Village Squire, 1976-10, Page 6makes a mechanically accurate drawing of what he wants to paint
that is chalked on the back, then traced onto the board. Then the
painting begins.
When he first began, he recalls, he tended to paint over the
whole background but gradually, he developed the technique of
letting the wood play a more important part in the overall effect.
Today, the muted tones of the paintings subjects simply blend
into the weathered grain of the wood at the edges of the image.
He tries, he says, "to utilize the natural properties of nature's
canvas to constitute a meaningfpl experience that is a natural and
simple and is an artistic answer to a society that is synthetic and
complex." He tries, he says, to paint for the average man. "I
want everybody to understand what I do."
Some people have intimated to him that barnboard painting is
just a passing fad, and it has obviously hurt him.
"If the only redeeming factor of my work was that it was
painted on wood," he says, "then it might be." But he says he is
obsessed by painting on wood, that he loves it, and that he has to
make a total commitment to painting on wood as he does. Since
he really became interested in barnboard painting he has given
up all other forms of painting.
Some think barnboard painting is part of a nostalgia boom and
will fade and be gone. "But basically," he says, "I paint today.
I believe wood is as legitimate as any other surface."
And, he says, as proof that his work is not a passing fad, the
reaction to his work today is as good as it was when he began
producing it. People who have bought his paintings come back for
more. Proof to him also comes in the fact that people come from
the United States, they've never seen anything like it. People at
the Toronto television station hadn't either.
In barnboard painting, he says, he thinks he has found himself
as an artist, and that is where he is going to stay. Now the job is
to produce work and promote it. That is why he has tried to get as
much publicity as possible and that is why he's written and
produced a series of television commercials to promote the sale of
his paintings. It's also why he is very careful of where his
paintings go when he sells them. At this stage of his career, he
says he has to get maximum mileage out of each painting. It
. would be a shame he says, if one of his paintings was sitting in a
near empty room with hardly anyone see it. It would, he says, be
like playing an organ, or singing in a room with no one to hear.
More and more, he's depending on selling directly to buyers.
He has two outlets still, one in Windsor at The Carriage Shop and
one in Blyth at The Kitchen Cupboard, but other than these he is
concentrating on the advertising program that brings people
right to his home to buy. And, despite his wide publicity, he's
concentrating on western Ontario people as his biggest potential
audience.
He finds its much more meaningful if buyers can talk directly
with the artist and he enjoys meeting the buyers.
Looking back, he has seen real development in his work. His
early work was as good as he could do at the time, he says, so he
is not ashamed of it, but it does not compare favourably with his
present work. In a way, some of his earlier disappointments have
become blessings. He wanted very badly for instance, to have a
national magazine article done on his work but it didn't come to
be. Now, he says, he's happy it didn't because it would have been
a once in a lifetime proposal and his work just wasn't ready for it.
He'd sooner have such publicity sometime in the future, he said,
when an art critic could look at the article and get a true picture of
the potential of barnboard.
Some people might think his quest for ppblicity is an ego-trip
but to him it's part of the job of trying to build a career. So many
people, he says, work within the context of a 9 to 5 job with the
security of working for someone else. There is progress and
promotion inherent in the job. But as an artist, the average
person is his employee. Progress and promotion come only by
becoming more recognized by the average person who become
interested in and buys his work.
Despite his outward confidence, he's a sensitive and even
philosophical man who is striving not only to build a career doing
what he wants, but to prove the worth of barnboard painting to an
often skeptical art world. Whether or not he ever convinces other
artists that what he is doing is important, he's building ever
larger following among the common people who buy and love his
work.
4, VILLAGE SQUIRE/OCTOBER 1976
The Arbor
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