DAAG: INTERVIEWS: JIM PESCOTT

Interviews

The Directories of American Art Galleries

An Interview with

Jim Pescott

by James Leonard-Amodeo

You are a native of Vancouver, Canada, I believe. Where are your parents originally from?

My mother was born in Rochester, New York: her father was Canadian. He eventually brought the family back to Canada to live in Alberta. My father is from Rossburn, Manitoba. His family moved west across the prairies and over the Rockies to Vancouver during the early part of the Depression. 1931 I think.

Was anyone in your family an artist?

My father enjoyed art and talked about it a lot but he never became active as an artist until his early sixties, when he retired. He picked up a pencil and began to draw virtually everything he thought about drawing.

Do you have any special momento of your dad's artwork? Does it inspire you?

Memento was correct

In his twenties dad took a lot of photographs. All black and white of course. I have one of these that I hold very special. It is a sunset, in black and white, and the image has always stirred me. I also have one of his drawings that I cherish as well. He loved drawing weatherworn buildings, especially barns, so the drawing I have is the barn from our family farm.

I also have a favorite photograh I took of him that I eventually used as a source for painting his portrait "Morse" that can be seen, and always will be, in my website. I hold a belief that he will always be with me when I'm painting.

How old are you?

56 and a bit.

How long have you been painting?

Six years following a 36-year lapse from painting in my early years.

What do you mean?

I drew and painted a lot until I was about fourteen. Growing up when I did held no focus on art as active employment. Family and career were enmeshed in a relationship that continued intensely for years causing a lapse in my development as an artist. So the interest was there but my energies were following other paths. I'm not sure this isn't the story of a lot of people really. We become good at something we really don't care much about and we become dependant on this for income and self-definition. Then one day, one wonderful day, we realize we are really someone else. Kind of a recovery from a kind of career amnesia I guess. For me, I was fifty when I 'recovered'. My dad waited until he was in his mid-sixties. I paid attention to this: we can learn from everything.

What was it specifically that convinced you that you would become a painter? Was it something someone said? Something you saw? Was it a feeling? a thought?

I've always chased pictures. When I was little, I drew a lot after watching an artist, using chalk on a blackboard, draw a cowboy. I was emulating. I tried painting when I was in my early teens. I remember enjoying the colours and feeling a challenge with the use of a brush to do things. I have a painting in my studio of a sailing ship that I did at that time. So painting was instilled in me back then, I think. I left all this when I went to university, got married, became involved in corporate business activities, raised a family, etc. I would draw a bit from time-to-time during all this, as I've always liked capturing the image of things. I also began to take lots and lots of photographs. When I downshifted a number of life 'things' a few years ago, painting seemed virtually a natural thing for me to do. I remember buying some tubes of paint and brushes in Banff, Alberta. I've been painting ever since.

You presently reside in Calgary. But I know that you've lived in the East Coast. too. Why the change? Has this got anything to do with your painting career or....?

Actually, I travelled a lot to the East Coast and I lived in Ontario for about ten years. Calgary is an end of a corporate journey, a corporate job brought me here. This is where my wife and I found ourselves when it seemed to be the right time to make the transition away from corporate life. We'd lived in Alberta before going to Ontario and we'd always liked it here. I remember staying with friends here in Calgary during the family moving process and being totally absorbed by the sunlight on the grasslands in the early morning. I'm sure this had some influence on the stirring of my painter's sensitivities. Natural light has always been a wonder to me.

Do you paint outdoors?

No, I don't. I spend a lot of time in natural areas hiking and enjoying the surroundings. But I don't paint outdoors. My style of painting with dots in layers seems to limit me to the studio. I work from two sources. One is photographs that I use for a foundation or concept that I interpret from there. And the other source is from an image I've been carrying around with me in my thoughts. This happens quite often and leads to results that really allow me to explore.

Do you have favorite haunts you visit regularly?

I have favourite places to go to for rejuvenation and insight. I love walking in forest areas to absorb how the light drops down through to the ground. I love streams for their sound, their reflection, their spirit. I love vast open spaces for the sense of creative forces that dwell there. It is not unusual for me to sit in one place and watch, listen, etc., for an hour before moving on. These are places where I use both my camera and my memory for inspiration. It really seems a vicarious 'plein air' experience.

