She has lead a colorful life. In 62 years, Guerneville resident Boschka Layton has had a full-time career as a painter, editor, graphic designer, mother and writer. Her first book, The Prodigal Sun, reflects a style as diverse as her life. The Prodigal Sun, a collection of prose, poetry and drawings by Layton, has been released in the US, Canada, and abroad, and was published by Mozaic Press, Toronto.
Winner of the Santa Rosa Junior College’s Fred Mannelli award for creative writing, Ontario Arts Council grant recipient, and Canada Council grant applicant, Layton wrote her first novel at the age of six. At seven, her second novel appeared, containing controversy all material—a how-to book for South Sea Islanders on the assembly of cod pieces—which was promptly confiscated and burned by her grandmother. She gave up writing for the next 40 years and became a painter, establishing herself in Montréal, and later, in California.
Born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Layton, Boschka, then Betty Sutherland, spent the next 12 years traveling across Canada with her family. She later studied art at a vocational school, St. John’s, in New Brunswick.
Layton remembers the moment when she first became interested in art. Her brother John was sitting at the kitchen table trying to draw an apple. In the process of helping him, Layton became caught up in the process. John, who was an invalid, gave up art and took up writing, Betty became an artist.
In Montréal, John (Jamie) founded an avant garde literary magazine, entitled First Statement, which merged with another periodical to become the illustrious Northern Review. Layton was in charge of book design.
In 1941, she met an unknown writer who wanted to publish his work. Three days later they were madly in love. She married poet Irving Layton after the birth of their son. Their tempestuous relationship lasted nearly 20 years and produced two children, Max and Naomi.
Irving went on to become Canada’s premier poet, receiving numerous awards and grants while Betty continued designing his books, and painting. She said, “I painted all my life. I didn’t stop painting—even when I had my kids.”
Tired of Irving's megalomania, Betty finally left him, smuggling young Naomi out of Canada with an underground passport, but she had to leave her son Max, behind. In Canada, a child can’t obtain a passport without both parents’ signatures and Irving wouldn’t sign.
Arriving in San Francisco, and unable to find work in the publishing business, Layton resorted to menial jobs at department stores, restaurants, and a stint in the domestic services. She reminisces, “being a charwoman scrubbing floors for an old lady was rock-bottom.”
Betty took up an itinerant life with a man named Price, and the three of them traveled all over the US, living a few weeks in one town or another, while Price looked for work. Wanting stability, somehow, she was able to buy a small cabin on the Big Sur coast. And settled down. But Price was a wanderlust. Layton, fed up with Price's unsuccessful attempts searching for work, eventually sold her house in Big Sur, and left for India with her daughter in tow.
Layton lived in India for two years. “India changed my whole life,” she said. “It centered me. For the first time I began to write. Obviously, I couldn’t write while I was with Irving. He was the writer and I was the painter.” She added, “I became my own person, an individual. I suddenly knew who I was.”
After Price, she never lived with a man again. “I’m not saying a woman can’t paint or write and live with the man at the same time, but for me, that’s when the change occurred.” She added, “I began to concentrate on my own work. At the age of 50, it was about time.”
Layton settled in Sonoma County in 1971, but continues to make yearly so sojourns to visit her father in Nova Scotia. She said, “I started young, traveling across the continent. In my work I’m always trying to bring the two coasts together. ”
Although she signs her paintings with her maiden name, Sutherland, Layton retained her married name for writing. When she married Irving, she had to convert to Judism. She said that Bashka was a Russian Jewish diminutive of Betty, and the spelling of Boschka was taken from the painter Bosch. (The “ka” meaning little Bosch.)
When I asked Boschka why she didn’t take back her maiden name, she said, “My half brother Donnie was becoming well-known as an actor, and I didn’t want to be smothered by that association.”
Donald Sutherland made his first big break in The Dirty Dozen, and starred in several movies such as M*A*S*H, Klute, Day of the Locust, and the Academy award-winning Ordinary People.
Layton, reminiscing about her famous half-brother, said “Donnie was the most extraordinary child. I remember when he was three years old and a beautiful woman came to visit. He came running out across the lawn without a stitch on and presented himself to her at her feet.”
In in her writing, Layton draws heavily from her life. She has one semi-autobiographical novel finished, another 3/4 completed. Her poems and short stories have appeared in several local publications including First Leaves, Sonoma Mandala, the Sonoma County Stump, and The Red Book.
As far as future prospects go, Layton said, “I’d like to get a novel out, some poems, and a book of short stories so I can go on writing.” She concluded, “sending stuff out is the worst part of it. It takes up too much time. I think I need an agent.”
A longer version of this article first appeared in The Paper, a Russian River weekly. Guerneville Poet Boschka Layton to Read at Copperfield's Books Jan 10.
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