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ABOUT MYSELF...
I'm too much of an iconoclast to follow tradition so rather than present a formal biography complete with an esoteric artists's statement, the following are purely answers to the questions most frequently asked of me and they in themselves should paint a fairly good picture, which is exactly what I try to do. WHERE DO I COME FROM? Originally, New Brunswick. Born in Campbellton but corrupted in Edmundston. I have also lived in Newcastle, Fredericton, Lunenburg, Bobcaygeon, Oshawa, Toronto, Kitchener, Banff, Edgewater, and Victoria. It's hard to keep ahead of creditors... WHERE HAVE I STUDIED? When I was very young I learned to make popsicle stick lamps from some nuns in Edmundston. I haven't made anything out of them since. Later I studied under an incredible water colourist by the name of Claude Picard also from Edmundston. I was too young to learn much other than how to daub leftover oil paint on a wine bottle at the end of the day. I thought that was really cool then, I don't now. I'd rather get the dime back. After high school I studied graphic design at both Durham College in Oshawa and Conestoga College in Kitchener. Somewhere after that I squelched all traces of my creativity by studying engineering but soon forgot it all and got my self back on track. What all this amounts to is that I'm pretty well self taught when it comes to fine art and completely so with regard to silkscreening. HAVE I BEEN PAINTING A LONG TIME? I was in my first show when I was 5 years old and have been painting off and on since, until dedicating myself to art full time in 1988. During the years following I have produced 55 editions of hand printed serigraphs (silkscreen prints), most of which, I am proud to say, are sold out. These serigraphs and my originals have attracted an enormous amount of attention and a dedicated following that goes beyond the borders of Canada. WHAT KIND OF PAINT AM I USING? The paints I use are called gouache. (pronounced "gwash", as in "g'wash yer hands before dinner") They are made of high quality, lightfast, concentrated pigment dissolved in a water base, much like a thick watercolour. However, they differ from watercolour in that gouache is not generally used in the form of a thin 'wash' but rather used 'full strength', drying with very chalky, rich, vibrant colours. Gouache literally translated from french means tempera, which is a german word. These two are sometimes confused but the difference is that tempera has it's pigment dissolved in egg yolk rather than water. Ken Danby uses egg tempera. I'd rather eat the eggs, poached would be fine. WHAT ARE SERIGRAPHS? Serigraphs are silkscreen prints. The word serigraph comes from "seri" meaning silk, much like the East Indian silk garment , the Sari. "Graph" means to draw, hence: drawing with silk. In it's simplest form, one colour is printed on each of the prints in the edition, then using another silkscreen for the next colour, a second area is printed and so on until all the desired colours have been done. These images are hand printed by myself and some prints have required as many as 28 colours. It is a long, laborious, finicky, temperamental, physically demanding process that is conducted in a cloud of brain melting toxic vapours. Now I know why they invented printing presses. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO PAINT A PAINTING? This is never a straight forward question to answer. The actual painting may take a week or a month or more depending on size and complexity. However, long before beginning, I will have spent a great deal of time outdoors shooting reference photos in the hope of getting just the right one that I can use. This is very time consuming but also a supremely pleasurable part of the whole process. Add to this 40 years of practice, study, research and experimentation in both art and the craft of making art and it amounts to a lot of time. WHAT DID I DO BEFORE I BECAME A FULL TIME PREFESSIONAL ARTIST? The short answer; a lot of things. The long answer is that I've done most everything from being a janitor to publisher of my own paper. Beyond and in between I've worked in construction, driven cabs and trucks, cooked pizzas and flipped burgers. I've been an art director, a DJ for a pirate FM station and the chef of a pub/restaurant. I've played guitar on a country CD (jazz would have been my preference), collected unemployment, worked as a bindery person as well as a pressman, laid out newspapers and printed them. I've painted signs, airbrushed cars, motorcycles and vans, designed logos, record labels and billboards, chased women, drank a lot, and many other things which I have intentionally forgotten. Makes for an awful resume, that's why I'm an artist. WHERE DO I GET MY REFERENCE WORK? I have always had a never ending passion for the great Canadian outdoors, and in an effort to both experience it and capture it in paintings, I have managed to make time to canoe every lake, river and stream that I could find, wipe out in rapids, raft through perilous river chasms, hike up mountains and when there was a road, drive to the top of other ones. I've camped in every season in places as diverse as the wide open prairies, the pacific sea coast, the rocky Canadian Shield and the barren High Country, better known as Grizzly Territory. I've run into bears, run away from skunks, been chased by bulls, buffalo and elk, been bitten by ugly spiders, attacked by angry hawks and sniffed by a curious cougar, and, I've enjoyed them all, except the bull and the buffalo, especially the buffalo. I've tried to explore every old path and logging road I've ever seen and met the most interesting and incredible characters in the middle of nowhere from boneheads to book authors. However, most importantly, I've had the chance to see a lot of this great country from every angle. I've painted images from most of the provinces, the Northwest Territories as well as the Yukon. (After driving up the Alaska Highway with a drywall screw in my tire.) GROUP AND SOLOS SHOWS Webster Galleries Calgary Alberta - Miscellaneous group shows held annually including Christmas shows, The art of Serigraphy, Art at the Top (Calgary Tower) etc. 1989 to present. Jerry Arnold Gallery Lethbridge Alberta 1994 Webster Galleries Calgary Alberta Nov 1994 Unique Gallery Grand Prairie Alberta 1993 Glenbow Museum Calgary Alberta Artlotto Jan 1993 Webster Galleries Calgary Alberta Nov 1992 Webster Galleries Yellowknife N.W.T Dec 1991 Webster Galleries Yellowknife N.W.T. Dec 1990 The Gallery Banff Alberta May 1989 Canmore Artists & Artisans Guild Annual Community Show Canmore Alberta Sep 1988 CORPORATE COLLECTIONS AGT Limited Alberta Art Foundation Alberta Cattle Association Alberta Treasury Branches Alberta Wheat Pool Banff Mineral Springs Hospital Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Dunlop Canada Esso Resources Holy Cross Hospital Inverness Petroleum Parks Canada Revenue Canada Senator Patrick Burns Family Shelter Webster Galleries Inc. ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVING DONATIONS Akiva Jewish Academy Alberta Ballet Banff Public Library Calgary Food Bank Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter Children's Wish Foundation Glenbow Museum Art Lotto Theatre Calgary Western Canada Wilderness Committee |
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NEW! In the Gallery
