In 1929, Sybil Calverley was born the fourth of five children, with a “huge amount of energy” that has fueled a life of passion and purpose. And as she approaches her 92nd birthday, followed closely by her 70th Trinity Reunion in May 2021, she has no intention of slowing down.
“I’ve had a happy, difficult, vigorous, stupid, adventurous life,” she quips, before sharing just a few of her stories and her plans for the future.
A passion for the natural world
Calverley grew up on a farm west of Toronto, near what is now known as Oakville. She loved farming life, and had total freedom. “I could wander off to the woods and explore for hours at a time,” she remembers. For her father, Hugh S. Calverley, farming had been a path to his recovery from physical and mental injuries he sustained during the First World War. He was a student at Trinity from 1912-1914 before enlisting, and is mentioned in the Trinity College War Memorial Volume.
Entry in the Trinity War Memorial Volume for Hugh S. Calverley, Sybil Calverley’s father (courtesy of the Trinity College Archives)
Arriving at Trinity
Following in her father’s footsteps, Calverley enrolled at Trinity, choosing to study Art and Archaeology because her aunt, renowned Egyptologist Amice Calverley, was her mentor.
“I absolutely loved what I was studying, and I loved living at St. Hilda’s,” she recalls. Calverley was one of the “original eight” St. Hilda’s friends mentioned in Trinity magazine’s “BFFs” feature in Fall 2020. “We played bridge, we listened, we talked, we built friendships. They were all so dear to me.”
Another highlight of College life for Calverley was Trinity’s gowns: “Many of us didn’t have marvelous clothes, and wearing gowns to dinner meant we didn’t have to compete with the fashion queens,” she says.
Adventures abroad
After completing her degree in 1951, Calverley went to England to pursue her Masters at the Courtauld Institute. But when she arrived, she discovered it wasn’t for her. “The women in the program seemed boring, and I didn’t want to be there.” Instead, she hitchhiked through Europe – living on $2 per day — and made her way to Paris to study art, where she met her future husband, Leo Rampen. She carried a knife in her pocket while hitchhiking and admits to “being ready to pull it out a few times.” Once, she was arrested after motorbiking down the French Alps without a headlight.
A few of Calverley’s adventures took place with her Aunt Amice, who picked her up in Paris and travelled with her to Greece to film an Easter Byzantine Passion Play. “We camped in ditches along the way, piled out masses of equipment on a ship, and then carried it up the mountain on donkeys to the 10th-century monastery of St. John the Theologian on Patmos, where we lived for two weeks with 24 monks,” she remembers.
Throughout her time abroad, Calverley wrote 50 letters to her father, who was supportive of her explorations. (She is in the process of scanning the letters and many of her sketches from that time to give to her family next Christmas.) In one of her letters, she spoke prophetically of her desire to teach art to children and adults with developmental disabilities.
Family ties
Four years after they met in Paris, Calverley married Leo Rampen and they eventually settled in Oakville on a property next to her parents and the farm where she grew up. Rampen worked for CBC Television and went on to become executive producer for the long-running series Man Alive. “He has an amazing mind,” says Calverley. “He is a very good man.”
The couple has five sons, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. “Raising five boys was hilariously fun,” she says, remarking on the legendary appetites of growing boys. “I had three freezers and a vegetable garden just to keep them fed!”
The couple’s son Ben, who has Down Syndrome, spends his time between Community Living Oakville and home. “He is the anchor for the entire family and is very special,” Calverley smiles.
Finding the artist within
Calverley also built a rich career as an artist, writer and teacher. She earned an Art Specialist designation from the Ontario College of Education, and is still teaching art to the challenged and all ages and stages.
She is an accomplished fibre artist and has published a number of books, including Pocket Eden, The Grannies, and The Milkwood Angel. Recently she collaborated with Illustrator Tsochy Go to create seven books of fables: Gog, Pilgrim, Dragon, Please Write, Hearts Delight, Dog, and COVID Tales: Dr. Hat and Mrs. Fright.
Of her many achievements, she says she is particularly proud of having been able to look after her parents on the farm in their final years, and of helping her father to discover his own artistic gifts at age 66. “With my coaching, he became an artist and a poet, and that gave him a sense of completion,” she says, explaining that her father would feed the chickens and cows and then write poetry in the barn each morning “in perfect peace after emptying his mind.” Some of his paintings were shown in exhibitions across the West and at McMaster and Guelph Universities.
Preserving heritage for future generations
Driven by her lifelong passions for nature and art, and her deep belief in preserving both for future generations, Calverley is now investing her considerable energy into creating a 14-acre oasis on her property. The Joshua Creek Heritage Art Centre is a registered charity that includes an art gallery housed in the barn, an 1827 homestead and studio, and stunning natural spaces. Art classes and workshops take place in the studio, and exhibitions are staged in the barn gallery. The property is also the site of weddings, retreats, celebrations of life, yoga classes, book readings and other community events. And upstairs in the gallery is the Amice Calverley Library, through which Calverley is commemorating her aunt’s extraordinary life.
“My main focus now is preserving these 14 acres for future generations,” says Calverley. “We are being surrounded by concrete subdivisions and there will soon be no earth or trees for children.” Calverley is working with her sons and the local conservation authority to ensure that her long-term vision for her community is realized.
That’s in addition to continuing to teach art online, to blog, to put on virtual exhibitions during the COVID pandemic, and to write. “I just play,” she says of how she spends her days. “I love what I’m doing right now.”
For more on what she’s up to, visit https://www.joshuacreekarts.com/exhibitions/
By Jennifer Matthews