I began my life in art in elementary school. I kept trying to recreate the suburban home where I lived as a child in Pointe Claire and later Baie D’Urfé, on the outskirts of Montreal. In successive art classes I failed miserably until my early teens, when I gave up the visual arts in favour of writing – in a failed attempt to impress Josée, (my heartthrob at the time) that I wasn’t just another pretty anglo face.
The overwhelming teenage angst I felt at her rejection resulted in a poem which – unfortunately for me – was published by one of the myriad ‘literary magazines’ filled with self-indulgent poet wannabes. I found it a curious world where visionaries, misfits and ‘non-conformists’ and railed together against the ‘military-industrial complex’ and against conspicuous consumption.
Of course non-conformity came at a price. You pretty much had to choose between the ‘Canadian Forum School’ (aka ‘Marxist-light’) or the ‘back-to-the-land-school’ (a kind of hippie-zen fusion). For myself I was more interested in life in the world than life on the outskirts and poverty didn’t have a great deal of appeal.
It was pretty clear that the only market for poetry was in Canadian Literature courses at universities and amongst the poets (and would-be-poets) themselves. What’s more, I found that in trying to write I was constantly pushing myself to the edge of sanity. Something renowned Canadian poet Joe Rosenblatt explores in his book ‘the Lunatic Muse’. In the back of my mind I felt that artistic exploration should be life-affirming and that if there wasn’t an audience, I wasn’t interested in creating an off-the-wall persona à la Andy Warhol or Allen Ginsberg in order to get attention.
In spite of this, during my years at C.E.G.E.P. in the early1970s, and later while working in the bush on Vancouver Island’s west coast, I continued to write. Perhaps my early failures at drawing and the visual arts pushed me towards William Carlos Williams and the other imagist poets – and towards Japanese haiku poetry. I also found myself drawn to printmaking and began experimenting with rudimentary linocuts – which I used as illustrations for my writing. Eventually I produced a couple of limited edition children’s books and created my own illustrations.
I still find myself attracted to written works – in particular to shorter poems. I prefer to see them on paper though and don’t much like readings. All the theatre and the personas get in the way. & I can almost never understand a poem on the first reading – no matter how well it’s read. When I read a piece myself, if I’m lucky I’ll just find images or lines that I like on a first reading. A good image makes me want to continue reading, and hope to find more…
I began experimenting sporadically with photography in the late-1970s however it wasn’t until the digital camera – and useful digital imaging software arrived, that I truly found my element. While I am not usually interested in taking snapshots of people, I do find myself drawn to old photographs. Somehow pictures that have survived a few years, have some kind of relevance to the owner. Discovering that link and building on it can result in satisfying images.
After my stint logging and timber cruising, I apprenticed to the late Tony Roldan – while he served as executive chef at the Harbour Castle Hilton in Toronto. I completed my apprenticeship in 1977, earning my interprovincial red seal in Toronto before returning to the west coast. To this day I love food and cooking – but soon turned in my apron for a calculator. In 1985 I completed my accounting designation and by then was working as a tax auditor in Victoria, BC.
By the late 1980s I had finally produced an acceptable linocut of our house in Victoria – which presumably exorcised my earlier demons. These days we live in an urban loft and have little interest in the suburbs. Instead I find myself drawn to urban cityscapes and the boundaries between industry or the wilderness and human activity.
My wife and I live between the railyard and the river in New Westminster. At work I have similar views looking east from the heart of downtown Vancouver across the railyard there and into Burnaby. There is something about the repetition of simple rectangular shapes and the elemental colours used in these industrial sites..
So you ask yourself – ‘why does this self-indulgent twit ramble on about himself?’
If I’m going to make art (or poetry – it’s all the same) I need an audience to produce the work for. To my mind an artist needs the creative tension of knowing he is trying to communicate something to another human being. All this stuff about myself helps the audience – & me – understand where it’s coming from. It puts the artwork in context.
I don’t see myself as some heroic figure, pushing the boundaries of ‘ART’. I create because I take some joy in making things & want to celebrate being human. Most of the time my work will fail – but occasionally a piece communicates something of what was intended…
rob farrow,
digital imagist
