When a person asks the standard question 'how are you?' the expected answer is 'fine'.
When the answer is 'never better' the next question begged to be asked is 'how come?'
"Everything is going really well and I'm in the middle of a tour, getting big crowds of great people and everything's going well with the Bateman Foundation and my art is going well and I just had a new granddaughter who's healthy," said iconic Canadian artist Robert Bateman who will be at Direct Art Monday at 7 p.m.
It looks like Bateman's next piece will be focused on big horn sheep that he captured digitally while on tour near Kamloops earlier this week.
"I was going from the Kamloops airport into town and there was a herd of five fantastic big males in beautiful Bateman-looking habitat - all my kind of colours - and I can hardly wait to get home on December 4 when I'll be jumping into a major three by four painting."
Bateman said he's toured for two or three weeks every fall since 1981.
"That's when my first book came out," he added. "I travel around and I go to different galleries and people come, by some miracle, and want to see me and stand in line and have a visit and I really enjoy chatting with people - it's way easier than painting, believe me."
He welcomes invitations to autograph books, paintings or whatever else people might bring to the meet and greets, he said.
"Many of my books are out of print now but people seem to be emerging with ones they got from their grandmothers and things like that," Bateman said. "But there's always new prints, however. John (at Direct Art) always has a great show and I'll have a bit of time to give a talk, which I enjoy doing - telling the story behind some of the artwork and this time I'm going to be telling people about the new Bateman Foundation and Bateman Centre in Victoria. That's the hottest news in my world right now."
For almost 20 years, Bateman's been looking for something to do with his extensive collection of artwork, consisting of more than 600 pieces. He's been looking for a place to put the collection and they've found their new home in Victoria, after perspective sites fell through in Burlington, Ontario and at Royal Roads University.
The Robert Bateman Centre will be located at the Victoria Harbor Authority's CPR Steamship Terminal.
To hear all about it, visit Bateman at Direct Art, 1650 Queensway Street, Monday at 7 p.m.
