Page 72 - Lewis Parker: A Work in Progress

ISSUE : Issue 43

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1986/8/1

ships from a young fellow in Sydney, Art Fennell, a sign painter--he actually did a lot of the painting of those ships. What I try to do as an illustrator--and this is one of-the things that's so excit? ing about it--I try to feel like a stage director, and I give personalities to all these characters and I cast them in a role--and they are all based mainly on pho? tographs I've taken. (For Nicolas Denys) there's no picture of him. So I used my own head as the basis for this one. Gave myself a sharper nose. I used my sons (as backs of Indians in the Nicolas Denys painting). Craig (his son) is about 32, Ev? er since he was two he's been posing--the whole family have--for book illustrations and political cartoons and all those things I've been involved with. Because I've used them, and they are elements of myself--it's kind of hard to explain--then that puts the life. I think my figures have a lot more life than a lot of illus? trators who don't feel their figures as a cast of characters. These two people argu? ing about whether it should be two m.uskets or three muskets--it's essential to have that there, even though nobody will notice, (There is a kind of modesty about this. You're in no way an abstract artist, or in? terested in self expression,) I don't know what you mean. I talk as a professional. I consider myself a very apt professional. But an artist is something I've always-- I've never understood why, just simply be? cause somebody paints, he's an artist. He's an artist only when he's judged so by posterity or whatever. If art is in this, and it comes out, that's fine. But it's good, competent, journeyman painting. (A job to do.) Yes, a job to do. Just like a journalist. Terry MacDonalds Mural for New Waterford In 1983 the Town of New Waterford got a federal grant to reclaim No. 12 and No. 16 mine sites for a pub? lic park. Plans included some interpretive displays of mining life and work, and a memorial to all New Wa? terford men killed in mine-related incidents. Simon White, Director of Development for New Waterford, hired Terry MacDonald through the grant to do some sketching. Terry started work in September 1983. He did research toward the sketches at the Beaton Institute, U.C.C.B. Lewis Parker had a show of paintings there at the time, and the two met and talked. Lew invited Terry to work with him on weekends. He saw that Terry's drafting was good, but he needed training in painting. He knew nothing about colour. Terry worked with Lew through the winter of 1983-84. When Simon White found out about the weekend work, he made a deal with Lew. The town would use part of the grant to pay Terry to work/study with Lew the following summer. In turn, Terry was to come back and paint a mural for the town's new park. That mural is to be a part of the Mine Memorial in Colliery Lands Park. Kti''tgj' ;.'*.'-: m' (72)

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