An Interview with the Artist
Enid's
Wonderful
"Notes From the Woods"
The Enid Petherick Environment:
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enlargement
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a message
in the
"In Studio"
Readers' Forum!
"This Land is Your Land"
(detail)
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"Dancing Landscape"
(Detail)
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enlargement
"To be
Animatic...
is to focus on paintings that
pour from the
gut without
getting bogged
in pretension
and superficial
style or fashion,
and to get free
of inhibition."
Enid's
Wonderful
"Notes From the Woods"
Enid Petherick
Cream: When and how did you first begin to paint?
Enid Petherick: Pre-schoolers spent one day at the local one-room school. The teacher handed me paper and crayons and sat me beside my cousin. Surveying my sparse lollipop trees, my cousin joined them with rounded loops and I was amazed at the dense forest achieved. Elation at my first art lesson!
A few years later I discovered an old Latin book in a bookcase at the head of the back stairway. The pictures enthralled me. These illustrations excited an emotional response and I covertly curled up with the Latin book in the dark stairwell and felt as illicit as if I were a boy pouring over "Playboy".
When in my 13th year a virus temporarily paralysed me from my waist down and a year of convalescence followed, I turned to drawing and had some pieces published in children's magazines. I believe it was a form of therapy.
Art wasn't taught in my high school, so I began an art correspondence course while in my last year.
My first job—and I sat at a drafting table in Toronto plotting underground utilities—but my mind was far away planning a one-room cabin I dreamed of having one day in northern Ontario. I began night classes in Life Drawing at the Ontario College of Art and floated home euphoric and oblivious through Old Chinatown. I was hooked.
Two years later I handed in my resignation from work and felt a great weight lift from my body. I then attended Ontario College of Art full-time till graduation.
I knew at that time—and
it has been proven subsequently—the pitfalls and uncertainties of painting
as a career. But by determinedly setting priorities and simplifying lifestyle
I could/would make the commitment and have persevered.
Cream: Your "Notes From
The Woods" column is one of the highlights of Cream. Tell us about
your connection to the country and to wilderness?
Enid: My dream was to have a place where I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and totally be myself. This dream represented independence and freedom from convention.
The one-room cabin of my early dreams has become a four room house in the Canadian Rockies. The simple lifestyle is very much in evidence—large gardens; wood heat; the water in buckets from the well; kerosene lamps in recent years have been updated by electricity from solar panels which allow us a choice of one light in the kitchen or one light in the studio. And we have updated from "outhouse" to indoor Sun-Mar compost toilet. In summer our solar electricity allows us to operate a computer—[but not Internet ]—and a vacuum cleaner—and in future maybe even a microwave! How modern! But always there are decisions and priorities to be set. We call this 21st Century technology.
Our isolated home
in the mountain "wilderness" of British Columbia probably fulfils
my dream more than I could ever have expected. Always changing, and ever
challenging, the landscape, trees, plants, wildlife are natural, basic,
real—non superficial.
Cream: Yours is one of the
most elaborate portfolios at MAG covering many styles and explorations.
Why?
Enid: I have always painted on location—whatever surrounds me. I have to feel a connection, an emotional response.
Initially when we taught our daughters by correspondence here at our home we alternated winters in the wilderness with winters of traditional schooling in urban centres to give them access to their peer group. In this way we were able to experience many urban areas—Honolulu, Phoenix, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver. We called it a "working holiday". Occasionally Ralph and I managed an apartment building together but often Ralph got any job and I used my time for painting. And we always went for longer periods so that I had time to absorb my surroundings. For example, we once took a month and a half to drive across the Prairies, living in the back of a truck in a home-made camper. But always we had our home in the mountains to return to. Later Ralph and I continued this pattern because we also like access to the cultural activities that these urban centres offered—London, England and Malta, for example. Which is a long way of explaining why my paintings vary so much—seascape, mountain, desert, cityscape.
There is a stimulus for me in variety and I guess the challenge is to translate the subject and make it uniquely mine.
I find that it comes as a surprise to many people that wilderness and big city urban downtown centres equally fascinate and stimulate me. Perhaps it is the jungle—back to basics—real people struggling for survival.Cream: Have you recently taken a return to Figurative Landscapes? Why?
