Teachers and Mentors

As a painter I tend to describe myself as self-taught, but in doing so I do not mean to suggest that I have been completely without the benefit of teachers and mentors. Indeed, there are three people whose lives and works have significantly influenced my development as an artist.  These three people are Helen Douglas and Joseph Plaskett in New Westminster, British Columbia, in the 1940s and 1950s and Steve Repa (1937-1989) in Brandon and Winnipeg in the 1960s.

When I was in Grade VII at Lister Junior High School in New Westminster, British Columbia, Helen Douglas taught me the rudiments of drawing, but I mostly credit her with “teaching me to see”; i.e. to use my eyes to more consciously apprehend the world around me. During my Grade VIII year Helen had me working solo on a small pastel winter scene mural as well as my regular class work.   By my Grade IX year Helen and I had become friends and we remained so for many years.  We

corresponded after I moved to Manitoba and I made a point of visiting her when I was in B.C. In 1966 Helen bought two paintings from my Simon Fraser University exhibition and in 1978 she made me a gift of a casein self-portrait (pictured here). It was done with pallet knife, a technique characteristic of her work—mostly landscape—as I knew it.  The last letter I had from Helen was dated January, 1981. I did not hear from her after that and presumed that she had died.  I had no confirmation of that,  however, until January 2004 when her nephew, Jim Douglas, contacted me after a search of her name brought up my web site.  Jim informed me that Helen fell victim to Alzheimer’s in the early 1980s and died at age 89 in 1992.  Jim and I have since collaborated on the writing of a brief biography of Helen and have supplied it (and some photographs of some of her paintings) to the National Gallery of Canada.   I wish to honor her memory here. She was ever generous towards me and supportive of my work.

I continued to study art in Senior High School but my teacher had no special training and the classes were rather unsatisfactory. It was therefore fortuitous that I met Joseph Plaskett during my Grade XI year when friends and I

attended his exhibition at the parish hall in New Westminster in 1950. We became friends and I had opportunities to show Joe some of the drawings and paintings that I had been doing.  He was very encouraging. When I was working up the coast in the summer of 1952 he wrote me positive feedback about my oil painting, “Fern”, which had been rejected by the New Westminster Jury Show. Indeed, he signed off with this message: “(you must be a painter my friend. The fern is a remarkable piece of work)”.

[And thus began a correspondence that continues to this day.]  During the winter of 1952-53 I enrolled in an evening life class taught by Joe at the Vancouver School of Art. That experience had me appreciating for the first time that drawings could be works of art.  Much separated by geography—I have lived in Manitoba and he has been in Paris and England—Joe and I have managed to see one another occasionally in the intervening years.  I travelled to Regina in 1998 to see him (pictured) and his exhibit of very large pastels. He was in Winnipeg to launch his book, A Speaking Likeness, in 1999.   [Some of the pastels from the Regina Exhibition may be seen at www.galleries.bc.ca/agso/plaskett.html]

I did very little drawing or painting during the years I lived in Melita (1953-1961). After I started university, however, I found myself re-engaged with image-making and when I moved to Brandon in 1961 I encountered Steve Repa who was to have a big influence on me and my painting. From that time I grew into what was to become a life-commitment to painting. I responded very positively to Steve’s prairie landscapes and during a drawing class at the

Brandon Allied Art Centre I grew to admire his work as a teacher.  He was a great inspiration to me and for a time at least my painting was much influenced by his. Our paths diverged much in the late 60s, but we kept in touch and though we saw little of one another after I moved to Winnipeg in 1972 our contacts were always positive. Steve remained a hero to me as both painter and teacher and we were all the poorer when he died young in 1989.

Pictured here is the one Repa painting that I own, a casein done in the Souris River Valley south of Brandon during a painting trip/ picnic day I shared with Steve and his family.

I hope that my web site does some honor to these artists so important to my life and work as a painter.