So, you also paint by memory? Whistler had this personal ability to create great paintings out of memory. Do you think artists should develop this faculty?

I paint from memory when something really stays with me as a strong impression. I eventually need to paint it to transfer my thoughts to the canvas so I can refrain from thinking about it. I know the instant it happens that what I've seen will be something I will paint from memory. My work is done with dots, so painting from memory can be quite interpretive. I like doing this, I'm often quite pleased with my outcome: the paintings will tend to be more abstract than paintings where I have a direct reference. I guess you could say I'm using the same voice with a different accent. I like having this flexibility. So, I guess if an artist feels inflexible in their work, painting from memory would be an interesting exercise. I certainly find it helpful.

What do you try to capture in your paintings?

Well, I paint with dots rather than a myriad of brush strokes. I develop shapes with dots of colour that layer with each other. I'm not filling in a space between lines, there actually are no defining lines in my work. What I find so very absorbing when I look at elements and objects in our world is how everything is related to everything else. On a very small scale, the atoms of things mingle. I'm trying to express how this really is, so the dots blend together. For me this is realism. The atoms of the atmosphere mingle with the atoms of the building, and the atoms of the building mingle with the atoms of the atmosphere. The same for the lake and trees, for the mountains and the clouds.

Isn't this rather a meticulous way of painting, using dots? It must take you a longtime to produce just one painting.

I never feel like it is meticulous when I'm doing it. I actually find an incredible amount of freedom through it as I become totally fascinated with how the images evolve. This doesn't seem like meticulous, at least in my definition of being meticulous. A painting can take anywhere of up to forty hours, usually a minimum of twenty. But when you are involved deeply with something, time is not much a matter of perception.

When I compare plein air paintings done in the East Coast and those done in the West coast, I can see a big difference in the way the artist captures the sky, the light, etc. Do you see this? How is the light different in both places?

West coast art work for me always seems softer, more prone to relationships between things and the influences of the environment. I think the morning light I saw that first morning in Calgary a few years back reflected this. It seems like the light is able to season itself somehow, like wine, as it travels across the continent. Then again, cloud formations vary even when you compare the West Coast sky relative to that in the Foothills on the east side of the Rockies. The last time I spent time on the West Coast of Vancouver Island it almost seemed that the colour green had a fragrance and this is the sort of thing I go back to when I remember my childhood years. Green, damp forests, overgrown rural roadsides, that sort of thing. When I visit the east side of the country it is a less hidden place in terms of vegetation.

It's as if you're saying that an artist should become an integral part of the subject he wishes to paint before painting it.

Well, in a way, yes. I think it is just allowing ourselves more opportunity to be ourselves in places where we best feel like ourselves. I think we are all poets in our own right and we need to take the time to be poetic. Painting is a visual poetic expression. So, yes, artists should become an integral part of the subject they wish to paint. That is where mood, feeling, and intimacy come from. I think that is what the plein air approach by the Impressionists was really all about.

Have you ever been to art school?

No. I'm self-taught. I've never been to a workshop either. I've not belonged to local art groups.

Some artists who have never been to art school wish they had gone because of all the techniques and art history one can learn. Are there any regrets on your part or do you feel art school just isn't important?

I feel comfortable with myself and with who I am. School is important, but school isn't necessarily a formal classroom with doors, windows, teachers and lessons. I'm constantly in an ad hoc, informal classroom. I do what I do because I've explored things and learned otherwise. School, in the traditional sense, never allowed me to be this way. Someone was always pointing out that I wasn't following 'the path'. Actually, corporate environments can be a lot like this too. Years ago I went to university and studied hard at social sciences. I graduated and found a job as a steppingstone into a career. The industry I worked at really took me back to kindergarten in terms of training for their specific needs and sponsored my growth from there. I worked with some wonderful people who had never been to university but were excellent employees in that industry. In corporate environments I always felt I needed to conform. Not having gone to art school doesn't limit me personally. I also have much respect for people who have gone to art school: their pathway needed to be different from mine.

