George Cummings, VHS 1954   Always Room For the Unexpected

By Linda Baker, VHS 1969

Age is a state of mind, and George Cummings is as creative and adventurous as ever. This past summer he went skydiving for the first time and loved it. “It was great fun!” says George, “I’d do it again.” A lifetime of hiking and mountaineering may have helped keep his physical body in good shape, but it’s his authenticity and curiosity that has inspired and motivated him, a willingness to try new things and as George says, ‘always leave room for the unexpected.”

George attended Vic High from Grade 9 – 12. His classmates named him ‘Most Likely To Blow Up the World’ in the 1954 Camosun yearbook, back when chemistry was his passion and his life goal. He even had a small chemistry lab at home, the source of a very small corked vial containing a little yellow ammonium sulphide that he brought to school one day. At lunchtime he chose a seat in the cafeteria with his friends, with his back to the entry to take advantage of the draft when the doors opened. After eating, he surreptitiously uncorked his vial under the table just long enough for the sulphide’s stench to waft to nearby downwind students, who grumbled ‘Who blew?’ as they moved from the area. His friend, Doug, was so delighted with the prank that he bought the vial from George for 25 cents. Then unbeknownst to George who was out on a walk, Doug uncorked the vial for far too long in Math teacher, Bob Hunter’s classroom in the school’s west wing. When George returned from his walk, he immediately knew what had happened. The windows of all three classrooms in the area were open and most students had not returned to  them. He went into Mr. Hunter’s room and found him pressing Doug to tell him where he got the chemical. But Doug wouldn’t tell. So George did. The vial was not returned.

Another Vic High memory that comes up for George is about rugby. “[Teacher and coach] Porky Anderson’s brother, Joe, taught science,” says George. “He would keep the boys after school until enough of us joined his Bantam Rugby team, which I did in Grade 10 before I took on after-school jobs. At 125 pounds I was the heaviest team member and so played tail in the scrum. No one ever tossed the ball my way, though, because they knew I couldn’t catch it. I just ran around the field and pushed in the scrum.”

George’s grad write-up also listed ‘Art, Grad Choir, and Y’s Club’ [current affairs discussions], and ‘our Capulet’ to describe him. George had been active in art classes throughout school, even taking weekend classes while still in elementary school, and speaks highly of Vic High art teacher Frances Cameron. “My time at Vic High was quite pleasant,” says George, “but I didn’t participate much. I had two jobs. I delivered the Vancouver Sun and worked after school at different jobs.” One of his after-school activities, though, was joining fellow students to act out a scene from Romeo and Juliet playing Capulet, Juliet’s father, as he discovered her love for Romeo.

After his 1954 graduation, he did two years of sciences at Victoria College,* but switched to the arts and graduated from UBC with a degree in Philosophy. A random trip to Portland with UBC friends landed him in love, so he stayed, and has lived there ever since. “I never wanted to come out in Victoria,” he says. “I’m sure students at school suspected I was gay but nobody every bothered me or bullied me.”

In Portland he worked in the University of Oregon’s Medical School, and one year took an evening class in ceramics. He ended up quitting his lab job and working at Pacific Stoneware for his ceramics instructor, subsequently travelling in Europe and worked in two different ceramics studios there. Eventually he returned to Portland and taught ceramics for many years while also becoming a very prolific potter himself. During that time, he was one of the first three ceramics artists to have his work exhibited at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and several of his pieces are in the Gallery’s collections.

His Artist Statement on the AGGV website reads: “Victoria is my home town, and I have a long connection with the AGGV going back to about 1950 when it was on Broughton Street next to the Royal Theatre. I was in a show of works by John Lidstone’s Saturday Morning Art Class. My piece was a painting of dinosaur on large sheet of construction paper. As I recall, Colin Graham was the Gallery’s founding director. In 1967, Colin curated the Gallery’s first exhibition of contemporary ceramics featuring work by the Groves and myself, and it was he who suggested that Mrs. Pollard purchase the pieces you have. And then there was the Back to the Land exhibition, which I had the pleasure of attending.”

 

Without the means to set up his own studio, he eventually left his pottery work behind and did IT work in the life insurance industry for 15 years. Not long before COVID changed everyone’s life, he unpacked some bowls and vases he’d made years earlier and decided it was time to get back into his art. His style evolved, and his knowledge of chemistry led him to develop his own palette of glazes. His colour preferences had evolved too, from earlier muted tones to vibrant, clear colours which suited his new whimsical designs as his handbuilding skills improved using pinch, coil and slab techniques.

George calls what he does ‘Playing with Clay’. He often starts handling some clay — pinching, coiling or rolling out a slab — without a clear idea of where he’s going to go with it. “Soon a direction develops,” he says, “but I might not stick to it, because I’ve noticed another possibility, and then perhaps another and another, so that I end up with something completely unexpected.” George’s thoughts perfectly describe the creative process, and perhaps an approach to life we all might embrace. “Every moment has an opportunity to be creative.” He believes this is really significant in his life and work, even though there’s times when he forgets it or doesn’t feel that it’s true. “It may be just another way of saying that there is always room for the unexpected,” he goes on, “but I think it goes deeper. The unexpected provides the opportunity, and when it occurs I have a choice. I can say ‘Oh, that’s interesting. What can I make of it?’ or I can say ‘Damn!’ or ignore it.”  How wonderful might it be if we all approached life like George.

George had always loved hiking, and it was two co-workers at his medical school job that introduced him back then to the Mazamas, a 130-year old mountaineering organization in the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Europe. His years of climbing mountains in the area with Mazamas made him the perfect participant in a 2023 rappel down 473 feet of Portland’s 536 foot skyscraper, the Bancorp Tower, known locally as ‘the Big Pink’ because of its copper-coloured glass. He and 50 other thrillseekers raised funds in the ‘Rappel for Purpose’, with his proceeds going to the Mazamas to support their ongoing work in climbing education, outdoor leadership, and conservation. But his most impressive feat was climbing Monkey Face at age 80. The 350′ tower is an icon of Smith Rock State Park in Oregon, a challenging climb and descent which few will tackle.

George’s brother John, VHS 1955, graduated from UBC with a degree in Forestry, Yale University with a Masters in Forestry, and from the University of California at Berkeley with a PhD in Genetics. He died in 2009. George donated to the Alumni so he and John each have a plaque in the Vic High Auditorium.

2023 article in Mazama bulletin.

Climbing Monkey Face article

*Victoria College was founded at Vic High in 1903. Vic High’s Principal, Samuel J. Willis, ran the school and the college, which occupied the fourth floor of the 1914 building.  When it outgrew that space it moved to Craigdarroch Castle. From there it moved to Richmond and Lansdowne where Camosun College  Lansdowne Campus is located, and eventually relocated and became the University of Victoria.