Margaret Bosworth-Goulding, member of the Thursday Artists Group has left the garden of life on April 23, 2021
By Heidi Trautmann
Our friend and a member of
our art group, Margaret Bosworth-Goulding, has left the garden of life. The sad
news was sent to me by her daughter Phoebe who was taking care of her during
the last months of illness in Troutville, Virginia. I had been in touch with Phoebe
since late last year when I started to write the book about our art group
because I intended to include her together with others who had left the island
for age reasons. Phoebe said that her mother died peacefully surrounded by her
family at the age of 83.
Margaret was with our group in Yeşiltepe from 2006
to 2015 when she and her husband sold the house in Lapta to return to her
family in Virginia.
Margaret had a very adventurous life and loved teaching, which she did in many
countries of different cultures. She was an absolute win in our group with her
humour and love of fairy tales. She participated in several local group
exhibitions in Bellapais together with the artist Kate Fenson, who had the same
love for the magical world. In my
archive I had some information on her life from our common group exhibition in
2011 but I needed some more details so I approached her daughter. This is what
she wrote:
After
living in Kuwait for over 25 years they couldn't imagine retiring to the US or
England, so they came to live in North Cyprus.
My
Mom has always been a very outgoing, positive person who sought out cultural
and artistic endeavours of the country she lived in. She no doubt went out looking
to learn about the culture, and lifestyle of the people of North Cyprus
and in doing so learnt about your art group and eagerly tried to
join.
How
she came to go to Kuwait? In 1978 she took a sabbatical from the arts high
school she taught at (Norwich Free Academy) in Norwich, Connecticut and
headed to Kuwait to teach at the American School of Kuwait. She would meet her
husband Conrad (Ben) Bosworth in Kuwait, a pilot for Kuwait Airways, and have a
daughter. She would remain overseas for altogether 37 years until 2015 when she
would return to the US to me, her daughter and grandkids”.
Margaret’s
biography which I have included in the new book is very interesting and I would
like to share it with my friends and readers hereafter. I like her work
immensely for her fantastic story telling. It is an ability that is formed in
childhood to let things happen and let your imagination and creativity take over
from there. When asked about her philosophy
of art she told me the following:
My work reflects my love of colour and design as well
as my affinity for fantasy, folklore, and magic. As an artist I feel the
necessity to grow and be open to new ideas. My paintings evolve and usually
tell a story. This is not intentional or premeditated. It just happens as the
work develops. Reading has always played an important role in my life. Folklore
and legends inspire what I paint. As a child I was fascinated by Hans Christian
Andersen, the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales and other fairy tales and classics
for children. The books that I liked most were illustrated by well-known
illustrators such as Arthur Rackham, Ernest H.Shepard and A.A. Milne. I also gained inspiration from looking at
artists’ prints and books on well-known artists. Visits to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, art galleries, and the ballet fed my imagination. Free time was
spent making things, painting, writing, and illustrating small homemade books.
All of this has added to my world of magic and fantasy and when I paint, I
depict a magical world, a world of beautiful colours and imagination. It is as
if I am a conduit where real images intermingle with another world. This is a
time of dreaming. During these moments I am happy and the world takes on a
shining quality of polished gold, leaping deer, swaying trees, and people that
dance and sing in the wind.
My friends and colleagues from our art group join me
in sending our condolences to the family in Virginia. May she rest in peace, there
where she is now, surrounded by the great world of magic and fairy tales she
has created over the many years, she has certainly made our world more
colourful and meaningful.
Biography
Margaret Helen Goulding-Bosworth was born in 1938 in New
Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She grew up in Old Lyme, Connecticut, one of the
oldest art colonies in America. The American Impressionists and the Barbizon
School of painters painted in Old Lyme. Mrs. Bosworth holds a Bachelor of Fine
Arts Degree, Master of Science Degree in Teaching and Oriental Art History and
a Masters of Fine Arts degree. She has also studied at Haystack School of
Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine, USA and the Handarbetes Vanner, Stockholm,
Sweden.
Mrs. Bosworth has exhibited in England, Kuwait, North
Cyprus & in the United States, in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York City,
Roanoke & Washington D.C. One of her wood cuts is included in the permanent
print exhibition at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA. She has
exhibited with the Connecticut Society of Women Painters, the Connecticut
Society of Painters, the League of Roanoke Artists and the Royal Society of
Painters in Watercolour London, England. She is a past elected member of the
Connecticut Society of Women Painters and the Connecticut Society of Painters
and more recently has been an active participating member of the League of
Roanoke Artist. Over the years she has exhibited numerous times in group and
solo shows within the above countries and her work has found homes with many
private collectors across the world.
Her professional positions have included teaching art
in the USA, UK and Kuwait, in schools Pre-Kg to 12 grade and for adults in the
foundation year of art, basket weaving, illustration and textile design.
She has a particular passion for decorative folk art,
Indian Mughal painting and Oriental art and draws much of her inspiration from
these sources.