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Celeste Pryde, a.k.a. Lady Celeste, is a pretty inspirational woman, so it’s no surprise the Lethbridge Life Drawing group is using her as the subject for its latest exhibition “Lady Celeste” at the Yates Memorial Centre, Jan. 23-Feb. 24. The opening reception is Jan. 28, 7-9 p.m.
“It’s not my show; I’m just the muse,” said Pryde.
A number of local life drawing artists will have works in the show including Amy Dodic, Eric Martens, Donna Gallant, Karina Mak, Helen Fileg, Gherhardt Beyer, Sylvia Klassen, Blake Wilson, Bev Mundel-Atherstone, Bob Webb and Bev Mazurick.
“I’m just happy to be part of the process,” she said.
Mazurick describes Pryde as an “excellent model.”
“She can sit still and she’s beautiful. She poses in costumes she created. They’re phenomenal and very interesting.”
While Pryde is good at sitting down to model, she doesn’t like to be idle.
“I’m not good at sitting down,” she said.
“When I was first diagnosed, the doctor told I’d have to quit work. I went out and began volunteering,” she said.
Pryde suffers from several types of arthritis, and was diagnosed with temporal arteritis, the giant cell disease, last February. She isn’t letting that slow her down.
“What’s the point in just lying around? If you do that, you’re already dead. The more you do, the less you think about your pain,” she philosophized.
It’s hard to believe Celeste can sit still as she always has a dozen different projects on the go, from 27 different types of Christmas baking to volunteering on numerous boards.
Lady Celeste not only has been modelling since she was four years old, appearing in catalogues for Eatons and Sears, but is a fashion designer and artist in her own right.
“My oldest sister moved to Toronto, so I went to visit her,” she said, adding her sister was a model.
She became a model after one of the other models working with her sister was injured and unable to do the shoot, so they let Celeste do it. She impressed them by showing she could “sit still.” She continued to work as a model up into her 20s, appearing in ads for everything from pink insulation to Monsanto products.
She also believes in contributing to her community, playing a variety of important roles on boards as volunteer co-ordinator for organizations such as the Special Olympics. She has also been involved with the Girl Guides for 35 years. She is also involved with L’Arche, which assists youth with intellectual disabilities. She has also travelled the world and started her own charitable business, selling clothing created by women in Syria, with all of the proceeds going back to them.
“Life is for living. You must live life to its fullest,” she said.
“You have to get out and talk to people.”
That is why she started her business selling Syrian women’s clothing, which appealed to her love for fashion.
While touring the Middle East with her husband, she met some of the women over there and started admiring their work.
When she expressed interest in selling their clothing, they settled on a price of $60 as she said if they received any more money, chances are it would have been taken from them.
“Women are art, so they need to dress as such,” she said, adding if women dress well, it helps them feel good about themselves.
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