Image Credit: CFJC Today / Adam Donnelly

By Jill Sperling

Convocation

Kamloops senior receives award upon graduation from TRU

Jun 22, 2020 | 4:33 PM

KAMLOOPS — A Kamloops woman is proving it’s never too late to pursue your passions.

72-year-old Lyn Richards graduated Thompson Rivers University Monday (June 22) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Richards had planned to go to art school about 50 years ago, but life took her in a different direction.

“I was doing some drawing and painting on my own,” she said, “and then when I got pregnant I stopped painting, because it was oils in those days, very little work was being done with acrylics, so that’s pretty toxic stuff. I just went in one of the other directions that interested me.”

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Richards ended up pursuing a career in clinical psychology, but she never lost her passion for visual art.

In 2012, she started taking a few fine arts courses at TRU.

“Every course seemed to lead to another course, or two or three, and I kept taking courses and ramping that up to two or three courses a semester and ramping my work down.”

In addition to receiving her degree, Richards was presented with the TRU Medal in Fine Arts.

“I’m really pleased,” Richards said. “It’s really satisfying because it’s about my grade point average, and because my first bachelor’s degree had such a lousy grade point average… it’s really satisfying.”

Richards’ instructors have been thoroughly impressed with her work, which includes a unique art installation in progress involving 10-foot knitted trees.

Image Credit: CFJC Today

“It’s been one of the most in-depth projects I’ve ever worked with a student on,” said Doug Buis, associate professor in Visual Arts. “In fact, it’s very much like working with a graduate student in MFA studies or something.”

Richards plans to spend the next few years focusing on her art and is considering applying for her masters, proving you’re never too old to further your education.

“The intellectual curiosity I find is really strong in senior students,” Buis said, “and they’re sort of over a lot of the aspects of in your character development and you want to impress people and whatever. They sort of hunker down and really get to making the artwork. Lyn is an absolute prize example of this.”

“You’re never too old,” Richards said, “and I think that for older people you bring all kinds of skills, you bring a work ethic from a life of working and knowing that you just have to get up and do it.”