Story taken from my Tom Thomson Archives
Art as Salvation – “The West Wind”
I am realistic about change and the positives of certain aspects of new, sensible and needed development. I would never describe myself as anti-development but I will never support those initiatives that facilitate the cancer of urban sprawl in the guise of positive economic development. The stewards of our region, should demonstrate an unyielding respect for the well being of the hinterland that has generated and blossomed our tourism industry from the 1870s onward. Our number one industry in Muskoka is tourism, just as it has been for well more than a century. Should we truly wish to be enlightened by our visitors, our second home owners, about how we could improve the tourism industry in the coming decade, I would be willing to wager, there would be nary a request for more strip malls and box stores sprawling over the countryside. Arguably we have been complacent about the tourism industry, and forgotten why visitors flock to our region throughout the year. Me thinks, it has something to do with our natural assets…. natural assets that are compromised seriously each year by land speculators and weak willed politicians who simply can’t or won’t say “NO!”
It has been pointed out to me many times in the past, with considerable justification, that I have an unrealistic, romantic, sickly sentimental and non-progressive attitude, about how Muskoka should embrace new investment, and deal with increasing development interest (urban sprawl by any other name is the destruction of us all!). Instead of “fear mongering,” about the fragile state of the environment, my critics believe I should embrace change because afterall, it’s inevitable. Or so the vested interest claims. I have long agreed with the critics’ overview of my editorial opining but the very thought of joining them at the next bulldozing of habitat, with glaring support painted on my face, is a capitulation I shall never allow; particularly when it means that to be “one of them,” I would have no choice but to abandon a life-long respect and concern, about the well being of the natural assets of our home district. To embrace the glad-handing, “more is always better,” capitalist dream, and join pleasant companionship of those who do not wince when a wetlands or forest is sacrificed for yet another retail opportunity, I would indeed be throwing up my hands in a final embrace of moral bankruptcy.
It was back in my unhappy, confined days as a student that I developed this keen, unfaltering interest in my home district. Instead of being held captive in that classroom, I wanted to meander through the enchanted forest I could see through the pathetic border of fingerprints smudged onto the glass,…. left by inmates who, I assumed, also wanted to escape; I daydreamed constantly about wandering those lakeside paths, sitting atop that grand rise of hillside, overlooking lake and field, the glorious expanse of open space…..and that was my sense of ultimate “freedom,” a feeling I have celebrated every day since. But I had a hero, a mentor, who helped me in this daily bid to break free of my fetters. Here is a short biographical piece I wrote in the spring of this year, 2006, for my boys Andrew and Robert, who have long questioned their father’s obsession with the great outdoors, and his knack for annoying politicians, developers and land speculators.
Tom Thomson led the way
There is a tiny, crystalline waterfall spilling over the edge of an oddly positioned knoll, composed of long matted grasses and fallen chunks of rotting birch. It is an out of place obstruction amidst the flat lowland topography. The sound of water flowing across this uneven earth imitates the tinkling of ice against ice during the spring melt.
In the neighborhood this marshland is known, with some affection, as “The Bog,” a curiously haunted moor with its own tiny beck, where an intruder, in the wee hours, might expect to find fairies at dance in a moonlight revel.
The ribbon of run-off flows through a region of gradual declines, into a series of connected black pools, just over the wooded hillside from where I now stand. I can’t see the miniature cataract at this moment, because of the ridge that parallels the almost entirely obscured creek-bed. I can clearly hear it frothing and then whispering over the rocks, gurgling through the narrow crevices between the old mounds of marsh grass.
I don’t need to see the waterfall, or the snaking ribbon of black water, to be able to visualize its grandness. I thoroughly enjoy the woodland’s play of light and shadow, an enchantment thriving in this sparkling theatre of early morning light. There is a warm breeze rustling over the tall grasses, shaking the canopy of hardwood leaves, giving the effect of a sun shower down upon the rich green landscape, overtaking the trail in places, with huge ferns and sprawling plants holding close to the cool earth.
