I wear two hats. I’ve written 10 books and contributed countless stories and columns to newspapers and magazines. For two decades, I had a popular weekly gardening column in the Toronto Star called The Real Dirt, which ended in March 2018. You can still read many of these columns online. They cover everything from how to make an amaryllis rebloom to growing great tomatoes.
Recently, I resumed writing occasional Opinion pieces for the Star’s Op Ed page. These do not run on any fixed schedule.
But I’ve always been serious about my “other life” as a painter. And I can never decide which comes first–writing or art. I tend to write obsessively when doing a book, then I will pick up my brushes again and not sit at the keyboard for months (except to crank out a welcome paying article for a magazine or newspaper.)
Of the two, art probably comes most naturally because of my background. My grandfather, Walter Percy Day, was an eccentric British artist who attended the Royal Academy and would jump on his hat in a rage when a portrait wasn’t “going right.” But he’s become famous for his pioneer work in matte painting for the film industry, first in France and then England, where he received an OBE for his efforts.
My uncle Peter Ellenshaw, took this painting-on-glass technique to California and won an Oscar for special effects in the Disney movie Mary Poppins. My cousin, Harrison Ellenshaw, continued the family tradition capturing an Academy Award for special effects in Star Wars.
But then there’s the writing side. My sister Susan Day, is also an author. She recently concluded a successful career as an art historian in Paris where she wrote several books, notably on Art Deco and Islamic textiles. And our mother, Irene Day, was pretty good at poetry. Our father, Tom Day, broke the mold somewhat. A film cameraman and photographer, he had a lust for adventure, and hauled us off on a banana boat to live in Jamaica when I was 14. Later, we moved to Nassau, Bahamas, which I still regard as home.
How did my own working life begin? As a cub reporter for the Nassau Guardian, where I got to meet the likes of Sean Connery and the Beatles. (Both came to the Bahamas to make movies.) But I painted as well–selling watercolours of the colourful Nassau waterfront to tourists. I then left home to work for newspapers and magazines in England, the Cayman Islands and Costa Rica. I was also a writer for the Bermuda Department of Tourism – a fun job which provided plenty of spare time to paint the island’s lovely scenery and then display the results in the lobby of the swanky Princess Hotel in Hamilton.
Deciding (don’t ask me why) that I wanted to experience snow and to learn to ski, I quit the tropics and emigrated to Canada in my late twenties. I found work on a crummy weekly rag called The Sunday Express in Montreal. Then for years, I was a corporate writer and editor there and in Toronto – the only time in my lIfe I’ve ever earned real money. (I never quite got the hang of downhill skiing, but still love to snowshoe.)
In middle age, interested in growing things, I became a Master Gardener and wrote for magazines like Canadian Gardening, where I also had a humour column. Weekly columns for the Toronto Star, plus six plant-related books, commissioned by Canadian publishers, kept me busy too.
Along the way, I met a graphic artist named Barrie Murdock. We lived in Costa Rica, Montreal and later Toronto, where – between freelance corporate communication gigs – I carried on painting. Our shows of my work every November at our home in Bloor West Village were jam-packed, with lots of sales.
Fast forward to 2018. Worn out by endless driving, a huge garden and hauling 40-pound bags of wood chips indoors for our pellet stove, we reluctantly downsized to a 1930s brick house in downtown Fergus. Our home was located right on the glorious Grand River, where we loved the backyard and being able to walk to everything after life in the country, but hated the constant traffic.
So today, seven years later – surprise – we have moved on to yet another adventure. In the course of writing my Newfoundland-based novel, we both fell in love with the island and we impulsively bought a “saltbox by the sea” in a town called Bay Roberts, an hour’s drive from St. John’s.
And as I write this, in the middle of a Newfoundland winter, with a ferocious windstorm whipping up waves in the harbour, I’m not sure what the future holds. But here – like everywhere else I’ve lived – I’m having fun so far. And I’m continuing to write and paint.
Stay tuned!
