Which direction do I go?
So, I will be going through the main points of my “Art
Talk” for July 17 at the Altona Gallery in the Park. Yesterday morning was the introduction.
The next point has to do with my background.
I grew up on a small mixed farm in a Mennonite
Brethren country church community in Saskatchewan. For an Altona audience, that’s
like letting the cat out of the bag. They will know a lot about me just with
that one sentence, so I will leave it at that.
As a child I Knew I was artistic and that I had some
kind of artistic talent for a few basic reasons. First, my parents used me as “parlor
entertainment” for guests in our home. Often, at some point of the visit I
would be asked to draw a horse or a dog or some other farm animal, on the
blackboard we had on the wall in our farm home. Then I would receive comments
of admiration and observations that I was “good with my hands” and someday I
would be a “finish carpenter” making furniture or kitchen cabinets and such.
Also, the teachers at one-room-school (grades 1 - 8) I attended had me draw Christmas decorations on all the blackboards for the
public Christmas concert that was put on for the community every year. This
consisted of Santa and reindeer scenes, elves, candles and ivy all done with colored
chalk.
If my grades began to falter, my parents would look
at my scribblers for they had learned that the more I drew, sketched or doodled
the lower my grades got. I was “encouraged” not to doodle for the sake of my
grades!
The attitude towards art and artists in the
community I grew up in was very negative. Mennonites had a “be separate from
the world” philosophy, and at that time (because of what they had historically separated
themselves from) considered art a very “worldly” activity. Therefore I grew up in a complete vacuum regarding
art. There was no encouragement, no mentoring, no examples or history being
shared of artists who were actually doing art. The only talk regarding art and
artists was of a negative nature and the less said the better.
I have come to understand the huge counter cultural “risk”
my parents took in showing off my gift and encouraging celebration of that in
our home, even in this small way. They must have been very torn, living in a
community that held all art/artists suspect and yet seeing the gift in one of
their children. They never spoke if it to me. But, that conflict went with me
as I tried to find my way in the world.
This conflict summarized my working career. Every
once in a while I would dabble with painting, but since I had a wife and family
could not do the “starving artist” thing. It did not really matter what
position I’d been hired for, (which was never as an artist) I also became the resident
artist designing, illustrating and cartooning for the company or ministry I
was employed at. Now and again I even did some illustrative work commercially. So
I lived with this frustrating double world. To deal with the guilt of not using
my “gift” I promised myself that when I retired, I would get into this art
thing, maybe even take some university courses.
Did I want to
learn to fly? Yes and no, as during all these productive years I
was confused and not even sure of my gift. I knew I had something but I had no direction
or confidence in the gift. I had only done art by assignment and so had no idea
about expressing personal feelings and emotions. Possibly "confused ambivalence" is the best description. But, I was looking forward to retirement with
anticipation, if for no other reason than because of the guilt I felt.
“I will cry to
God Most High, who performs on my behalf and rewards me, [Who brings to pass
His purposes for me and surely completes them]” Psalm 57:2
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