Road to the Unknown ~ Oklahoma Panhandle. Digital Photograph ©2016, M.Hendry
Change is inevitable. Even while getting ready for September 30th – the final date for the opening and book launch. There will be more on that coming soon. But, for now, I thought I’d share this photo I took last year in the Oklahoma Panhandle that seems to fit things perfectly.
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Everything But the Bathroom Sink, 16×24, acrylic on canvas (framed), ©2009 M. Hendry. This painting will be at the Auburn Gallery in Gravenhurst for the 2017 Muskoka Studio Tour.
Not far from my old home in Gravenhurst, Ontario, a turn of the century house seemed to stick out amongst its 1960s and newer neighbours. It was abandoned for many years and I’d watch the porch roof slope a little further each winter, curious as to why this building seemed so out of place. I never asked anyone about it until a couple bought the house and set out to restore it. Connie, the new owner gave me permission to look through the building before they finished interior demolition. The result was this painting.
And then a casual conversation led to the answer I didn’t know I was seeking.
Gravenhurst was the location of the first Tuberculosis Sanitorium in Canada. Tuberculosis, also known as ‘consumption’, ravaged communities often unable to adequately treat its victims. Until the late 1940s and the development of streptomycin, treatments developed in the late 19th century created demand for places like the Muskoka Cottage Santorium, later the Muskoka Free Hospital, the Calydor Sanitorium and the Gage building. That demand was so high, many of the ill were turned away, and seeking other accommodations, some ended up in boarding houses. The prospect of sick people congregating in places around town terrified the citizens living so close to this devastating and often fatal disease.
During the first exhibition of the painting, there was some discussion of a rumour that this house was one of those boarding houses for consumptives. I was never able to confirm this with records, which is not surprising because either the boarding houses didn’t know their guests were sick, or they were taking them in secret, not wanting to alert their neighbours.
A few weeks ago, well after the manuscript had been submitted to the publisher, Connie reached out to me, so I asked her if she knew about the rumour. She said no, but what she told me next nearly made me jump out of my seat:
When they were tearing apart the walls of the old house she said they found an inordinate number of medicine bottles hidden behind the lathe and plaster.
Connie told me she took photographs, so it is my hope she will bring them to the gallery in September for the opening and the book launch!
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This is the second in a series of extras on the making of the upcoming book, Once Imagined.
I have been having so issues with comments not posting lately. Please feel free to try to post a comment and if your comment doesn’t post, I’d appreciate a head’s up! Just contact me here. Thanks!
*Edited – Patients should have been guests! All fixed…
“Chrome Magnon”, 16×20, acrylic on linen, © 2017 M.Hendry
Paul is a friend of mine. He is a serious biker and his bikes shimmer with copious amounts of chrome. His fellow riders have nicknamed him the “Chrome Magnon Man”. Paul is a highly creative guy and can also play classical guitar. It’s strange to picture someone who sometimes looks like a Viking warrior, playing such a smooth style of music. I am expecting to see him at the show in September! Look for that chrome bike…
I decided to take a short break from the rural subjects the last few weeks. There will be new architectural works coming to the blog in the next few weeks that will be heading to the exhibition in September. The exhibition is to support the release of “Once Imagined“, and will largely be architectural still life and rural landscapes based on the series of abandoned and historical buildings. However, I am planning on including some of my newer work with portraits, including this one. The last few years, I have been trying to understand the subtle things that make a successful portrait. Acrylic is a nightmare medium for portraiture because it resists smooth blends with its quick drying time – particularly in this year’s high heat and low humidity. Even glazing mediums are drying almost instantly. I think working with figures and faces has made me a better artist. Improving the craft is always a goal.
20 minute live figure drawing
I have largely worked from photos, but I think working from life whenever possible is of great value. I like to think it has enhanced my practice. Below are two 20 minute sketches from life over the last couple weeks.
20 minute live figure drawing
Yellow Door, acrylic on canvas, ©2009 M.B.Hendry. The first painting of the Livingstone/Stephens House
I have always had an obsession with the abandoned, but I never intended on making a book. I just liked to blog my art process.
Painting takes a long time for me. Getting these places on canvas is a slow experience that requires reference photographs, drawings, multiple compositions, colour scheme and finally the painting process. I use the indirect method, which involves building up layers of paint.
With so much time spent with each location, they tended to get under my skin. A certain intimacy develops with each window, floorboard or brick; where the house sags or a door is missing, that must be created again from nothing.
Certain houses speak to you if you linger and listen. When the house speaks, they must be painted. A painting is like a poem, a story compressed into a surface of symbols and abstractions that make up the subtle, but recognizable whole. But sometimes there is more than the painting alone can tell.
