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Hybla area painter, Kathleen Kosloski credits herself lucky to have had a wonderfully inspiring art teacher in high school in Cochrane where she was born and grew up. She refers to him as having been a bohemian who operated outside the norm, who taught them a broad spectrum of art disciplines including batik work, pottery, linocut printing and, of course, painting. And whose vibe inspired her and planted the seed of creativity that surfaced sometime later in her life. At eighteen, with high school behind her, Kosloski understood Northern Ontario was not where her future lay and headed off to Toronto where she worked at a wide variety of low-wage jobs for too many years. Maturity made her realize that only higher education would get her out of that rut so she enrolled in the Criminality and Sociology course at the University of Toronto and upon graduation, found work as a social services youth worker/counsellor at group homes, aiding and counselling young people who were acting out and violent—work that helped pay the bills but proved to be stressful and difficult. With her (then) husband she moved to Orillia and studied for, and achieved, her master’s degree at North Bay’s Nipissing University; and became a teacher of sociology at Georgian College, Orillia—a position she held for the next 20 years. However, that seed planted by her high school teacher often pushed to break through, with her often repeating to herself, “I want to paint, I want to paint, I want to paint!”. And on a very special day in 2012, she got herself a small canvas and brushes and acrylic paints and proceeded to overcome resistance and fear and create a painting with lilacs as subject. It was a breakthrough achievement for her and she has never looked back. With subject matter ranging from florals to fields to landscape (especially the remembered vistas of Northern Ontario) and, ultimately the abstract, Kosloki’s canvases got bigger and bigger—often up to 5 and 6 feet as main dimension—with Pollock-esque abstract splattering and streeling, mostly combined with landscape and floral imagery. And her confidence increased exponentially. And she declares that, “When art comes, after all the years of taking care of business, it’s a rare and fulfilling blessing to be able to practice it.” |
She and partner, Peter, found their parcel of land at 1404 Hybla Road and built there—first a minimalist warm weather bunkie and then a lovely big home. And moved into it in 2022. And the bunkie became her studio where she is now prepping medium and large-scale works for her first participation in this fall’s studio tour, September 21-22 and 28-29. Contact her at khkosloski@gmail.com or kosloski.com (Profile writing and photo by Allan O’Marra) |
