BELLEVUE, Wash. — Valerie Collymore is a good listener. To herself. "Listening to that quiet, little voice that says you're supposed to be doing art," she says.
An accomplished doctor, she took a year off. "Everyone expected me to go back to medicine, including myself." She got a lucrative job offer at a prestigious hospital. "And I turned it down because I felt I really needed to give this art voice a shot."
Art has always been a part of her life. Van Gogh's garden was a frequent playground for Valerie as a kid growing up in France. "I rode my bike past the museum, the Matisse Museum, every day. My school literally was one block away," she says.
But once medical school beckoned, her painting stopped. Completely. For 30 years. "Nothing, nothing," she says. But the voice kept whispering. When her kids went off to college, she picked up a brush again.
"I did surprise myself. And then I started getting pretty good feedback. When I started painting, a lot came out...as if I left off from when I was 18." French Impressionism appealed to her upbringing since she'd been raised in the land of Van Gogh, Monet, and Matisse. "I have a love affair with Provence and the French Riviera. I try to depict it in the work. When I'm not there, I'm painting it."
She took her first class at the Women's University Club of Seattle. Now she teaches there every week. She also holds workshops at her garage studio, the Collymore Atelier, in Bellevue. And her work is currently on display at Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood.
She says she does draw from her background as a pediatrician. "There's a continuum between what I did before, in terms of healing and joy, and what I do now, in terms of teaching. And in terms of painting things that have a subtext of healing and joy."
And, ironically, she uses baby wipes about every day too, to blur the lines in this case. "Softening edges," she says, as she creates a sunset behind a harbor lined with yachts.
This latest chapter in her life's work appeals to both her creative AND scientific sides. "I give myself permission to obsess and also to experience joy. There is probably a compulsive part. You can tell from my paintings. There's a lotta little strokes. It also gives me the opportunity to be intellectually challenged."
One of her works is a glistening garden of golds and greens and purples. It is a place she knows well. "It's a shrine of sorts for me." It is the garden in which Van Gogh himself spent much time, creating more than a hundred paintings at the nearby psychiatric hospital. "I'm very moved by his story and also by the beauty of this place."
She returns to France at least once a year and is inspired every time. "There's always this breeze and the cicadas are making noise. And I feel this brushstroke style captures that. I honor the French Impressionist tradition. It sounds lofty but someone has to keep it going."
An opening reception for her solo exhibit at Fountainhead is Saturday night from 5 to 7. Valerie assures us there will be french cheese!
She also welcomes guests to enjoy painting demos, concerts accompanying her work and artist talks. More info here.
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