Rachel Minger
P.O.Box 651
Burns Lake,  BC  V0J 1E0
Canada
Email: rminger@telus.net

I have spent most of my life here in the central part of BC.  I married my high school sweetie and together we raised two wonderful daughters.  Upon completion of high school I went to Europe and spent some time getting acquainted with my mother’s family in Brussels.  After three months I returned home and went into the insurance business. I worked at that for 20 years until I felt I was burned out and needed a career change.  I then went to work for the  telephone company and stayed with them for the next 10 years until company downsizing forced the closure of the local office and left me with a lot of time on my hands.

I first became interested in decorative art when I was in a craft store in a neighboring town and I liked what I saw. I convinced the owner to come and teach some of my friends who were also interested in learning.  The next couple of years had me traveling 40 miles to her shop taking as many classes as I could.  From there on it was a collection of unpainted items that kept getting bigger and bigger as well as patterns and books. I did most of my painting on the dining room table. By this time the girls had left home and with just hubby and myself it was getting pretty easy to shove the projects aside and eat dinner on half of the table.  I have since moved my collection to a vacant room in the basement and thanks to hubby it now has adequate lighting and shelving for storage.

My first encounter with Mary and her technique was at the Calgary convention in August of 2001.  This tenacious little blond had the whole class believing that we could indeed do the project and be happy with the results.  She was absolutely right and after that there was no turning back.  Mary offered her certification course in Calgary in April of 2002 so off I flew to Calgary again.  We had a wonderful week and Mary kept us on our toes with little phrases like “watch for the V’s”.  It didn’t take long before we realized she was not referring to a ‘60’s rock group.  In August of 2002 I was off to Calgary once again to work with Mary at the Alberta Paint In.   Another wonderful week and seeing old classmates just made it that much nicer.  The highlight of the week was having Mary congratulate me and welcome me as a CMOT.  A title I shall wear with pride as I teach others this wonderful technique.  

I could not complete my bio without giving credit where it is due, to Bob, my wonderful husband of 35 years.  Bob’s skills do not necessarily begin with carpentry but he has done a terrific job over the years of cutting wood pieces for my painting projects.  He has sanded, scraped, primed and nearly re-invented the wheel just to make things easier for me. So for Bob, Kim and Carmen, thank you for the years of encouragement and support and for believing that I could do it when there where times when even I wasn’t sure.