Wildlife artist Ann Loker enjoys giving back to her community.
“I paint for shows, I paint to compete, I paint to sell, but I always hold back top-quality paintings that I will donate for fundraising. It’s a way for me to give to those societies or causes.”
Loker regularly donates to Tillsonburg’s Avondale Country Jamboree, held monthly from September to June at Avondale United Church, 60 Harvey Street.
Loker typically donates three or four paintings every year to the jamboree. Her next donation is expected to be raffled Feb. 18.
“It’s a way to give back. And you can see they are so thrilled to have won that painting. It’s the biggest thrill, for me, that you can possibly get, the biggest compliment you can get.”
She also feels good giving people a chance to bring paintings of rapidly vanishing, beautiful wildlife home to enjoy.
Loker moved to Tillsonburg about 11 years ago after early retirement and these days focuses on perfecting her wildlife art which has been sold locally, nationally, and in countries like the United States, UK, France, Switzerland and Spain.
“We traveled around pretty well all of southern Ontario and we came back here three times. I met with the mayor (John Lessif) and said, ‘What is it that will make me really enjoy Tillsonburg?’”
Loker wanted to be active in the community, and Lessif suggested she volunteer on the Children’s Aid Society of Oxford board, where she soon became vice-chair. She moved on to Tillsonburg’s Development Committee, and later applied to join the local police services board, where she has served for six years.
Over the years Loker has been accepted in many juried art shows including Woodstock and Etobicoke, has won some major awards, and has expanded her horizons to compete internationally.
“This year I’ve entered one (international show) already and one I will be. It’s strictly wildlife and I’m up against some of the big artists in the world. The one I’m in now (an online show based in Los Angeles), it’s people from everywhere, all over Europe. But it’s fun.”
Loker remembers taking some private art lessons in earlier years, but says her talent and ability comes mostly from learning about her subjects and researching paint methodology.
Encouraged and influenced by her high school art teacher, she went on to work for a veterinarian at African Lion Safari, which led to full-time employment at the park.
“The biggest comment I get at shows is the realism and the eyes… it’s the emotion in the animal – and that comes from Safari because you pick up something that people just can’t see anywhere else.”
She creates her own wildlife subjects and scenarios, not ‘copying’ from photographs. Her studio is filled with paintings on the wall, and some still in development, of leopards, lions, tigers, elephants and horses.
“I’ve got a photographic memory of wildlife or things that I paint. I can watch them…then walk away and create it. I want them to be original. When people buy my paintings, I want them to know it’s not going to be anywhere else.”
Her first priority, however, is making art that she likes.
“That’s what gives it the emotion. If it doesn’t satisfy me, I’m not going to give it to anybody else. Some I fall in love with, and I’ll hang on to them for a while and show them.”
Professionally, she went on to become an international corporate executive, while continuing to enjoy painting in pastels and oil, always learning and improving.
“One of the biggest changes from amateur to semi-professional to professional…” said Loker, recalling advice from Robert Bateman, “is ‘don’t rush.’ The learning I’ve had, more so in the last 15 years, is when I’m painting I could have two or three on the go.”
Earlier, she would concentrate exclusively on one painting, completing it in two or three days. Now, she works on different paintings, circling back in 3-4 days, up to a week later.
“That’s where the key is – you can’t just sit down and paint something until it’s finished. You’ve got to walk away, think about it. It’s a feeling you get, it just creeps up in you and you know you’ve got to change something. I wait for that feeling. It’s something they can teach you, but you’ve got to experience it.”
Loker’s art can be viewed on her website (annlokerwildlifeart.ca) and at Oxford Creative Connections’ annual shows.