Since you have never gone to art school, I wonder, how did you learn to use your brushes, mix color, perspective, etc.?

This may sound a bit simple, but the rainbow was my teaching source about mixing colour. R-O-Y-G-B-I-V Red and yellow gives us orange. Yellow and blue make green. It is very fundamental. Things like perspective I learned about from my dad who was always interested in that sort of thing. I remember he once had a book from the library on perspective: I remember an image of railway tracks going off toward the horizon. Natural light was something else he would talk about a lot. He would show me paintings in books and talk about where the light was coming from. Finding brushes for me has been trial and error. I have a jar in my studio that holds the 'errors'.

We touched on this subject a little earlier and I want to bring it back. Sometime ago I read a biography about you where you make mention of "dotallism" or "spotallism". I thought you were just joking. But now I understand that you were dead serious. How would you describe your technical strokes? Do you actually try to paint like the "Pointillists"?

Not really. I agree that the dots I use are reminescent of Pointillists. But they used specs of colour and I use dots. The paintings I've seen by Pointillists use defining lines and they fill in the space within the lines and they seem to take care to keep within these spaces. Pointillists seem very structured to me. I ignore lines and extend beyond as much as seems appropiate with dots. I guess you could say I 'colour outside the lines'. Also, I understand that pointillists would place specks of colour like blue and yellow side-by-side so the viewer would see green. I'm not into this at all.

How did you discover your "dotallism" technique?

It basically just happened. I was painting trees and autumn colours in a traditional, representative way. While painting the undergrowth I was using more of a dot brush stoke than anything else. While doing this I was fascinated with what seemed to be happening in terms of shapes and it occurred to me that maybe I could do an entire painting this way -- no lines or anything, just dots. The rest, as they say, is history.

You were invited to participate in the December, 2003, Biennele Internationale Dell'Arte Contemporaneaan, in Florence, Italy. Tell us more about this.

This biennial was first held in 1996. The process involves a international selection jury that basically seeks out potential participants for three art categories. A list is reported to the biennial administrators and they approach the artists. Artists can also apply for jury consideration to be included in the report. My story basically is that my work was seen on my website and I was subsequently approached by the biennial. Not all artists agree to participate, I'm sure. The last biennial in 2001 included 600 artists from over 50 countries. For me, it just seemed like a very exciting thing to do. Basically, I would be going from my basement studio to an international venue. Joseph Campbell wrote, "Follow your bliss and doors will open'". I perceived an open door and I'm very dedicated to responding to open doors when I perceive them. I've never been to Florence. I've never been exposed to artists from other countries. This all feels so right to do.

So you are going, then? When do you leave and for how long?

How couldn't I have paintings hanging on a wall in Florence, Italy, and not be there to see them? I never, ever, in my life imagined I would have an experience like this. We'll be going the first part of December and be there, in Florence, for two weeks. I've heard many people say they saw Florence for a day or two but should have made it the whole trip. Hopefully I've learned something valuable from these observations and will see as much of the city as possible.

It's all very good and well going to Europe to show your art, but who is going to pay for your return fare, the hotel, the food?

My wife, Karen, and I are self-supportive in all of this. The cost of the entire venture comes from our pocket. I've not applied for any government grants, etc. It seems that every month some very wonderful people buy my paintings and their support is precious. I learned something in the business world I was part of for decades that is basically found in the words, 'if it's going to be, it's up to me'. How else would I get there?

In late July, 2003, you received an invitation from UNICEF to share your painting entitled, "Late Sun in Winter", for their Winter 2004 Collection of greeting cards. Have you heard anything else from them?

Yes, this was another website surprise. UNICEF viewed my work on my website and sent me a note asking if I would consider 'Late Sun in Winter' as a candidate for their product development decision process. At the time, my website hadn't been updated for a while, so I sent a note with a more current painting called 'Winter Blue'. They liked this one, too, and are also including it in the decision process. Apparently I will hear from them again toward the end of October about the process and whether my paintings go further.

All this seems to indicate that one of the most important thing an artists must have is a website.

