Village Squire, 1973-06, Page 8This gallery
just
needs
people
Guenther Heim m ith some of his paintings.
Wingham, has always been an unusual
town.
What other town can you name that
has a population of 3000 persons, a
radio station and a television station?
What other town can you think of of
similar size that has a professional art
gallery?
Well, technically, the art gallery
isn't in Wingham, it's a mile or so out
of town to the north and east. But the
gallery is real, and it's professional.
You'll find no big pillars of stone
holding up vast edifaces at this gallery
if you drive up Highway 4 north of
Wingham and take the first concession
right. The Heim Gallery is a modest
building. In fact the owner, Guenther
Heim says the building is a temporary
one and if people show interest, a
permanent building will be built in
a few years.
But for those interested in art, the
important part of the building is inside
where the works of 11 different Ontario
artists are on display every day. All
are professionals. They range from
Susan Bell, a Goderich native who
sculpts to painters Tony Lee, an:instru-
ctor at Fanshawe college; Bruce Smith,
an instructor at Georgian college; Ken
Hansen from Weston who does beautiful
watercolours; Tilda Peterson of London;
Ken Jackson who works for CFPL London;
Doris Murray of London; Dwayne Fenwick
of Owen Sound; Bonnie Steinman of
Wroxeter and Mike Eush head of the
graphic arts department at Fanshawe
college. And of course, the works of
Guenther Heim himself.
The gallery is unique in many ways.
It Ls a commercial gallery in that the
paintings on display are for sale. Yet,
Mr. Heim wants to run the gallery Hke
a public gallery with the public welcome,
indeed urged to come.
8
In the year and a half the gallery has
been open, attendance has not been high.
Some weekends five or six people mill
come. Some weeks none will come.
Sometimes there may be 25 or 30 people
present.
"One of the problems with a gallery is
that as soon as you call something an
art gallery people get frightened. What
we're trying to do is to make this a
place where people can walk in and feel
comfortable. We're not selling people.
Sure we'd like people to buy, but that's
not the point. The point is that it's
here and feel free to drop in. It's their
gallery, it's open for them.
"I'd like," he says, "to eliminate the
stigma that's been attached to the public
galleries, you know, the high brow stuff.
This is for the people to come in and
look around. You don't have to know
anything about art to appreciate art.
"Some people will enjoy some work.
Not all people will enjoy all the work
here. That's not the point.
"If something turns someone on so
much they'd like to buy it, that's the
reward we get; not just the financial
reward but the reward of knowing that
our work is accepted.
"This is a professional gallery", he
says. "Everyone here is an established
artist. But it is not expensive art. It
is not an exclusive art. it's good art
but not expensive.
Sales, although a problem when the
gallery first opened, are not a problem
of major proportions now. Mr. Heim
leafs through a card index and pulls
out a bundle of cards representing
paintings sold. He counts them and
says these cards represent the sale of
paintings of one artist, 17 paintings,
some in the $500 and $1000 range.
"We've sold a lot of work in the
last two months" he says. "Of my own
works, I've sold 11 pieces in a four-
week period which is quite significant."
People come from Toronto, Kitchener
and London, but I'd like to see more
support from the local people.
"Local people make up only about
50 per cent of the visitors, by local
I mean Hanover, Walkerton etc. We've
had a reasonably good response but I
feel we need an awful lot more support
in order to have this place here for the
people. We have it on the period of
three, maybe four years trial, and if
we don't feel by then it can go, then
we'll have to give up the idea.
"If they support us with attendance
and enough sales to make it financia-
lly possible to carry on, we'll put up
a permanent building."
Mr. Heim thinks he may be stupid
to be trying to run an art gallery in
a rural area, that he may be stupid
Just to try to make a living as an artist
in a rural area.
"We've made a few mistakes with
the gallery,' he says. "We've had a
lot of serious work here that is too far
removed from most people's taste and
comprehension. It's something that
always happens with serious artists. We
are trying to look ahead, we're advan-
ced in our thinking, that's why we are
artists.
"We have to go forward, we can't
go back in time. It always takes a
while for the public to catch on and
the taste sort of changes in time.
"But now we have a mixture of
things or traditional work and some
of the serious I ork for people who
want it. And we have people who won't
even look at a landscape. They'll go
straight to Bruce Smith's work and say
'That's beautiful.' But we have a lot
of people who come in and look at