Not the desire to earn a degree, but an interest in learning more about Western art inspired Kileasa Wong to start studying painting and history in art at UVic.
In 1990-91 Wong began combining part-time fine arts studies at UVic with being a newspaper correspondent, teaching Cantonese and painting at the Victoria Chinese Public School, teaching Chinese painting at Camosun, Silver Threads, and the YM-YWCA, teaching folksong and folkdance at the Chinese School and editing the Chinatown Newsletter in Victoria.
Her experiences as a student have whetted her appetite for more. She will receive her BFA at Fall Convocation and is already taking more courses in history in art while thinking about applying to graduate school, either in visual arts, history in art, Pacific Studies and Asian-or, maybe, education, while she continues to paint, teach, and work as the Victoria correspondent for the Vancouver-based Ming Pao Daily News.
Wong's remarkable energy is self-generated. "I love teaching. I don't see it as a job, because I like it," she says, her conversation punctuated with smiles. "A lot of my classmates have gone to the education department to prepare to teach art in high school. I'm thinking of it. It would be a lot of fun. I also love writing, and painting."
Wong came to Canada in 1970 to marry her husband, Maurice, who was her classmate in high school in Hong Kong. While staying at home in Victoria to raise her four sons, she continued painting ("I have always painted, since a child"). In 1986, when she began teaching Chinese painting at Camosun, she found that "I really enjoyed it, and the more I got into society, the more I found a need to know more about Western art."
"I have to be very organized," she admits, giving her family much credit for her readiness to follow her dreams. "My family is very helpful. My husband is very supportive and encouraging, and my sons help with the cooking."
This enthusiastic lifelong student, who has made many paintings and photographs
of Victoria's Chinatown, continues to experiment in her art. In her graduating
year, in directed studies taken with supervisor Prof. Robert Youds, she
used Chinese painting materials to create new works in an abstract mode
which have received compliments and attracted interest for the way in which
they reflect both her Oriental and Western experiences as an artist.
After one year of doctoral studies in psychology at the University of Alberta, Barbara Reeves made a decision that would affect the rest of her life.
"My goal during university had been to get a job. I loved classics but thought I'd never find a job, so I pursued psychology. But I was lukewarm to it and one day I finally admitted that I was really wasting my life. Maybe there wouldn't be a career in classics, but I had to give it a shot, " says Reeves, who already held two undergraduate degrees from UVic in psychology and classics when she went to the U of A.
She quit her studies in 1993, returned to Victoria and enrolled in a master's program in UVic's classics department (recently renamed Greek and Roman Studies). Enroute to a degree, which she will receive at this weekend's Convocation, she found the career she'd been searching for in Wadi Ramm, Jordan, where much of the film Lawrence of Arabia was shot. Always interested in archaeology, she was writing her thesis on Roman bathhouses when Dr. John Oleson (Greek and Roman Studies) invited her to join his annual dig in Jordan in 1995. Once there a representative from the government's department of antiquities invited her and fellow-UVic Classics grad Dennine Dudley to the ruins of Wadi Ramm and, impressed with their knowledge and enthusiasm, suggested the pair submit a proposal to direct a dig the following summer-work typically done by faculty or doctoral candidates, not master's students. To Reeves and Dudley's delight, their 20-page proposal was accepted and they embarked on a fund-raising campaign, raising $8,000 from UVic's Alumni Association, the Classical Association of Vancouver Island and the faculty and students of the Greek and Roman Studies department.
"It is an extraordinary accomplishment for Barbara to have her own dig at this stage in her career, especially at one of the most prominent archaeological sites in Jordan," says Oleson. Reeves plans to enter a PhD program in classical archaeology. Until then she will work for Oleson and do some writing and public speaking (she is planning a public lecture on campus in January).
"I used to be looking for a career, for a good job, but I've learned that a career is only a career and a job is only a good job if you're doing something you really love," she says.