A former United Church minister in Brandon who now lives the life of a painter-poet in British Columbia is returning to Brandon in mid-June for an art show.

David Romeril, 76, who served as minister of Central United Church from 1979 to 1988 and departed with a sermon that was critical of the local church and its congregation for fearing change, fearing conflict and failing to deal with conflict, will have a showing of his paintings at St. Matthew’s Cathedral June 18-20. He is also tentatively planning a workshop on June 20

“I really enjoy painting in public,” he said, adding that he is also planning to conduct a service Sunday afternoon featuring rock and folk music from the 60s and 70s.

Born in England and battling various stages of clinical depression for much of his life, Romeril painted as a youngster but didn’t become serious about it as an adult until the late 70s, when “mounting frustration with my failure to find fulfillment in my professional life eventually drove me back” to painting. The painting helped cure what he called his “manic depression.”

“In my youth I felt obliged to choose between art and preaching but since 1981 I have managed to combine these roles,” said Romeril.

The “mounting frustration” he referred to was a product of movement and change in his life in the 1960s and ‘70s. Having moved to Canada in 1960 with his wife Jeannette, he was working as a student pastor in Ontario before moving to Wawa, Ont., where he taught English for five years. This was followed by three years in Nova Scotia, a period Romeril calls “a sort of hippie period.” He and his wife then moved to Northern Manitoba where he taught on the Split Lake Indian Reserve and then moved to a community near Flin Flon, where he did social work.

Beginning in 1981, he was able to combine preaching and art and has a wonderful collection of prints. He explains his approach: “The artist’s duty is not to paint what is obviously beautiful; Lake Louise needs no artist to speak for it. Rather, the true call of the artist is to depict the ordinary everyday scenes around us; to capture beauty in the back lane, garbage cans and all.”

Brandonites may remember Romeril for the historical montage of the city he painted on behalf of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce in 1992, four years after he had left the city for Winnipeg. The montage has the Assiniboine River in the foreground and shows a winter scene of the city in the background, along with an elevator, an old car, a railway line, the university and a church, an Indian medicine wheel and some old buildings from the city’s early days — all connected by a rainbow.

He was paid a $2,000 commission to do the montage, and he says the Chamber made 1,000 prints and sold each one for $75. The original, measuring 40x30 inches, later sold for $5,800. “So the Chamber did OK financially with it,” he said.