ae purchase his works. His framed water- 8 colors sefl for as much as $3,900. The National Library of Canada archives his drawings and etchings. He’s cur- B rently negowating with a New York publisher to produce a fine-art buok that would compile drawings from his many self-published “little books.” Life is idyflic. The first six months of the year he lives in a South Seas paradise where @ there are no telephones, no electricity. ® His mornings are spent sketching; his afternoons fishing and working the plantation to reap food tor the table. Life is unpredictable. In March, a cyclone ripped through his Fiji isle, blowing awav his grass house and tearing the tin roof off his studio. No lives were lost but nine of fm his watercolors were destroyed, setting mee him back several weeks. He repainted fee them. ; Life is simple. The cyclone wiped out his banana orchard and lemon grove. It blew his outhouse up a hill. The wwilet was retrieved. “I set it up and all was right with the world,” says the artist. Life is 2 journey. Born in Johannesburg, South 8 Africa in 1966, he moved to Deep Ba Cove with his family 12 years later. (A trace of his accent remains.) Wanderlust led him to the South Pacific. A yearning for roots brought him back to Deep Cove. Life sometimes rakes us where we want to go. He's been seiling his prints since he was 14. At 16, he held his first public art show in Deep Cove at the Earth Sea Gallery, where the Seymour Art Gallery now stands. As a child, he illustrated the scenes and characters he imagined while read- ing ).R. Tolkien's Te Hobbit, He now resides in his own “hobbit house,” a 1920s cottage with creaky floorboards and a river-rock fireplace. Life is finding a sense of place. The home once belonged to his grandmother. Now it’s fiiled with mementos from his travels — hurricane See Work fuge 24 Friday, November 7, 1997 — North Shore News — 19 NEWS photo Terry Peters A brush with paradise Deep Cove artist Charles van Sandwyk is currently showing his works of enchantment at the Seymour Art Gallery through Dec. / OATeEE, arts events z | FILM The Hanging Garden 43 ARTS Splash '97 gala evening 25 MUSIC Big Yellow Taxi 26 MUSIC Bjork, Mad Pudding reviewed 26 FILM North Shore showtimes 2] BOOKS Passion for g0dvernture