Village Squire, 1973-05, Page 22The smell of oil paint will disappear
from 9 Waterloo Street on May 29. The
makeshift wooden tables and shelves will
be dismantled by then and taken away.
And a going away with them will be a
large number of cardboard boxes that will
brighten the stay of many people in Huron
6 ounty's hospitals in the years to came.
Nine Waterloo Street in Goderich has
been an art factory for the last five mon-
ths. There artists Jim Agarlatt and Ernie
Niblock and a number of assistants have
been working full time at reproducing
Huron county on canvas.
They have been working under a
$10,000 Local Initiatives Project grant
from the federal government to produce
paintings about Huron county to dec-
orate hospitals in the county. The
project began in January when thee-
rented the former Goderich Business
College location in Goderich with two
assistants. It took two weeks to prepare
the building, to build the tables and
shelves required for producing prints
through the silk screen process. Mr.
Niblock had had previous experience
with silk screen work and it was he who
directed this side of the project. The
only other member of the original staff
who was left at the end was Jerry Huck -
ins who looked after carpentry and fram-
ing and helped with the printing opera-
tion.
Several others worked at one time or
another on the project, but as the pro-
ject ended the only persons invloved
besides the original three were Shelley
Linner, a third year honours math stud-
ent from University of Waterloo and
Claudia Elliott, a third year fine arts
student from Guelph University. Shelley,
who came originally from A•anitoba but
has lived in Goderich for nine years,
has handled bookkeeping and general
work while Claudia, who hails origin -
'ally from London but moved to God-
erich five years ago, has been painting.
Jim tv+arlatt feels Claudia has exce-
ptional talent. The former member of
the Goderich District Collegiate Instit-
ute art club has been specializing in
scenes from pioneer life in Huron since
she joined the program at the end of
April. She has done portraits of men
like John Galt, and shows a keen eye
for portraying people in her paintings.
The group has been producing silk
screen prints of their own and original
oil paintings, most in a 24 by 30 inch-
es with some 19 by 24 inches. They
show everything from an old bridge
on the lviaitland River south of Auburn
known as Ball's fridge to a church in
Seaforth to a painting of Goderich har-
bour taken from an old photography
circa 1860 to a modern silk screen
print of bright flowers.
The paintings will be placed in the
hospitals in Wingham, Goderich, Cli-
nton, Seaforth and Exeter through the
women's Auxiliaries at each hospital.
The group had hoped to be able to
frame each of the paintings before they
presented them to the hospitals but
when their grant was lower than they
had hoped for, they were forced to fo-
rego this part of their plans. Instead
the auxiliaries will likely do the fram-
Shelley Linner packs one of Claudia Elliott's paintings of
pioneer scenes for shipment to a hospital.
ing and will take care of the paintings
which will be placed in the hospitals.
tviarlatt feels a rotation will likely
be set up among the hospitals in the
future whereby the paintings will be
switched so that every hospital would
have every painting at one time or
another.
The historical buildings theme exhi-
bited in paintings such as one of the
VanEgmond homestead in Seaforth, is
one which could have been gone into
in much more depth, Mr. Marlatt feels.
If there had been more time, he said,
the group could have done historical
buildings in each town. But when you
produce 38 original oil paintings and
120 silk screen prints in a period of
five months, you don't have the time
to delve into some areas as deeply as
might be. Mr. Marlatt feels this might
be a passible future project for some
talented artists in Huron.
You may recognize some of the scenes
when you see they.
"We had right from the start a set
policy that we were going to paint in a
realistic way, that there would not be
any impressionist abstract paintings
produced." Mr. Marlatt says. "The
main reason, is that the majority of
people in a hospital want to look at
something they can identify with."
The majority of those in hosp ita 1, he
says are older and the artists tried to
cater to their tastes with life -like land-
scapes and still lifes.
"If this was a project where we were
providing art for the more general public
I think we would have incorporated some
more abstract work," he said.
The artists had many of the ideas for
what they wanted to paint before the
project began, and some of the ideas
came right out of their heads such as
the interior of a window in an old barn
with some antiques owned by Mr. Nib -
lock on the sill. They tried to put var-
iety into the paintings, some from
towns and some from the farm and some
still life.
One of the problems the group ran
into was the lack of space when it
came to their silk screening work. The
fumes from the lacquer and other
chemicals make it impossible to work
in a place without proper ventilation.
One young woman who worked on the
project had to quit because of the fumes.
The problem of carrying out this sort
of project under an LIP grant, Mr. Mar-
latt says, is that the structure of the
grant doesn't take into account the cost
of materials needed to carry out the
project. The grant allows $17 per person
per week for materials. This was quickly
eaten up in paints, and other materials
and left lettle for framing the finished
works. Rent alone on the building was
$60 per month, although they convinced
the landlord to swap the last month's
rent for a painting.
Mr. Marlatt says the group approached
local government officials with the hope
23