Helen Gameroff, 93, has always loved to draw and paint She has created artworks in traditional and impressionistic styles, using a variety of techniques and materials – watercolours, oil, silk-screening, shells and fabric.

Helen Gameroff began her lifelong vocation as an artist in her public school days.

Now a resident of The Terrace at Baycrest, Gameroff’s apartment is a gallery of her works that extends into the hallway.

“My mother could do so many things,” says Myrna Schwartz, Gameroff’s daughter, who was visiting her mother during the interview with The Canadian Jewish News.

“Along with her many artistic ventures, my mother entertained without using a caterer, she made all the curtains and drapes in the house, and she even made us very stylish clothing,” Schwartz says.

Gameroff (née Josefo) was born in Montreal and moved to Toronto from Montreal three years ago.

“When I was in public school, I was always the best artist,” says the sprightly Gameroff.

She took courses at École des Beaux-Arts, graduated from MacDonald Teachers College and taught at Mount Royal Public School.

As a teenager during the Depression, she made Christmas cards and sold them to her neighbours. “I would also knock on the doors of businesses and stores to see if they needed any posters. I loved to see my posters in the store windows,” she says.

After her marriage to Louis Gameroff, she continued taking art lessons and participated in class exhibitions. Her husband operated a men’s clothing store in Lachine, Que., and while she was raising her three children, she continued painting and expanded into other areas of the arts.

“I had very good handwriting skills, and I began to do calligraphy commercially, creating invitations, seating cards and posters for large parties and simchahs,” Gameroff says.

“One of my assignments was to do the invitations for former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s daughter’s wedding and many other prestigious events. But, although I was very busy with calligraphy, I always continued painting.”

She has sold some of her works, but says she would rather give them to the members of her family or donate them to charity fundraising events.

She loved living in Montreal, but she was getting lonely there since her daughter Rosalind Belitsky, lives in Halifax, Myrna is in Whitby, Ont., and her son, Douglas, lives in Toronto.” Gameroff has six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

When she moved to The Terrace, Gameroff says she “had to do something artistic. I got involved with flower pressing, and I create colourful bookmarks, cards and placemats.”

She says watercolour painting is still her first love, but she doesn’t have enough space in her apartment to paint there.

Gameroff  participates in many activities at The Terrace and is a volunteer remedial reading teacher at a local school.