Murray Bridge artist juggles her two great loves
Ursula Kaehne has painted 31 pictures since August and exhibited them all at Warner Close Retirement Living on Friday.
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Murray Bridge artist Ursula Kaehne stopped painting 10 years ago to focus on love, but she’s made up for lost time, producing 31 pictures since August and exhibiting them at Warner Close Retirement Living.
Ms Kaehne had worked in an art gallery and painted watercolours in Queensland for 15 years before going on a river cruise 10 years ago that changed the course of her life.
On the Murray Princess cruise on the River Murray, Ursula met the captain, and she joked that it was “love at first bite”.
Captain Allan “Alby” Kaehne described that initial meeting on the Murray Princess.
“The Captain’s Night it was, and I’d finished dinner and everything, and I was sitting at the bar, having a quiet drink, talking to the barman Gary,” he said.
“The next thing, Ursula comes and sits alongside me; she looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘I’m going to marry you.’
“And I said, ‘I’m not the marrying kind.’
“She said, ‘We’ll see.’
“And Gary the barman went, ‘Patush is kaput,’ and I just said, ‘You just shut up.’”
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Gary was right – Patush was indeed kaput, and Ursula and Alby married.
Ms Kaehne was so smitten that she neglected her other great love: painting.
“I didn’t paint for at least six years,” she said.
“I was more interested in Alby, like a teenager.”
After six years, Ms Kaehne was inspired to paint a tunnel near Mount Barker, and once again her painting became important to her.
Ms Kaehne now produces paintings at a staggering pace.
Since painting everyday since August, she’s produced 31 new paintings with themes such as flowers, European scenes, local landscapes and buildings and even the iconic bridges at Murray Bridge.
It typically takes Ms Kaehne two to three days to produce a painting, but sometimes this is fast-tracked.
“The one of my dog, my poodle, I did in one hour,” she said.
“I talked to my girlfriend in Queensland, and while we talked, I painted and finished it.”
The Kaehnes have settled into a routine that allows Ms Kaehne to paint while her husband tinkers away on his model trains.
“We’ve got a beautiful barbecue area out the back of our house, and there’s plants and gardens all the way around it, and she sits down and starts painting,” Mr Kaehne said.
“I’ll go into my games room – I’ve got a big model train set, and I’ll walk out now and then and just see how she’s going.
“She says, ‘How does it look?’”
Ms Kaehne agreed that their lifestyle suits both of them, and they are still happy together.
“He’s busy and I’m busy, so we get on well,” she joked.