There is a rich, permeating aroma of old growth and new, the strong scent of decaying leaves mixed with the merging passions of fragrant wildflowers and earthy lowland water. I can detect a distinct odor from stagnant pools, and a vinegar-like scent wafting from the heart of a decaying log. There is an unmistakable effervescence here, representative of all thriving life-forms, nestled into the hollow of this gently meandering creek. I can shut my eyes and imagine every last detail, and I offer no apology for hiding away from a day’s toil. It is a bard’s sanctuary from the stresses of invention.
It was in the musty, smothering misery of a public school classroom, in Bracebridge, that I found my capability, at will, to escape my teacher guardians. I can remember looking through a school textbook one day, trying to find just one thing to abate, even momentarily, the deep-seeded pull of Thule. An almost cruel passion for outdoor adventure that commanded me to rise up from this fettering of desk and protocol, and smash through the classroom window toward freedom on earth.
Half asleep in the humdrum of uninspired tutorial, flipping through the pages that had been unceremoniously dropped onto my desk, I found amongst the clutter of print, an enchanting reproduction of the painting “West Wind,” by Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson; a name and connection with the art world that would change my life.
For the rest of that school year, whenever I felt the urge to break free from my captors, I could turn to that image of the “West Wind,” and cast-off all that tethered me to the classroom. My imagination was set free.
I stared at the image so intensely that I could see it colorfully emblazoned when I shut my eyes. I could sense with uncanny detail, the environs where Tom Thomson had camped. The vantage point he had found that afforded the perfect framing of windswept shoreline. I could feel the stab of a cold November wind, and hear the haunting wail of punishing storm; creaking pine, whitecaps smashing against shoreline rock. I was with Thomson. I could smell the paint from his palette. Feel the ridges of paint on board that made this cauldron art boil. I could feel the ethereal vapor of heavenly trail, through the cloudscape his brush caressed.
And I could half hear the sound of a teacher’s pointer tapping intrusively at my desk. “Where are you Mr. Currie,” the teacher beckoned of thin air while playfully, I suppose, twisting his pointer to illustrate that it could just as easily be my neck. My instructor treated me with less and lesser affection over the course of that entire year. “If you want to learn Mr. Currie, you must pay attention,” he scolded, and of this I agreed. I paid even more attention to “The West Wind,” and the art of Tom Thomson, through all the years and grating, boring-to-tears lectures that followed.
My failing in the classroom, as a sort of unanticipated “forward-backward principle,” actually fulfilled a gift of over-active imagination. Oh how invigorating it was, to trundle along with Thomson, paintboard and fishing-rod in tow, along those dark and narrow Algonquin trails, that led to spectacular plateaus and curious portals. Each unexplored lookout we came upon, quite by accident, offered the voyeurs exciting new vantage points. It allowed us in secret, to watch solitude then storm; the sparkling canopy of black against the light of heaven, then everso gently the paint and poetry of Northern Lights spiriting from the horizon.
It was said of Thomson that he was very re-active to changes in the environs and atmosphere around him, and it was not uncommon to have the artist suddenly withdraw from conversation if, for example, he heard the distant roll of thunder. Those with him at the time, would watch Thomson posture at a window, or out along the lakeshore, watching every moment of a storm’s etching over the Algonquin landscape. He would sketch right up to the time the heavy rain began to fall, and the wind made it impossible to work. For the painting of the Northern Lights, he would sit out in the chill air for hours, attempting to capture the true magnificence and coloration of the event, within the frame of the particular night. If you remarked to Thomson, that his painting made you feel cold and lonely, or that it evoked a strong spiritual sensation, he would be delighted and talk with affection about his experiences capturing the image.
If I had enjoyed the privilege of an audience with Thomson, back in my school days, I would have told him with heartfelt sincerity, his depiction of “The West Wind” had saved my life. At moments when I wanted to stab myself to death with a sharp pencil, to escape the monotony of instruction, the presence of art offered that reckless abandon of daydream. Thomson’s painting brought me spiritually to the very pinnacle of land where he found that storied evergreen. I could have described, with savage appetite for more adventure, how glorious it was to be set free by art. I would have embraced the man and thanked him whole heartedly, for making my school experience so much more pleasurable and invigorating. And I would have begged that he take me along by brush and paddle again into the hinterland. I was his faithful servant in life and eternity, for what spirit he had bestowed the once hopelessly uninspired.