I agree with this whole-heartedly. In terms of marketing yourself, I find websites are kind of one dimensional for my liking. This is something I try to compensate for through other ways. But I don't think an artists should venture out without a website. By 'one dimensional' I'm refering to that fact that there is good information on the website and it is viewed by many. But it seems to stop there. The artist never seems to get to know the people who call in. This is not my style. I like to meet the people who call in. I want to know them and understand what they think and feel. E-mail is a tool we need to make much better use of. The website is the billboard, e-mail is the connection. There is an evolution underway, I hope.

I'd like to talk a bit about colors. What is your approach to selecting colors?

Initially , I go to a colour that reflects similar values to what I'm looking at in the subject. This is all fairly realistic. The fun for me starts when I go beyond this with dots of colour that amplify, or define, or interpret in some way. A painting can transform at this point because of colour. I've often stretched the range of a colur quite a bit at this point. Sometimes, each dot can have its own colour, its own voice.

Is your palette unique in the way you lay out your primaries?

I don't know. I'm self-taught. I've never really compared what I do with how other artists paint. I use a wet palette and I've experimented with that. but I essentially put out a red, yellow and blue and go from there -- sometimes not even that! If I need a shade of brown to start, I just put paint for mixing this on my palette and my day goes from there.

Do you have a favorite color palette that you use frequently or do you improvise everytime?

Basically, I've only kept the primary colours in my palette, along with white and black. I love creating colours from these, this is a big part of what I enjoy when I paint. I love graduations in colours that I apply as layers of dots to communicate shapes and relationships. Recently, I made a change after reading a book called 'Colours' by Victoria Finlay. She included a section on ochres that was fascinating. Ochres are from natual earth sources and seem to be saying that I should bring them into my palatte. It seems to fit with my sense of reality, dots mingling with dots in a natural way. So I've been starting to look at these and thinking about how they fit.

You are an "eternal student" then?

Oh, I think so. Not consciously though. I learn from accidents. I learn from associations. That sort of thing. Life is such a teacher. I read a Rumi poem once that just knocked me down regarding this sort of thing. The phrase was 'clean out your ears, don't listen for what you already know' . What a wonderful approach to life to have. To enjoy.

Do you have favorite paint brands?

I find 'Cryla' from Daler-Rowney are very enjoyable for the type of brush stroke I use. Rich, creamy. My brush doesn't push through it.

Is that all you use, the Daler-Rowney brand?

Yes it is. I did use Golden for quite a while but when I tried Cryla I was a quick convert.

Do you have a favorite medium?

Acrylic on canvas is all I've felt a need to use. It dries quickly enough to allow me to keep moving with layers and different colours during a session.

I note that acrylic seems to be a favorite with Canadian artists of the West Coast. Robert Genn uses acrylic, as does John Ferrie and over a dozen other artists I've talked to from those regions. I wonder why this is.

I can only speak for myself on this. And basically it has been a need for paint to dry quickly. Acrylic does this and allows me to keep working dots as I want to. Oil paint would be a dilema for me, it would be tedious. Also, I like the fact that there is no oil smell in my studio. I'm a fresh air person.

Do you do most of your work in acrylics?

Just acrylics.

What about other mediums, like pastels, watercolor, oils? Do you ever paint with any of these mediums?

I'm not there yet. Watercolour is quite interesting and I would like to explore this. I have some in my studio but haven't broken the seal. All in good time.

Do you teach art?

No. I do visits to elementary school classrooms and really enjoy this. I very much enjoy the exuberance of young children about colours and doing art things.

How did the school(s) find out about you?

Word of mouth, really. A parent saw my work in a retail location and mentioned this to a teacher who had been introducing her class to some art things. I received a phone call inquiring about my coming to the class. I always respond to open doors. Besides, kids are incredible. I was sitting in the waiting room of my dentist's office this week and happened to tap the toes of my shoes to something I was thinking about. A little girl, about four years old, heard this and then tapped the toes of her shoes. I watched this and then said to her, 'I like that, you must have got your shoes from the same store where I got mine'. She responded with an impromptu dance in the middle of the waiting room. Now that's uninhibited creativity.

