The unusual decision Cooroibah artist James Ainslie made a couple of weeks ago to go for a walk on Gympie Terrace undoubtedly saved his life.
With his wife, Wendy, away for the day James would have been either home alone or on one of his regular walks near their home in the Tewantin State Forest when with no prior warning his heart stopped beating. But just at the right moment he was on Gympie Terrace, having stopped briefly to chat to a couple walking their dog.
He took two steps in one direction and collapsed. The couple had headed the other way but rushed back and performed CPR before someone located a defibrillator at the Boathouse Restaurant and shocked James back to life.
Wendy said hospital tests showed he had no heart disease but an electrical impulse fault that failed to initiate his heart beat. He has since had a defibrillator inserted to ensure his heart doesn’t miss a beat and has returned home to recover from the shock of the experience, with just some pain in his chest from the lifesaving treatment.
An established award winning master of modern realism whose work is held in major public and private art collections world-wide, James has largely retired from painting apart from the occasional request.
Born in South Australia and raised on a farm, James sought the peace and quiet of Noosa when he and Wendy moved here in 1997 although they travelled regularly for inspiration for his art.
As an art student one of his early mentors was David Dridan whom he described as one of our leading realist landscape artists. “He was my art teacher and I used to go to the art rooms after school and watch him paint. I also painted after he roared at me,” You don’t learn by bloody watching. You learn by doing.”
Tom Gleghorn, the father of abstract expressionism in Australia, also influenced him. “I was teaching in the Flinders Ranges when this bearded, bejewelled guy came into my classroom with the headmaster and gave me a kiss on the cheek,“ he said.
“He looked at what I was painting and said, “I love it. You should come and work with me and that was the start of a friendship between Tom, his wife, my wife and me.”
James said he was never satisfied with his work, a trait he shared with Gleghorn, and was always striving to do better.
As James recovers from his heart attack he has again begun taking short walks but Wendy said he won’t be going on a walk on his own.
This Christmas the family plan to celebrate by having a drink to to the wonderful people who saved his life.
For more on James’ art visit www.ainslieart.com
