“Master of Light and Shade”: Valla “Master of Light and Shade”: Vallarta Lifestyle
CANADIAN ARTIST CAPTURES
MEXICO’S MANY COLORS
By A. J. Goldsmith
Calum Cameron settled in Bucerias, Mexico, in 2000. He brought the contemporary art world with him opening Galeria del Sol at Lazaro Cardenas #502. Today, there are at least a dozen galleries participating in the Thursday evening Art Walk. It is a major tourist event. He also opened the town’s first art school attracting American and Canadian students.
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Calum Cameron /2014
Just a dozen miles north of the Puerto Vallarta International Airport, the beaches of Bucerias attract thousands of American and Canadian snowbirds. Bucerias has a reputation for its laid- back atmosphere and Cameron fit right in, settling here after retiring from a 40-year teaching career. At his last school- in British Columbia- he developed an extensive art program that eventually led him and his students to Mexico and to Bucerias.
Cameron works entirely in acrylics. His paintings reflect the vivid colors and flavors around the Bay of Banderas and the surrounding area including Guanajuato and San Miguel Allende. Cameron’s wife, Janis, is his eye to the scene and he paints what her camera captures: local residents, brightly-colored beach umbrellas, comfortable seats at a local restaurant or beached boats.
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Checking out the News in Bucerias by Calum Cameron, 2013.
Cameron’s view of Guanajuato (2013)
Cameron has a love for the structural detail of boats. In British Columbia he worked building tri-hull catamarans.
Galeria del Sol sells only Cameron’s original paintings. Sized reproductions are available for budget buyers. His images on ceramic tile are very popular. The gallery is opened from Tuesday through Saturday.
Cameron conducts art classes Tuesday to Friday from 9 a.m. to Noon. The cost for 15 hours of instruction is 3,000 pesos or about $250 U.S. dollars. Classes are limited to four students and enrollments are at a premium and usually filled well before the “season.” He takes great pleasure in his students achieving success.
Cameron tells his students: “I cannot guarantee that you will be ready for your first public exposition….I can assure you, however, that you will gain confidence in your ability to understand color as it applies to painting as well as nearly every aspect of daily living.”
With a certificate earned at Wellington Teachers College and not a few awards for his art, a 20-year-old Calum Cameron left his Gisborne, New Zealand, birthplace for Australia in search of adventure and a really good bottle of beer. The septuagenarian must have found adventure because these days the brews are history.
In the mid-1950s, a recession in Great Britain led to a “brain drain.” The nation offered inducements to doctors, nurses and teachers to take the place of professionals who emigrated. In 1958 Cameron went to the UK and took a teaching position at King’s Cross in London, a middle school -as he describes it- that is mindful of the Sidney Poitier movie “To Sir with Love.”
“When a teacher had to discipline a student, he or she needed a convoy to leave when classes ended for the day.”
His next teaching job was near Edinburgh, Scotland. One of the inducements to come to England to teach was a two-year moratorium on income taxes. As his two years were coming to an end and retroactive income taxes loomed, a friend suggested that he search the London Times for overseas job opportunities. He found one, applied and was hired by “Le Grande Prairie,” a one-stoplight oil town among Alberta’s oil fields. Cameron taught there for two years repaying his transportation costs and saving enough money to go to Vancouver where he earned his Bachelor’s degree at the University of British Columbia.
Checking Cameron’s records, an official noted that he had never taken Art 101 despite having been an artist for many years. He was required to take the course. It so happened that the professor absented himself frequently during the sessions.
“I found myself mentoring 18- and 19-year-olds much to the consternation of the professor,” Cameron says.
“He threatened to fail me if I didn’t stop. I did, at least openly.”
Soon after graduation, he accepted a $26,000 teaching position at a small B.C. school in Dawson Creek District #59 Peace River South. Here, the forward-thinking superintendent asked Cameron to develop a comprehensive arts program. Cameron did so and his comprehensive program included visits to museums in Vancouver and trips to Mexico and to Bucerias in 1990. Many of Cameron’s students had never been out of the area and even a trip to Vancouver was a major undertaking. Securing funds was always a problem as fundraising always competed with hockey teams in the area.
Cameron retired after completing 40 years and opened his gallery in Bucerias. During the first few years Lazaro Cardenas #52 was his home, studio, gallery and school. Janis joined him six years later when she retired.
Cameron and Janis have been married 25 years. She was a primary-grade teacher who also undertook a CUSO teaching mission to Nigeria. Cameron has two daughters and three grandchildren from a previous marriage. The Calum Camerons live in Moberly Lake in British Columbia from March to November.
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