Village Squire, 1978-12, Page 18north from Clinton. He tried odd jobs before becoming involved
in carpentry. Later the couple decided they didn't enjoy life in
the Owen Sound area so they moved to Wroxeter after Linda was
offered a job as a lab technician at Wingham and District
Hospital. •
His interest in art was revived in about 1970, he says and in
the last two or three years "it's been an interior battle wanting to
paint and having to make money." Finally health problems went
together with that desire to work at what he was best at led him
to give up his job and turn to art full time.
He painted steadily for about three and a half months but the
economic pressures became strong so the couple decided to open
the shop to try to pick up some additional funds to pay the bills.
Everything in the shop is made in Western Ontario. Besides
his own paintings and pastels there is art works from Sam Bondi
of Wingham and sketches and seriographs from Bill Johnson of
London.
There are unique chinchilla corsages made by Mrs. 1.
Coneybeare of R.R.2. Listowel, polished stone belt buckles from
a Wallenstein man and crafts from many, others, particularly
from the Listowel area. A big item at the Studio is locally -made
quilts and a wide selection lines the staircase in the front hall
which serves as part of the studio. Another unique item in the
shop is hand -made models of old-time farm machinery made by
Linda's father, Robert Miller of Collingwood.
Aside from his own work and some craftt made by Linda all
the other stock in the studio is accepted on consignment.
There wasn't a lot of pl#nning that went into the shop. They
decided to go ahead in August and opened in September. They
placed advertisements inviting craftsmen and artists to bring in
articles in the local newspapers and soon had a good stock on
hand. About 20 people have worked in the shop on consignment.
Maurice says he would like to have more art in the shop but
"the people who make crafts they don't hesitate to bring them
in. A lot of them are used to this business of consignment and
they've sold at craft. shows but the artwork, the people who are
very interested in it but haven't gone commercial, don't depend
on it for a living, most of them are very hesitant to bring their
work to somebody who might criticize it because they're not sure
about themselves. They don't know enough about the other ^rt
work that's being done to be able to say 'Now my work is good'.
Maybe they don't have a lot of formal training. Well 1 haven't
either."
His formal art training comprises only a couple of night school
courses but he says he doesn't think formal training is really
necessary. "If you want to do it, nobody's really going to stop
you."
There are many successful artists, he says who have little
formal education and they don't need it. What a good education
in art school gives you, he says is a wide basic background which
can lead an artist to flexibility. Many "untrained" artists may
narrow their range to concentrate on a specific form of art and
become excellent at it without having equal skills in other areas.
Education is more than just a formal training however and
Maurice has worked at gaining as much knowledge as possible.
"I read every book I could get my hands on. It's kind of hard
around here. 1 exhausted the Wingham Library art department
in about two visits. You can learn a lot from observation if you're
actively involved in art. Unless you're painting fairlysteadily you
can look at someone else's work and it doesn't really help you.
Unless you're experiencing problems in your own work and then
you're looking for certain things saying 'How did he solve that
problem.' Once you've painted a fair amount you can look at a
painting and tell how it was painted: what was the under coat,
what did he lay in first, what form of composition did he use and
so on."
He says he tries to learn from everybody's style. There are
many different styles he says but you can still learn from all of
them. He admires the work of realists like Ken Danby saying he
can really appreciate the amount of work that went into the
finished piece.
His own work covers a wide variety of styles from abstracts to
16 Village Squire, December 1978
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