Wayne Thomas Sayer

He was one of the lucky ones who got to do what he loved most for a living: making art. He

had a natural talent in both illustration and clay work and the two great themes of his art were humour and the good old days.

He grew up in Kitsilano and in the late 60's moved to Tsawwassen with his wife, Judy, to live in a house newly built by his father-in-law. He loved Tsawwassen and lived in that house for a little over 50 years. He had many great friends in Tsawwassen and on 7B—as one of the signs he made said “things are better on 7B.” He deeply needed to be around people—but preferably only for about 15 minutes so he could then get back to whatever it was he was working on; this phenomenon came to be known as Wayne’s 15 Minute Cafe.

He treated his home itself like a work of art and both the house and yard were constantly evolving; his house, inside and out, was the natural environment for his countless sculptures, paintings, signs and collectibles.

Over the decades, many, many friends sojourned at his house for various lengths of time and eventually this guest house aspect of his home was dubbed The Whimpering Pines.

His other great passion was playing the guitar, mostly oldies. He played pretty much every day as far back as anyone can remember and as many old photos of him as a young man attest.

His retirement freed him up to be even more creative as he got to experiment with new forms: reproducing his favourite famous paintings, working with wood, sign making and so on. In different media he reproduced everything from Picasso paintings to comic strips.

In retirement he also spent more time on his yard, which was always changing as he removed one shrub here and planted a new tree there, turned grass into garden and garden into grass, rotated the art on display in the yard and the windows.

In his last moments he was still cracking jokes and one of the very last things he said was “be happy,” which was the great motif of his life and art and song.