I was accepted at Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Montreal where I became interested in colour theory and in structure of painting. The Self Portrait ' 49 was painted on the day I was accepted to study at the Ecole. It shows no awareness of colour. In 1952, I was appointed First Flute in Vancouver Symphony and in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Concert Orchestra where I played until 1963. During that time, I continued to paint and exhibited at Vancouver Art Gallery's annual jury shows, The Windows (with Cats): A Cubistic Self-Portrait, 1958 is from this time. My Bust of Irwin Hoffman was included in Watters Centennial Anthology of B.C. Art, 1958. While playing in the symphony orchestras, I managed to earn a B.A. in English and Philosophy and an M.A. in Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia. In 1963 I was the recipient of a Canada Council grant and went to England to enter the University of Cambridge as a research student. This was a beginning of what I now see as a diversion that lasted more than 10 years.
At Cambridge, I met, listened to, and even painted people of superlative achievements, e.g. Prof. R.B. Braithwaite, Paul Dirac (Nobel laureate in physics), Fred Hoyle (whose cosmological theories are still working on me). I also played a lot of music, sometimes with such outstanding musicians as David Willcox. But circumstances developed which steered me into academic life: I was offered the position of professor and founding chairman of the department of philosophy at Simon Fraser University. The academic planners wanted the philosophy department at undergraduate level and were looking for somebody with wider interests to head it. But these plans were soon to alter. After 10 years, during which I managed to do quite a lot of painting and very little music, I returned to music and painting. This is what I meant by saying that the period just described was a diversion.
I was almost 70 when my last offspring was born. We then decided to leave Vancouver for Powell River, my wife's birthplace. But I could not leave academic life entirely behind. Malaspina University College (Powell River Campus) engaged me to teach art history and university type painting courses, and the Powell River Academy of Music still employes me as flute instructor. Since 1988, I have had 5 one-man shows, and my paintings hang in a high-class restaurant where my wife' s brother is the Chef. My paintings are also in private collections in Canada, USA, England, Australia, New Zealand, Holland and Denmark.