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Visual Language
November 2014 Volume 3 No. 11
Brian Croft
contemporary fine art
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Artspan Studio Visit Brian Croft
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Bathhouse on English Bay - 1931
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Artspan Studio Visit Brian Croft Brian Croft, History Through the Eyes of an Artist.
I was a fighter pilot and, later, an airline pilot. Now 66 years young, I call myself an artist. As I look back on nearly two decades of painting, I realize that it began as a Forrest Gump type of moment; one day in September of 1995, for no particular reason, I decided to pick up a brush and create my first watercolour and, when I finished that, I started another, then another, until today my painting logbook (I was a pilot remember) records more than 380 paintings. In 2004, I transitioned from the watercolour medium to acrylic on canvas and the paintings are now much larger in size and involve concentrations of detail that astonish even me as I step back from the canvas. My first studio was our family laundry room. There, I found a little space and enough light to do my early watercolours. With three teenage children, the rest of the house and all of the bedrooms were spoken for and so there I sat with my two new friends, the washer and dryer, and embarked on my journey. This was not ideal! After painting, I had to pack everything up then, to resume painting, unpack and set-up again, all of which took time. Many artists face the same problem: finding enough space where artwork and tools can be left out rather than be packed away after each work session. Eventually, I graduated into a dedicated studio where I could have all my tools, paint, canvas and research laid-out in organized chaos. Now, even if I have only a few minutes of time available, I can drop into my studio get to work immediately. Nothing in my artistic journey was planned; at first I painted a diverse array of subject matter: floral arrangements, still-life studies, animals, people, and old buildings. Old buildings, more than anything else, seemed to tell me a story while I painted. These rather forlorn and threatened structures also re-ignited a long-time fascination with architecture that I first discovered during my high school drafting classes. It pleased me to be able to paint these buildings, and as I did so, my mind was free to think about the lives of the pioneers that built them. By the end of that first year, 1995, I completed over thirty-five watercolour paintings. My subject matter was increasingly focused on old buildings and I found myself creating a visual record of the heritage and history that I saw around me. My research and paint process yielded increasingly detailed works. A good deal of acquired historical in-
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formation, usually in the form of notes and supporting photographs, helped me develop each painting to its full potential and, over time, this attention to detail became the most recognizable element of my work. After a painting was finished I condensed the research material into short historical summaries; these summaries were then printed and mounted beside each work in galleries and served to introduce each work to the viewer. Today, I write much longer historical summaries for virtually every work. Happily, it turned out that my paintings of heritage scenes when combined with my writing of historical summaries constituted viable and reflective news articles that resonated particularly well with newspapers and magazines. By 2002, having created over 275 watercolour paintings and publishing a number of limited edition prints, I began to feel pressure from the galleries that represented; they asked me to consider a transition of my work onto canvas. I evaluated both oil and acrylic for nearly a year before settling on acrylic. The result was a decision I lament every day. I loved the properties of oil paint in every respect save one, the slow drying time. As my work was, and still is, all about details, acrylic paint, with its immediate dry-time, became my medium simply because it supported my tiny detail work without fear of smudging or disturbing surrounding wet pigment. Even though I still miss the mental gymnastics of thinking twentyfive moves ahead, working light-to-dark, to control a watercolour project and often yearn for the thick-rich blending properties of oil, I cannot deny that the move to acrylic on canvas has permitted me to paint more detail than ever before. My historical paintings tell stories form our past and I call this work my “serious side”. A few years ago, as a diversion, I painted a few 1950’s and 1960’s Vancouver nightlife paintings and I could not help but notice a subtle change in people’s reaction to my art. From those who grew up in that era, there were more smiles than usual. This reaction expanded my perspective on history and I began to focus on the neon-blazing era of Rock and Roll, and the days of my youth and thats how I discovered the other side of my work, the “fun side”.
Capitol on Granville - 1956
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Artspan Studio Visit Brian Croft
On the fun side, the greatest technical challenge was the accurate depiction of the extraordinary automobiles from the fifties and sixties; it takes a great deal of digging to get all the chrome and trim details right. I especially loved painting cars that I always wanted to own but could not afford. Best of all, I felt like a kid again, re-living my youth through the process of re-creating it on canvas. Automobiles aside, there is really no technical difference between “fun” and “serious”, but somehow I can feel the smile on my face a little broader whenever I work on a “fun side” painting. I have a tattered sheet of paper in my studio labeled “Idea List”, a kind of bucket list of paintings yet-to-be. The list is always growing as ideas come to mind and I acknowledge, with some degree of resignation, that I will never get them all done. It is not simply for the lack of time that this will happen; it is because our capacity, as artists, to imagine possible creations will always exceed our ability to execute them all. But that is irrelevant; the important thing is to keep on imagining and working; that is my journey. Brian Croft
Stanley Park Junction
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In the Spotlight
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Artspan Studio Visit Brian Croft
Wigwam inn - 1913
Vancouver Bus Terminal - 1939
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Theatre Row, Granville - 1962
English Bay - 1916
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