Page 29 - A Visit with Bill Daye, Painter

ISSUE : Issue 30

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1981/12/1

heart, and the two knives stuck in the board, and all the hair on the board, that was shaved, and some on the ground. And a big old water trough is there, too, and the bag there laying on the fence, the big bags he had there steaming them with. Even the rope and the pulleys and the way they're tied, one facing you and the other one, the front facing you, you know, where he's cut and you see the inside. A woman once asked me about the two pigs. I said, "That's a wonderful pig there." I , said, "They're both good because they're fed on buttermilk and cream and curds and yogurt and everything, because the man next door was working for the milk facto? ry- -whatever you call it--and he used to bring home all this because one pig was his and one was Jackson's." She said, "I know, Mr. Daye, because that was my hus? band. I ate most of that pig." You ever see a mackerel sky? I put a mack? erel sky in a picture, and I tried a dozen times, but I could never do it again. That bloody brush just went. I said, "Don't stop that brush, leave it go, boy, you got something you'll never do as long as you live/' And I could never do it again. The fashion of the clouds in that sky, that mackerel sky, I've tried and tried and damned if I could ever paint it, and I nev? er saw anybody that ever did paint it. And I got it in there. The brush just started to go, whatever came up with me and that bloody picture, I said, "Jeez, I'm doing something today, don't lay off, keep it go? ing"- -and I did. And everybody that's seen that picture, they say, "How did you ever get that sky there?" Isn't that funny? That queer odd shape--that came out per? fect. I read about a painter one time, he had painted a certain thing that he had been a long time practising and practising. At last he did it pretty well, and he went to move around the house and a little dog came over and peed on it. I don't know if it was water paint or oil paint. Well, he came back and said, "Merciful Christ!" he said, "that's one thing I had in my heart all my life to do, and now it's ruined"-- so he put it away. A few weeks after, he looked at it, and the water went through and made a picture that nobody in this world could ever paint, and he said, "Je? sus, he did something' for me this time." It made a picture he could never do, how it blended the colours. I read it in a book. My father landed in Neil's Harbour. The old merchant down there, he owned the fish? ermen, what they'd fish. He got the fish, what he gave them was whatever he wanted to give them. They lived in hardship with this man. You know. He looked after the place. Well, without him they wouldn't ex? ist, and just vice versa. So anyway, my fa? ther got fed up with it and said, "I'm go? ing to leave here, I'm going to work in the coal mines in Port Morien. I'm going somewheres, I don't know where I'll go." And he left his house standing where it was. And he packed the whole family on a great big two-masted boat that they had. My mother was sitting on the deck like old Granny Clampett in the movies there, in a rocking chair with Tom in her arms. And Ru- fus said, I remember he said--I wasn't bom then, see--he said, "You could see the phosphorus running from the boat in the salt water." Ever notice the phosphor? us? And he said he was laying with an oar. BRETON MOTORS TOYOTA SALES-PARTS-SERVICE Dodd St.. Sydney. Phone 539-8930 A tremendous'tock of new Toyota cars and trucks. Toyota Corollas Toyota Tercels Toyota Celicas Toyota Trucks, 4 X 2 and 4 X 4, 4x2 Diesel Pick-ups, and the All New Diesel Landcruiser, in Station Wagon and Hardtop Models QUALITY USED CARS! BUILT TO LAST. Performance. Durability. Economy, Three good reasons why Toyota vehicles are so popular. F Open Mon.-Frt. j ' Till 8 p.m. 1 ?? Sat. Till 5 p.m. ' Cya'anrf Cya'j HAIRWORKS • Fami ly Hair Styling Cape Breton Shopping Plaza 539-3200 Sydney Shopping Mall 539-1811 Sterling Mall 849-1607 North Sydney Mall 794-4409 (29)

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