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COW IN LEATHER
© Jim Rowe
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THINKER
© Jim Rowe
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Biography
Jim Rowe
I am a self taught "outsider"
artist with two solo exhibits to my credit, one at the Peterborough Art Gallery
1996, the other at The Robert Mclaughlin Gallery 1997. I have an upcoming
exhibit at the Art Gallery of Northumberland in Cobourg, January 25 2003 to
March 17 2003. I was born in 1955, and live in Lakefield,Ontario,Canada. For
those who do not know Lakefield, it is on the edge of the canadian shield, to
the north of me it is just rock, trees and lakes for a couple thousand miles, to
the south is farmland. The subject matter of my work is a study of myself and my
interaction with my enviroment. I am able to uncover and symbolically sort out
what is happening and how it affects me, through doodling. It is a form of
automatic writing, only it is automatic drawing. It is really frustrating
digging for ideas this way because there is no control over it. It is like,
every now and then, an idea breaks loose, from deep inside you and drifts off
into space, and if you are doodling at the time, instead of it drifting off into
space, it comes out on to the paper. It`s like a lottery ticket, the odds of
winning are almost imposible but if you do not buy a ticket, you are not going
to win. If you are not sketching you will not catch the idea, but also like a
lottery ticket, the chances of you sketching when an idea occures is pretty
slim, so you have to be sketching all the time to catch that one totally amazing
idea. To minimize the amount that goes into the garbage I use the cheapest paper
and make tiny sketches. I start by sitting down with a piece of typewriter
paper, divided into about 12 squares of 2"x3" each, so each piece of
paper that I waste represents 12 attempts, it is like panning for gold, you go
for days and have nothing to show for your effort. Anyways, I just sit down with
my paper and start moving the pencil around, just scribbling. When something
finally does appear, because the sketch is so small, I can use an inexpensive
photo enlarger to blow it up to the desired size for tracing.I have to trace it
because I could not take a chance of changing even the smallest detail in the
original sketch, I want it to be completley original. All my paintings are
acrylic on canvas that is stretched over pine, that is ripped from a board of
10" wide roof sheeting, I search through the pile in the lumber yard to
find boards that are knot free. I prime my own canvas, I feel that the priming
is an important part of the painting and to use canvas that is already primed is
like having someone start your painting for you. A painting should be 100% you.
Edison said in an interview, when they were refering to him as a genius, he said
genius is 1% insperation and 99% persperation, and that is the way it is with my
art work, you have to be very disciplined, the results equal the effort. I had a
job for the last 15 years where I was on maintenance in a large company, just
sitting day after day waiting for something to break down. I had alot of time to
develop my sketching techniques. Then I was layed off, so now I have alot of
time for painting. I have learned that if you want something bad enough and work
at it hard enough, it will eventually happen, things will work out, everything
will fall into place. I would appreciate any kind of publicity that anyone can
manage, do you have an art related site, lets exchange links, e-mail me with
coments or questions and get added to my mailing list for any updates.
E-Mail
Me!
http://www3.sympatico.ca/jim.rowe2/
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