I have been painting since my teenage years but, as life unfolded, I did not consider my art as a vocation. After some wandering in the late 1960s and early 70s I eventually made my way to McGill where I did a degree in theology and was ordained by the Maritime Conference of the United Church of Canada in 1976. 

I maintained a parallel interest in art and ministry, continued to paint and, in 1980, returned to my home province of New Brunswick to take up ministry in Dalhousie on the north shore. By that time I had discovered that I was equally moved by the life of Jesus and the work of Tom Thomson, that quintessential Canadian artist and outdoorsman. With the encouragement of some people in the local arts community I began to exhibit my work in 1981. 

Then, in the late 1980s I took three years away from my work as a minister to rebuild my maternal grandparents' home and establish "Sticks & Stones Studio" in Holtville. Holtville is a small rural community at the geographic centre of the province where my great grandfather Fowler settled in the mid 1800s. The place was home base for thirty years. 

I retired in the summer of 2008 with the intention of spending much more time in my studio – and learned more about the truth in John Lennon's line, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."  

I am not so committed an artist that I have not given higher priority to aging parents and new grandchildren , not to mention the work required to maintain a country property where we heated with wood, mowed a couple of acres of lawn and kept  chickens and a big garden.  And, because we loved it, we pressed wild apples in the fall and made our own maple syrup every spring – hardly necessary but delightful diversions.  

Early in the winter of 2016 we made the decision that it was time for a move.  

The stars seemed to have been aligned for us; we sold the lovely old place in February and in June moved into our new home in Fredericton where I now have a new studio space and where, in theory at least, I will have a lot more time to paint.