Enid: Figurative work has always "touched" me—from the Latin book illustrations to the later Life Drawing sessions—and continual work from models in the intervening years. The human creature is a most challenging and complex being—not just the physical outside trappings but the emotional spiritual essence within and considering that each of us is unique—for an Artist to try to capture something of that—I can't think of anything more challenging.
Early on I discovered
the native Canadian profile in Red Indian Mountain. It took me a few
years for the concept to mature and to make the reverse connection of
seeing landscape in figurative poses. I felt I had really made a break-through
when I was able to achieve this connection. I expect I will always return
to this in some form given my love of both landscape and figurative.
I also expect and anticipate exploring other areas in intervening periods
as they present themselves.
Cream: Your "Reverence"
series—they seem to be the antithesis of the Figurative Landscapes?
Enid: In FIGURATIVE LANDSCAPES the forested slopes (earthy and lush) are suggested by the contours of the human body (the physical sensual side of humankind). In REVERENCE the rocky peaks thrusting to the clouds and sun are suggested by vertical geometric shapes (stylised people in attitudes of prayer) and colour suggestive of reverence and awe.
One could say that FIGURATIVE LANDSCAPES represent the physical side and REVERENCE the spiritual side of humankind—the voluptuous contours of the lower vegetated mountains (FIGURATIVE LANDSCAPES) and above, the rocky peaks that reach sublimely to the clouds and sun (REVERENCE). I don't see these as antithesis, but rather different facets of multifaceted beings. Like the multifaceted eye of a grasshopper—which facet is exposed depends on circumstance and time.
I don't analyse my paintings—I basically get an idea and experiment with different means to achieve the mood or statement I hope to make. Other people may interpret them differently and that is okay. Sometimes they see things I don't.
If an image can engage
their attention and interest and stimulate thought that is good by me.
Cream: How did you
first come across MAG?
Enid: I
had an early introduction to MAG when I read about the future opening
of the Gallery, and I was pleased to be the first Artist after R L Johnson
to show at the new space on Commercial Drive.
Cream: What were your
first impressions of animatic philosophy?
Enid: Idealistic but admirable, a most worthy goal to strive for and very difficult to achieve.
To be Animatic (to me)
is to focus on paintings that pour from the gut without getting bogged
in pretension and superficial style or fashion and to get free of inhibition.
It is also about producing true and meaningful work without worry about
acceptance.
Cream: With your painting
techniques—are there any secrets you wish to share?
Enid: Push
the limits and never stop experimenting. Rules are made to be broken
or at least tested. My best painting experiences are when I can clear
myself and let things just "happen". Since my introduction
to MAG I call this my "Animatic mode".
Cream: Tell us about
Primitive Hostel?
Enid: For a few years when our daughters were young we opened our home as a house hostel as part of the Canadian Youth Hostel Association. It brought the world to us and introduced the girls to people from fifteen countries. At that time we used our sauna cabin as an overflow with shared cooking in the main house.
Three years ago we decided to re-open a hostel (this time privately with no affiliation) using mainly one isolated self-contained cabin (with wood cook stove, no running water, and compost toilet). We pondered at great length over the name—and chose "Primitive" to avoid expectations of what we didn't have—modern conveniences: electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, TV, telephone, etc. "Primitive" also lets people know that they won't be catered to. We like—and encourage—self-sufficiency. We offer quiet, tranquillity, solitude, basic comfort, natural beauty and an opportunity to experience "wildness".
We calculated that anyone adventurous and persistent enough to find us—(over a series of logging roads that end in a 1/4 km walking trail from the parking area to our house—a trail where wild raspberries push in on both sides and just today we watched a black bear yearling cub gorging on Saskatoon berries right on the trailhead in our backyard)—we anticipated that such people would be interesting, stimulating, and wonderful people to know. This has proven true. We have hosted a variety of independent spirits who fall mainly within two categories—those from foreign lands who truly wish to experience wildness—the mountain wilderness—space and quiet for which Canada is known; and Canadians—usually of an artistic bent who want to experience "retreat" and rejuvenation. Poets, painters, musicians, photographers—a wonderful variety of individuals who have enriched our lives as much as we hope the experience has enriched theirs.
www.rockymountainhostel.com
Please be patient. We can only access our
email in town—28 kms away—and do so once a week in summer and maybe only
once or twice a month in winter! We are waiting impatiently to get internet
by satellite at a price we can afford.
