Vanessa Kramer

I met Bev in BCAM's early years. Around someone's dining table, armed with a full pot of tea, the group would sift through the endless statistics, reports and anecdotes about breast cancer. I brought in designs for posters, and that's how I found that Bev had 'the eye'... that we shared the language of art.

In the middle of our planning and problem-solving, Bev would suddenly ask "What's wrong with this picture?" Her artist's eye for light and dark, foreground and background, often led her to the heart of the matter. Her verbal sketches laced with delightfully ironic humour immediately made every one of us get the picture.

I will remember the strolls through art shows and the comparisons of paints and pastels. I will remember the hours spent with Bev and Alex in their garden, overgrown with summer, or in their living room, the cool bright light of winter pouring through the bay window as we deconstructed our world and our experiences in it.

And as I frame my photographs and ask "What's right with this picture?", Bev will always be there in the angles and the contrasts and the movement made still and the celebration of the ironic absurdity of being alive at all.