Kristi Bridgeman’s illustrations for P.K. Page’s There Once Was A Camel

Still Here at 92

The remarkable career of P.K. Page

Most people slow down later in life, yet Victoria writer P.K. Page is speeding up production, increasing both the volume and variety of works she produces. This year Oolichan Books published Jake the Baker Makes a Cake, a children’s fable written in verse. Plus, Porcupine’s Quill published The Essential P.K. Page, a very lovely pocketbook selection of her poems, and a children’s book called The Old Woman and the Hen; next year they will publish another collection of Page’s poems, Coal and Roses. Hedgerow Press has just released You are Here, a fascinating collection of short reflections described by the publisher as “small jewels of prose.”

Writer Rachel Wyatt, a longtime friend of Page, says You are Here is an elegant and eloquent riff on identity. “And where is P.K.?” she asks. “At 92, she is in full creative flow, a writer at the top of her game. She is engaged with the world and always at home to her friends and family. She is here.”

Here indeed, and continuing a distinguished career which has produced over 30 books of poetry, prose and fiction and has gained numerous awards such as the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts National Award. A gifted painter, she has had one-woman exhibitions in Mexico and Canada and her work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario. She has received eight honorary degrees and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a member of the Order of British Columbia and a Companion of the Order of Canada. A resident of Victoria for over 40 years, Page moved here with her late husband, Canadian diplomat Arthur Irwin, after years abroad when he held appointments in Australia, Mexico and Brazil.

A forthcoming book that especially delights Page is an antic children’s story called There Once was a Camel, published by Cherubim Books, an imprint of local publishing house Ekstasis Editions. It will be launched at Winchester Gallery on Broad Street on December 7, along with an exhibition of the exquisite illustrations Kristi Bridgeman created for the book. When asked why this book means so much to her, Page replies, “I love nonsense verse, and I think Kristi’s illustrations are works of art.”

“It might be said that children’s books are really the ‘essential’ me,” Page laughs, “My parents often read me fairy tales and fables, and I’ve always been keen on them.”

She is pleased that Oolichan Books will publish three of her fairy tales next year, under the title The Sky Tree. These will also be illustrated by Bridgeman.

Bridgeman says Page allowed her free range in illustrating There Once Was a Camel: her instructions were, “Just ‘go wherever the brushes take you.’” Accordingly, Bridgeman would read the words, close her eyes, imagine the scene and then begin to paint.

“What a gift it was to be able to illustrate her words,” she says. “There’s a point where the camel, preparing for bed, unclipped and removed his beautiful enamel coat and then he stood it up under the sky. It conjured up images of dancing lights in a desert, cloisonné, gold filigree and jewelled mandala patterns. If it hadn’t been for the deadline, I could have just kept painting and painting!”

Bridgeman met Page through the writer’s niece, Wendy Page, a fellow mandala artist, and says she is drawn to the works of all the Page family—nephew Michael Page is also an artist—because of their intimate organic patterns.

“Perhaps because P.K. is a visual artist as well as a writer, her words set a lovely stage for an illustrator,” Bridgeman speculates, adding, “I may never get to Brazil, but when I read her Brazilian Journal it was as though I’d been there. She presents that world through a visual artist’s eyes.”

Peter Redpath of Winchester Galleries is delighted to be providing a space for people to hear Page and to view some of Bridgman’s illustrations.

“I’m always pleased to read a new book by P.K., and these illustrations are happy, untroubled pictures with a colourful and imaginative quality that echoes P.K.’s writing,” Redpath says. “I think the event will generate a lot of energy and enthusiasm.”

What’s the secret of Page’s continuing creativity? One obvious answer is the old cliché “use it or lose it.” She has continued to work in a variety of media throughout her life. Her craft has changed, evolved and grown through the years. Rather than being restrained by tradition, she finds fresh ways to receive and work with new ideas. Page’s later work is, in fact, her most interesting, reflecting her changing perspective as well as her interests in mysticism and Sufism.

Perhaps, above all, it is her remarkable curiosity that keeps her mind so alive and her work so new. Discussing a new opera, political antics or the peculiar behaviour of her two beautiful white cats, Prince Henry and Prince Gringo, Page has questions, observations and an insatiable desire to delve deeper and discover more.

“I do have a fairly wide-ranging curiosity,” Page admits. “I’m interested in my dark side, for instance, in the hope of knowing myself. But not in the dark sides of my friends. My father used to say, ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ He was eager to instill in me the difference between being a Nosey Parker and being genuinely interested—an important distinction. One that makes me interested in fruit flies, let us say, but not in gossip.”

Studs Terkel, after a prolific career in writing and radio, wrote a brilliant memoir at the age of 95 in which he claimed to have formed his epitaph: “Curiosity didn’t kill this cat.” The same could be said of P.K. Page, whose intense and ceaseless curiosity about the world around her is continuing to nourish her wonderfully creative career. She is here, and that is something to celebrate.

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P.K. Page
2pm Sunday, December 7
Winchester Gallery, 1010 Broad
250-386-2773