{"id":1452,"date":"2023-02-10T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T10:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/retiree-sells-art-for-charity\/"},"modified":"2023-02-10T10:51:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T10:51:00","slug":"retiree-sells-art-for-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/retirement-living\/retiree-sells-art-for-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"Retiree using his art skills to raise money for charity"},"content":{"rendered":"

FirstPort customer and self-taught artist Brian Francis, 89, has been putting his art skills to the test by selling his paintings to raise money for research into cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brian, a resident at FirstPort\u2019s Brielen Court retirement development in Nottingham, began painting as a child but it wasn\u2019t until he reached his 50<\/span>th<\/span> birthday that he rediscovered how much joy and comfort he gained from painting.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor my 50th birthday, my family bought me an easel and some acrylic paints, which started the enthusiasm again.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cReally, it wasn\u2019t until after my wife died and I moved up to the Lake District that I really started painting again. I joined the local art society and it really started to grow from there. I really did enjoy it. Sometimes, when painting or drawing, I can get completely absorbed in it and lost in time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Many of Brian\u2019s paintings are of places he has visited on holiday, with his favourite painting being from his trip to Santorini, which he described as an \u201cartist\u2019s paradise\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Brian decided to donate his paintings after attending a charity fundraiser at Brielen Court. He added: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to help, and I kicked myself because I had all these paintings in my wardrobe gathering dust and I thought it was a marvelous opportunity to fundraise for Cancer Research.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was able to display the paintings at the development and my neighbours and anyone visiting was able to put a donation in the charity box.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThey were only up from less than a week and as one was taken off the wall, we put another one up.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By selling his paintings, Brian has managed to raise \u00a3250 for Cancer Research UK. It\u2019s a charity that he says is close to his heart. He explained: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike so many families, my family has been affected by cancer. My mother died from cancer and my youngest daughter has had breast cancer.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCancer has affected my family enormously and anything that I can do or anything that anybody can do to help the research is so important. I struggle to put it into words how important I think it is.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Brian says he\u2019d be happy to do further fundraisers \u201cif anybody wants them\u201d<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

He explained that many of the residents were surprised when they found out he could paint, adding: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think many of them knew I painted. It was a complete shock to them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

FirstPort\u2019s Lance Concannon, the Development Manager at Brielen Court, added: \u201cThe residents, and visitors to Brielen Court, quickly snapped up the paintings. It\u2019s been wonderful to see the funds raised from Brian\u2019s artwork go to such a good cause.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FirstPort customer and self-taught artist Brian Francis, 89, has been putting his art skills to the test by selling his paintings to raise money for research into cancer. Brian, a resident at FirstPort\u2019s Brielen Court retirement development in Nottingham, began painting as a child but it wasn\u2019t until he reached his 50th birthday that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,38,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-charity","category-real-residents","category-retirement-living"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstport.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}