Do you do workshops?

I have an opportunity to do a workshop early next year. This will be a new experience I'm very much looking forward to.

How did this come about? And where will the workshop be held?

The location is at the Prairie Ocean Centre for the Arts in Gimli, Manitoba. They've asked me to do something for adults and something for children. Apparently, the Centre will be displaying my work as well.

How did this come about?

Well, I read something written in a publication and I wrote some thoughts, by e-mail, to the author. We exchanged a few messages. At a later time I learned she was associated with the Prairie Ocean Centre when she asked me about doing some workshops as she really liked my 'absolutely enchanting work' she'd seen on my website. That's pretty well how it happened. I'm very grateful for, and excited about, this opportunity.

Do you go through any mental preparations before starting to paint?

No. I often like music in the room. I tend to be fairly relaxed as a person, formal meditiation is not in my repertoire . While painting though, I seem to find the piece communicating with me in terms of colour and dots and relationships. The actual action of painting may be a form of meditation for me.

Some painters tell me sometimes they go into their studio and simply can't get inspired. Has this ever happened to you?

I've not experienced this. I just seem to have a lot of material. Sometimes, if I've been working on a piece for quite awhile, I will put it down and work on another. This keeps me fresh and I like to maintain this. I can have three of four paintings on the go at one time.

Do you have a disciplined work habit or do you paint whenever time allows?

More the latter, I think. Mondays and Fridays tend to be very dedicated painting days. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday see me in the studio as time allows. On Fridays I almost always paint in public at a coffee shop I like to frequent. I work there for a minimum of six hours or so. I love the contact with the people who frequent the place.

What do you paint at the café? Is it people and the environment in general, or do you paint from pictures?

I paint whatever I'm currently working on. Basically I just transfer my studio to the café for the day. So it could be a landscape, flowers, a portrait, etc. My original source is often a photo, unless I'm painting from memory. By the time I take a piece to the café, I'm doing a lot of interpretation with it. People who come over to watch see a printing that is usually seventy percent or more completed. Invariably we find ourselves in conversation while I work. I like this a lot. People just don't see someone painting with dots very often. We can have good fun talking about it.

How many hours do you spend on one painting?

A painting, dot-by-dot, takes a minimum of twenty hours and sometimes I can spend up to 35 or40 hours on it.

That's a long time for one painting. What sizes are we talking here?

The smallest I've done is 8" x 10", the largest is 48" x 36". The interesting thing is that small or large the time will be a minimum of twenty hours. It just seems to be that way.

How many paintings per week do you produce?

This varies a lot. I try to paint one a week and usually find myself slightly behind on the plan or because I may have more than one painting on the go at one time, I catch up all of a sudden.

How many hours do you paint in one sitting?

Six or seven if the feeling is right and things are flowing well...and there are no interruptions.

How do you explain that some people will purchase a particular piece of artwork and not another?

Art is so personal. Maybe they grew up in a family that supported a certain definition of visual art. Maybe they don't like certain colours. Maybe they don't feel anything from a piece. All this is okay. People need to buy what they like. I couldn't imagine spending a good dollar on a picture for my wall and not liking it everytime I look at it.

So, you're saying it's a combination of various factors in the painting and in the viewer that determines a painting's salability?

I think that is true. Humankind is fraught with personal likes and dislikes we have acquired over time. And these come together solidly when art is in view. You did an interview with Sherrie McGraw a while ago and when I saw her work I had a very deep sense of attachment to her work. I know this is because of how my dad spoke about natural light when I was a kid and what I subsequently learned to appreciate as a result of this. This is all held within me and I cannot help but respond in a very positive way when I see work like Sherrie's; her work is done so incredibly well.

Do you tell people the meaning of your paintings or do you leave them interpret as they wish?

If people ask because they want to know something then I will tell them things based on what they want to know. To not do this seems inappropriate and poor-spirited. Some people will look at a painting for a long time and then walk away, perhaps with their own opinions and feelings, this is good too. I create something but I don't feel I should play games because I'm creative.

Can you tell us who are some of the artists that have influenced you and whom you continue to enjoy?

