Magnificent Derelicts

The watercolours in The Hearth Gallery, and three hundred others, have an unusual past. They were painted about 50 years ago, not as paintings, but as book illustrations. My absurd mission was a futile attempt to persuade people that abandoned vernacular buildings were a natural part of the landscape and deserved protection like wildlife or big trees. I was preaching Arrested Decay. The notion found wide appeal in the media, Time Magazine, Macleans and on national television. Eventually, Heritage Canada became my prime advocate. Of course, the notion was impossible. Almost every barn I painted has vanished. Here is some sentimentality from my first book, Magnificent Derelicts:

"A farmer is dumbfounded that I would want to write about his barn and his grandfather who built it and the prairie fire that almost destroyed it in the forties.  But he is also flattered because no one else has ever bothered to ask. So the floodgates of his memory open wide and he tours me through a lifetime which, in its way, has been colourful and creative and full, and deserves recording.

These buildings are lasting monuments to laughter and grief and birth and death and all the best and worst of times. They are all that remain of a family, a childhood, a lifetime. Everyone has gone. Forever. They have scattered and died, their furnishings, clothing, animals and automobiles have also vanished. But the old homestead, the barns and the stables, the stores on main street where they shopped, the mill down by the river where they worked, the church where they worshipped, the little school where they studied, sometimes stay, at least for a while. When these, the last physical evidence of a lifetime are gone, there is nothing left to remember.

That aside, these buildings are beautiful. They are pieces of folk art. Not because they are old and weathered and picturesque and quaint. Their beauty runs deeper.  They embody the essence of a noble and resourceful lifestyle. There is intrinsic beauty in functional simplicity. There is beauty in craftsmanship that outlasts the craftsman.  Even the quirky ones are beautiful. Take a good look at some abandoned canneries or linseed mills or rodeo chutes or hop dryers, railway roundhouses, breweries, water towers or brick kilns. They are honest and unique structures, all of them, and they will soon be gone.”

-RON WOODALL

EVENTS:

Artist pARTy: Saturday APRIL 4TH. All are welcome, please join us!