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. http://www.quinteartscouncil.org/members/agn.html 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 environment. 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 impossible 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 occurs 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 completely 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 referring to him as a genius, he said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, 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 allot of time to develop my sketching techniques. Then I was laid off, so now I have allot 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.
-Jim Rowe