Historically, the Impressionists in Europe. Contemporary? I like Robert Genn a lot. Toni Onley. Emily Carr paintings are very strong for me, I saw her work in Vancouver once and couldn't believe how powerful these were

Can you tell us a bit about Emily Carr. She's very important in Canada.

She grew up and spent much of her life in Victoria, British Columbia, operating a boarding house to support herself. Her art, the work for which she is most known, relates the coastal rainforests and the aboriginal existence within it. The images she painted were often done with strong bold strokes. Her colours often share a darkness that for me, at least, cause a sense of a spiritual unknown not unlike what I knew as a child playing in forests similar to this. She travelled the coastline and did much work sourced from these sojourns.

Is there any specific reasons why you're more attracted to these artists and not others?

I like work that emotes and I find these artists a source for this. Their work is absorbing, it pulls me in. When you look at their work you see something, and when you look at it again you see something else. I like this in a painting. I like to be drawn into a piece of artwork.

Relatively speaking, do you consider yourself an artist who has "made it," as the expression goes?

I'm getting there. To some degree this depends on the parameters set out in '"made it". I'm not given to competitive environments so I'm not responding from this point of view. I like what I do; it pleases me. People buy my paintings every month so I would hope my work pleases them. What more should there be? Life is a journey, and life as an artist is definitely a journey. I think what matters most is whether or not it has all been worthwhile. I made some lifestyle changes six years ago and for me it has all been worthwhile. I'm really looking forward to what's next, whatever it might be.

How could an artist render his "journey" worthwhile, do you think?

This is a personal focus for each of us. It really isn't about how much you've sold, that sort of thing, although we all do have to eat. I really think it is about looking at what you've done in total, to this very point in time as a body of work, however large, and thinking that you feel good about it. That is the sort of thing that feels worthwhile. It is much like doing a painting really. A painting is a mini-journey. At the end it will feel worthwhile if you worked at it with all that you have and the result reflects this. Every painting is a step in the journey leading you to the next. It is the kind of thing Robert Frost wrote about in the 'The Road Not Taken'.

Do you have any words of wisdom for artists?

Don't leave people out of the equation.

Can you elaborate a bit more on this?

I'm protective as I can possibly be about my solitude and time to paint. But for art to be art there needs to be people to be part of it. I've never known a giraffe to like art! This is kind of like the question about the tree falling in the forest: does it make a sound if there is noone there to hear it? How can art exist without people to experience it? I make time for people just as much as I make time for painting. People of all walks and persuasions help me grow as an artist. They are a very significant part of my journey.

One of my favorite questions to ask a painter is, do you consider yourself a "Fine Artist"?

I think this is a possibility for me. I feel much interpretation going on when I paint, I'm not just replicating something. At the same time, I'm self-taught so who knows what I will ultimately be seen as in a world that honours the specifically trained. I guess I'll leave the ultimate response to this to others who view my work. I'll be interested but also comfortable with what I do for what it is to me.

In which galleries are you currently represented?

I was represented by the Platinum and the Dalgliesh Galleries located in Calgary, Alberta. I use the past tense "was" because both these galleries have now closed their retail doors due to what seems to be difficult times. However, the principals continue to represent me as they network and do things that such people do. I also have paintings in a retail location that is both a framing shop and retailer of original art: this location is surviving. All three sell my paintings. I network a lot so I've also been just as successful through my studio. I communicate quite regularly with people through my 'Art Studio Connection'. I try to use everything that happens as a reason to communicate and share with others about my art.

What about contacts and potential sales through your website? Should an artist have great expectations of his website?

My site has been a significant contact resource. It has involved me with people who see my work and want to involve me somehow in what they are a part of. Being a person who likes 'open' doors, this is very exciting. My site has not been a source of sales directly. Perhaps I would see sales if I was including some access to prints. I'm only selling original work as this is what I enjoy most at the present time.

Thanks for your inspiring story, Jim. I'm sure readers are going to enjoy learning from you.

It's a pleasure, James. Thank you.

Jim Pescott's website address: www.artincanada.com/jimpescott

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