I can retreat inside today and hole-up beneath the soft glow of a desk lamp, and compose at this typewriter as if I’m still holding vigil in The Bog. I can recreate the sensory joy of being shaded by the canopy of maple leaves and pine boughs, within earshot of waterfall and windsong, squirrel chatter and loon call. I can re-play it all, each pleasurable intrusion of pungent scent and sweetness, every waver of grass and creature crossing, and invent with striking actuality, the distant roll of thunder when mood prevails, and poetic reason commands. But this great freedom and frolic of imagination, I companion with today, had its blossoming in that same uninspired classroom of yore.
I resign to the infrequent thought that with this sense of history and reflection, I am like the others who occasionally, in some sentimental mood, recall the good old days of teacher and classmates. I’m sure my teachers, god bless them all, with the greatest reluctance, will remember the many challenges thwarting my great escapes. The ones Tom Thomson encouraged me to undertake for the preservation of kind heart and electric soul.
I shall always see the artful stroke of brush in oil, painted against the summer sky. When I hear the autumn gale pulsing over the lake, I will clearly visualize Thomson sitting on that rocky point of land, staring down legend, as if rooted securely, the painter himself the sculpted pine. In the Northern Lights I can feel his hand; in the tranquil bay, I see the calm of life instilled. The thunder heard of the approaching storm, will be the stirring caress of newly unfettered adventure. When the storm passes, the voyeur will feast again upon that painted light, the glow of inspiration, art to life, horizon to horizon.
I shall visualize the West Wind at my final accounting, as the natural grace of immortality.
A Short Sketch in Admiration of Tom Thomson
Note for this portion of the blog entry:
I wrote the following story, in between some pencil sketches I had unskillfully attempted, during a recent hiatus out in the midst of our cherished neighborhood forest. The story has a touch of Muskoka, and the Algonquin region as background, and hopefully it reflects how Tom Thomson’s art has influenced my life-long perception of the dynamic of nature around us; and created a sense of mission to help inspire others to travel along some of the same lakeside paths and winding trails through woodland and meadow……to witness the intricacies and magic of the environment…..that most have ignored through so much of their lives. If ever there was a time to re-educate stakeholders about the importance of a conserved environment, it is now….in Muskoka, in Ontario, in Canada, the world. And if you ever have a chance to make a stand for the importance of ongoing Outdoor Education in our education system…..then hopefully after these prompting words, you won’t begrudge tax dollars being so well invested in our youth.
The Inner Storm of Tom Thomson
Each bold, smooth brush stroke, laps down into the long furrow of emerging wake. The traverse imprints a profound and contrasting depth and breadth of shadow, paint and coloration, as impression whirlpools from the surface into undertow.
The paddle is thrust into a furious gouge, deep below the surface of this reflective lake. Paint streams in a confluence of art and nature in a silhouetted passage across an open, mirrored universe. The manifestation upon the painter’s board began in this violation of event against reflection, as the paddle-stroke evermore propels the canoe toward the open bay.
In this storied sanctuary, in the sage scented basin of legend and spirits, the artist finds the portal to oversee creation. A hallowed place to live and paint, one side in the actuality of Algonquin, the other in the ethereal current of ecstasy. The poet is the artist, the environs the pinnacle of enlightened observation, between realities and illusion, natural heaven and hell.
The devil stirs against a subtle divinity of calm. Above the contoured rocks on the distant shore, actuality is painted an ominous black against green. Demons generate free-will within the cavernous tomb of autumn storm, just this moment blocking away the sun. There is a threatening free-fall earthward of fear and trembling; a deep, vibrating roar beyond the jowls of stormscape. A hard, piercing, rythmic drumming of wind and rain, growing deeply fertile, fueled by the inspiration of still-warm air that spans the lakeland.
The first bite of ill-fame has clearly cut with a dagger point, across the uneven expanse of this once still life. The gale generated whitecaps rage along the blunt rock shoreline. Seeking refuge from the painter’s intent, the wind’s malevolent passion, the canoeist turns sharply back toward shore. The precarious balance between paddler and storm stages mortal and artistic co-habitation. It is the will of artist. The traverse must end. The cyclonic force at the heart of creative storm, will paint, without mercy, without apology, a soon-fatal blow. The paint-board presents this tragic wake, the biography of evasive yet found immortality.
