Village Squire, 1974-06, Page 49Among the exhibits in Jim Marlatt's Green Gallery is this work by Doris McDougall of Bayfield.
and in many centres between the capital and
his home town.
He had just returned from a selling trip
across the province when Village Squire
spoke with him. It is important he says to get
his product into the stores before the summer
rush begins. Once the rush is on, the shop
keepers don't even have the time to see him.
.He's relaxing a bit more now, the
salesman in him beginning to disappear for
another summer and the artist to take over
again.
As an artist, he says, he finds Huron county
a great place to live. There is so much variety
for the landscape painter: the seascapes of
Lake Huron, the landscapes of the rolling
farm lard, the townscapes of the towns and
villages. He likes the architecture of the area
and because of this is very interested in
preservation of old buildings. He says he can
really sympathize with local people who have
fixed up old log cabins to live in or have
restored old farm homes.
"I sense a new pride in people about things
like owning a century farm" he says. "It's
kind of a reassuring thing," he says. "One
doec--'t have to be quite as alarmed as in
some places I have formerly lived about the
distruction of unique buildings and homes."
"I think this accounts in a Targe part for
whatever success I've had with my prints in
that not only are they interesting to local
people but they are of interest to people who
come from other parts of Ontario. Invariably
as I travel around getting my prints in various
shops someone will say, 'Oh, that looks like
the store down in..' and they'll name the
store in some local village down the road.
ANd I hope that even that little bit of
discussion that goes on is enough to reinforce
their own concern to preserve their own
environment.
He equates his kind of art with the best of
country and western music in the music field,
and type of folk art.
"I suppose the work that Gordon Deurn is
doing and that I'm doing and that Peter
Schneider up i. the Kitchener -Waterloo area
is doing and a few others could be classed as
-omething of -a rural art: an attempt to
celebrate, to illustrate and to preserve if by no
other way something permanently on
paper...an old school, or a feed mill or a store
that's unique...sort of the town and village
life of the past."
This theme, he says, could be carried more
into life on the farm itself. Machinery still
fascinates him, he says but he is beginning to
be attracted more and more to the beautiful
pastoral landscapes of the area just inland
from the lake.
"Driving through the countryside and
seeing beautiful brown cattle out in the lush
green fields and the blue sky and the woods
just beginning to break out in colour and I'm
saying 'you know I've been looking at this off
and on for 30 oi- 40 years of my life and just
sort of taking it for granted!" Sooner or later,
he says he thinks he'll start getting into more
farm scenes.
But just this recognition of the beauty of
the country he says, has helped him as a
suburban native to realize that farming is
really the backbone of the whole society. The
city dweller and •suburbanite takes so much
for granted, he says. All they see is office
buildings, apartment buildings and houses
and they don't realize that 90 per cent of
VILLAGE SQUIRE/JUNE 1974, 11