The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1954, Side 48

46
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1954
ARUM SIGURDSSON
by PAMELA BAKER
Arni Sigurdsson
Employed with the Winnipeg Elec-
tric Company for the past fifteen years,
Arni Sigurdsson is a modest, cheerful
individual whose every thought and
action expresses a youth in direct con-
trast to the impression conveyed by
his snowy white hair and advanced
years. An Icelander by birth and a
naturalized Canadian by choice—he
came to Canada 43 years ago—he has
worked as a general painter practically
all his life. But where most men con-
centrate their talents solely toward the
business of making a living, Arni has
successfully managed to redirect some
of his abilities to pleasure filled hours
where painting as a hobby provides
him with complete relaxation and en-
joyment.
In earlier years Arni had another
hobby—amateur theatricals. Always
keen to help his fellow countrymen he
used to spend most of his spare time
directing a number of Icelandic
theatre groups in different parts of
Canada. He translated many English
plays into his native tongue and also
found time to write a history of the
Icelandic theatre in Canada. A retiring
man by nature, he would never admit
to having done anything unusual or
notable, but his fellow countrymen
held a different view. They thoughi
so highly of his distinguished woik
that in 1950 the President of Iceland
created him a Knight of the Royal
Order of the Falcon.
Of latter years Arni recognized the
strenuous work of the theatre. How-
ever, he is not the sort of man who can
just sit back and do nothing with his
leisure hours. He decided to devote
more time to painting—a hobby that
had occupied him off and on for most
of his life. With a deep-seated love of
nature and all things beautiful, it is
hardly surprising to find that Arni’s
paintings display rich and lavish col-
ors together with a painstaking at-
tention to detail. Who but a plan with
an inborn love of beauty and a sensitive
eye for nature’s varying moods could
have painted such a picturesque snow
scene as the one which hangs in his
studio at the Seven Sisters Staff House?
Or the water color—painted in dif-
ferent tones of blue—of the moon shin-
ing down on a glittering lake? Arni
has no desire to place his work on com-
mercial exhibit. He values them be-
cause more than anything else they
evoke personal memories: a secluded
waterfall, a pond, a patch of burnt-out
forest now blossoming with renewed
life.
Arni explains that very few of his
paintings are completed on location.
Since he only paints in his spare time,
there is little opportunity to set up
and arrange the complicated equip-