A gallery voyeur has just taken a step-back, mindful that art and artist demand space in which to thrive. What then is this unsafe passage of imagination, but the cruel play now of creator on the unsuspecting?
This thrusting, bitter November wind pounds down against the Algonquin woodland with a brutal force, snapping limbs off the bare old hardwoods and sending the fallen leaves into a filmy crimson sheet, draping across the hazy passage ahead. The deeply rolling waves pummel the canoe, bashing against the stern, the wind and current beneath wrenching the bow toward the sawblade of rock.
It became impossible to make any progress up the shore toward Mowat. The bounce-back of waves off the rocks had become severe, and the only way to avoid capsizing, was to pull into the first shallow inlet. At times the manifestation of wind and whitecaps was so powerful that the wooden canoe seemed to lift fully into the air, a precarious, spirited flight across the peaks and valleys of this unfolding legend.
The irregular, unpredictable, violent thrusts of autumn gale, strike down upon this haunted lake with a murderous, determined, unfaltering stroke. A mournful, darkened sky tumbles along the horizon, the true rage of Algonquin storm yet to unfurl. The shrill and haunting windsong, of air current through the tight embrace of towering evergreens, enchants in a warning voice. There is no safe passage. The sharp slap and cascade of waves upon silvered rocks, the creak and groan of aged docks, holding as schooner planks in high seas, peaks the voyeur’s sense that the spirit-kind are at work, sculpting in essence the bust of a tragic hero.
Adrift in this cauldron of tugging undertow and battering wave, a tightly clenched fist of wind jerks stern then bow, inward hard against the rocks. Long canvas shards engrave windward, giving the appearance of razor-cut paper in the flight of a kite. A clench of malevolent history strikes upward against the wooden hull, now shattered and torn open violently to the flood of dark twisting current. There is an evil succession of crashing waves, a tangle of green serpents diving one through the other, in this constant, wicked caress of nature’s most evolutionary intent. Drowning in this abstraction of legend, the canoe-mate disappears into the fictional depths of our own spirit lake. The challenger of nature, the ignorant transgressor, is overcome today by manifestation of art and artist, brush stroke and inspiration.
The creator stops work abruptly, resting hand and brush on the open paint box, as if he has been suddenly disconnected from prevailing realities. It is necessary to re-acquaint with the storm’s fury, still etching across the white and black contrasted bowl of Canoe Lake. As the overturned canoe, wood against stone, bobs like a corpse in the foaming inlet below, the bare knuckle of storm-surge bashes down like a lover spurned. In the slow but profound fade of life-shade into death, at this precise moment of sacrifice, the protocol of legend has been satisfied. An ominous, transforming darkness encroaches upon the watcher’s soul; brush is returned to oil and board, as if carried by wind and wave; a spirited rush of energy from earth beneath, into conflict, toil and creation.
A poignantly haunted lakeland emerges in this new warm light exposed, over the cold clasping rigor-mortis of life imitating art.
Just when it appears a typhoon might at any moment unfurl from the deepest black of spiraling cloudscape, the trace golden lines of sun enhance in thin cuts, along the deep green and blue hollows of afternoon horizon. Striking imprints, curious painted evolutions of storm and legend, are roughly hewn from contrary environs of wild reality yet enduring sanctuary.
Suspended at this moment is a raw cocktail of vigorous inspiration and sage advisory, the firmly brushed imprint of fiction against actuality; the uncertain oblivion that exists between canoe and storm, reality and impression, and the artist at the mercy of raging emotion. A cold, wicked penetration of arctic air stabs into the flesh, while the warm intoxication of creation keeps artist at task.
In earnest devotion, and unfaltering faith, it is mindfully acknowledged by the creator, the story has been successfully composed. A re-animation of the dead, you might say. A fatal traverse of life and times, captured for posterity. The last brush stroke, an illusion, has chaptered painter within the storm. Fear and trembling, blood and soul, rock and sky, our mutual surrender to Algonquin in transition.
In the glow of a gallery light, the fury manifests anew, as if released in our presence, the passion and glory of ecstasy bestowed.
With every paddle stroke against the current, we revere the legend that brought us here. Faithful, silent witness to the spirit within the storm.
In tribute to Canadian landscape painter, Tom Thomson.
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