Many of the locations I painted over the course of the Echoes series piqued my curiosity to a point where it became too powerful to ignore the question, ‘What is the story here?’
Some places were well known and finding the story was easy; others revealed themselves slowly and took months to uncover. I would inquire with emails, chat with some of my well connected friends, browse local history at the library and, with a couple of locations, I searched the titles. Many of the old title registers in Muskoka were a bit musty and stained around the edges. The oldest entries were the first for each lot and lots were divided many times over the years. Entries went from dip pen to type, to ballpoint and sometimes surprising names known from history emerged.
After a series of interviews, lists of title information and lots of books, it didn’t take long to realize the volume and importance of the stories I uncovered went beyond the scope of a blog.
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This is the first in a series of post extras to be released on the blog over the coming months leading up to the September release of “Once Imagined“. These extras will be bits and stories that didn’t make the book, research that came to light after the manuscript was completed and commentary on how the book came about. There will be a few photos from my own explorations of these and other abandoned sites and I’ll share some of the methods I used to find out the history of each location in the book.
If you have questions, please feel free to email me or comment and I’ll do my best to answer them.
“A Storm is Brewing”, 30×40 inches, acrylic on canvas, ©2017 M.Hendry
I don’t seem to do things the normal way.
For example, if I say I don’t do a particular subject, you’ll probably find me doing it at some point not long after I said it.
I said many times in the past that I don’t do portraits. We know how that ended.
Recently, I told a new friend on FaceBook I don’t do animals.
Yup. You saw that coming.
Meet my brindle bull.
I was scouting a few years ago for painting subjects with another artist friend of mine, Joan Frimberger. It was a Spring day and in Oklahoma that always brings the promise of storms. We stopped in front of a small field of bulls and this guy seemed quite curious about these girls so close to his fence.
It wasn’t a very good fence. Or at least I didn’t think so when seeing that huge animal on the other side of some flimsy looking wire. I know next to nothing about bulls and in my mind he was working up an unpleasant end for me. So he was named before he was painted.
In the end, he really was just curious, I believe.
Mostly.
Fleger Barn, Muskoka, 12×16, © 2017 M.Hendry
I painted the Fleger farm many times during the creation of the Echoes series. In fact, it was the farmhouse that started the entire project and “Twilight” was first in the series back in 2008. At the time of my visits, the barn had been gone for many years. The stone foundation was mostly rubble beneath a blanket of vines and wildflowers.
Dorothy and Earl Fleger’s grandson, Curtis, gave me an old photograph and let me hang on to it for years. I promised him that, one day, it would become a painting.
Finally, it has.
1986 photo of Fleger barn
I am attaching the original photo from 1986. (below, right)
The end of another long wait is coming very soon. I’ll be sharing it in the newsletter first! In case you haven’t signed up, you can do that here.
This young lady just turned 4. I was working on something else for her birthday and I was taken by some images her mother sent me for a “Saturn” painting and collage for the party. I cropped a close up from a lovely photograph by Sara Biese Hurt for reference. I took it upon myself to give a portrait a go because I need the practice with young faces. I ended up giving the finished piece as a Christmas gift to her parents.
Painting children in acrylic is difficult. Unlike with the uneven skin tones and texture of an older person, acrylic resists the smooth blends and flawless skin of extreme youth.
Doing portraits from a photograph alone doesn’t always produce the most accurate results. I was lucky enough to get to spend some time with her family and study her features. 4 year olds are definitely not going to sit still, so the photo acts as the structure, and observation and memory are required to give it a bit more life.
I spent a fair bit of time in the summer doing live figure drawing. Having a live sitter prevents the skills becoming too reliant on photography, even when a photo is often necessary to finish a work – at least for me.
My fascination with portraits continues. I love playing withand altering my reference photo to add in elements, colour schemes and other things that can’t be tested on canvas and go beyond the drawing. The next one coming is of an old friend. He lives in Canada so I see him so rarely, so the photo and memory are all I have to work with. I hope to have it finished early in the new year.
Happy New Year!
Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, 18×24 inches, acrylic on canvas
A friend and client is very well read on the Plains Indians of the American West, particularly the Nez Perce Tribe of Oregon and Idaho. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce was a remarkable and tragic leader, warrior and peacemaker. Noted photographer Edward Curtis took a photo of Chief Joseph in 1903. It was this photo I used as a reference to bring Chief Joseph to life in colour and in paint. My friend considers Chief Joseph one of his favourite historic figures and the painting was a surprise gift from his wife.
I am excited to be able to finally take commissions now that I am a permanent resident, and this was a fun and interesting way to reboot as a working artist.