To wrap up Black History Month, and to celebrate the talents of our tenants, we wanted to shine the spotlight on Eustace.
Eustace has lived in one of our Retirement Living schemes for 17 years and also happens to be an excellent artist, creating colourful and meaningful artwork from his home.
Eustace’s artwork
Eustace takes inspiration for his artwork from his love of music, particularly jazz, and African culture.
He said, “As an artist, I like my music. Music is a tool for me to think what I’m going to do…When you paint to a beat, it’s kind of a rhythm.
“Once I was [watching] a programme about Africa and the tribe and the colours they were wearing and the beat of the sound of the feet jumping up…I said wow that’s brilliant.
“When I go to carnivals, I look at the colours and I go wow! It’s brilliant because it’s there and it just draws you to it… One day I said to myself, I’d like to put my colours on canvas…which I did!”
Eustace’s home
Where Eustace lives has had a huge impact on his artwork and his life.
Eustace said, “I’ve lived here for 17 years…And when I came here lovely, lovely people greeted me and were welcoming…people here have got a lot of talent but they don’t show it.
“[My scheme] is a happy, happy place you know, people mingle, we all talk…there’s a lot of people I talk to are all very, very, very nice people.”
Donating his artwork
A couple of months ago our CEO, Glenn, visited the scheme where Eustace lives to meet the tenants and find out more about them. Eustace and Glenn got to talking about his art and Eustace very kindly donated one of his paintings to us.
Eustace told us, “Linda told me about Glen coming…and he’s in to painting himself...He [loved] all my work. He said, I wish I could buy the whole lot!”
Eustace and his Retirement Living Officer, Linda, also visited our Bath Row offices last week to join in with our Black History Month celebration and to see Eustace’s artwork in pride of place in our boardroom.
We’re really pleased to be able to share Eustace’s story and are so grateful to him for donating one of his amazing pieces to us.
If you’d like to share your talents or stories with us, we’d love to hear them. You can drop us a message on Facebook or Twitter and we’ll get back to you to find out more.
