Richard Karon Part 2

RICHARD KARON - INVITED US TO BECOME INTIMATE WITH THE ENVIRONMENT

     When I began writing the original rough manuscript, as a biographical first-attempt, to, in a modest way, represent the life and work of former Muskoka artist, Richard Karon, I admit to spending a lot of time, wandering in the neighborhood wetland, here in our South Muskoka sanctuary, we call "The Bog". It has the kind of landscape that Karon might have found interesting to profile, on his paint boards, not because of its profound beauty, but rather, it's more obscure splendor throughout the four seasons. It doesn't have lake or river-front, but it does have diverse vegetation, with many small creeks running through the clusters of cattails, and the numerous tiny cataracts that shimmer like bands of silver in the spring sunlight. Karon didn't always pursue the obvious, and the scenes that might have made him more popular as a Muskoka artist. Instead, he was interested in finding places in nature, that others had overlooked, or deemed uninteresting. It's why I used to wander around The Bog, when I found myself at an impasse, as to how to proceed with the story.
     Richard Karon could have been a successful portrait painter. He could have painted city scenes and profiles of heritage architecture, and offered us romantic, sentimental images of places in this country, that would have found many more buyers. Instead, he pursued landscapes because they appealed to him, for any number of reasons, that may well go back to his early days, as a struggling artist, trying to survive in occupied Poland, during the years of the Second World War. At this time, he would use any spare moment, to sketch from old post cards of Polish architecture, and landscapes, friends in the neighborhood offered the apprentice artist, who would look over the shoulder of any painter he could find in the war-torn city. Even after arriving in North America, after escaping Poland and the Russian influences that began to penetrate his homeland, Karon was still fascinated by portraits including nudes, and from samples known, he was highly skilled representing the human form. It just wasn't what he most wanted to pursue in his art career, if that's what earned him enough money. Arriving in Muskoka many years later, he knew that the area of the Township of Lake of Bays, near the Village of Baysville, was full of potential for the aspiring landscape artist, who wasn't adverse to painting images of lowlands and creeks, and heavily treed lakeshores; and even those barren points of land, with a modest smattering of small trees laden with newly fallen snow. He did not paint like Tom Thomson, and I've seen nothing comparable to the "West Wind," or "Jack Pine," but then Karon wasn't trying to imitate the work of any other artist. His were serene images, of places of interest, that for whatever reason caught his eye, and meant something beyond what would be worked onto a canvas. This is what I most appreciated about his choice of subjects. They were pockets of Muskoka topography that deserved representation in the range of local art work. There was more to the Muskoka region, than images of the larger, more popular lakes, and trademark watercraft traversing the waterways during the summer months. Karon was a four season artist, and he found remarkable scenes whether it was in December, March, or November. He didn't paint just to turn a profit. He had to believe in what he was doing, and his very private relationship with nature, may have been more deeply intimate, than even his family knew at the time.
     Some of his painting owners have offered the opinion, that his landscapes of Lake of Bays lowlands, and bogs especially, are lonely, haunting depictions, that inspire thoughtfulness, and questioning, about the integral nature and cycle of such wild places. What dwells in these places? At the same time, these are not scenes that depress emotions, or make the viewer uncomfortable with the environs the painter uncovered. Instead, his landscapes invite you to participate, in writing the story behind its creation; it's relevance, and its inherent enchantments. This was the magic I found in the work of Richard Karon.

IN THE FIELD - THE ARTIST

"Art is a way of life. It is not entertainment nor professionalism, but a necessity." Arthur Lismer.

When the beaver ambled onto the embankment, the artist could clearly hear the rustle of the taller shoreline grasses, as it proceeded along the jagged rocks of the small, sunlit lake. The highly animated chipmunk darts over, and through the tangle of broken-off branches, fallen on the exposed rock; beneath the cluster of venerable old birches, leaning out over the water, as if writer Robert Frost, had placed them there purposely, as a metaphor of life and wisdom. The tiny creature, being eyed by a predator, has come to settle on a bit of driftwood clumped along the sandy shore. A hawk, perched on a pine bough, in one of the towering evergreens wreathing the lake, awaits the opportunity to swoop with stealth, quickly down upon its prey. For a moment, the hawk seems preoccupied by something else moving in the long grass below. The painter is aware of pending change, if not the sudden demise of the chipmunk, it will soon be the rain, as the bank of dark clouds rise over the band of tall pines, just to the west.

The painter is aware of the fat blue jay, and its intrusive, echoing squawks, reverberating across the still, mirroring water. From the corner of his eye, he sees the bounding and leaping of two squirrels in the low pine boughs, and annoyed somewhat, by the insects that have caused him to stop sketching, to swat the flies off the backs of both his hands. There is just a slight breeze this moment, that had been enough to clear away the morning mist, to reveal this sparkling jewel of waterscape, in the heartland of Lake of Bays Township, where Richard Karon had constructed his studio / gallery. But it was in a place like this, immersed so picturesquely, in the alluring embrace of lake, trees, rock and sky, that made his work a comforting pleasure.

The painter was entertained by the sounds of the light wind, passing through the long-reaching cedar branches, and the rustle of new spring grasses, and shoreline vegetation, so vibrantly green and willowy, dancing in wavering reflection, against the shadowed water. The incessant calling of the blue jays, and abrasive cawing of three grumpy crows, perched at the top of a dead birch, were being sketched into this art panel as its patina; the sounds very much influencing the mood of the artist in the field.

All the intrusions on this sanctuary were welcome. They were very much establishing the mood of the environs here, at this moment of capture onto paper. The essence of a natural day, where the myriad life-forms are not considered intrusive at all, to the voyeur, and the artist is aware, how gentle he must be, not to influence the daily activities of all these creatures; going about the habitual chore of survival amongst predators. He is very careful moving around, the spot he has chosen to paint, that he not adversely change the landscape, and the habitat he is trying to represent in art. Such that if an art patron, was to look at the subject panel, these intricacies of nature would prevail; inner evidence of the bird calls, rustling of beaver and muskrat, squirrel and chipmunk, and the soft wash of wind through the pines. It could all be imagined upon viewing the same captured lake scene, framed and prominently hung in a gallery. When someone would comment to Richard Karon, that they knew where he had painted a landscape, and commented that he had captured the color, textures of the rock and trees, and the true qualities of lake and sky, he would feel the work then, had been successful. If an art admirer, would study a particular landscape with considerable intensity, turn to Mr. Karon, and say, "I can feel the wind blowing across that lake," or "I hear the waves breaking over those rocks you have painted," he would have been pleased his palette-knife, and choice of colors, had peaked such sensory perception.

To engage sensory perception, was what the artist desired. While he was encouraged by the sale of his art work, he found it difficult, at times, to be a painter for profit only. The commerce of being a good artist was, of course, critical to the artist's business success or failure. Knowing that a purchased art panel had evoked a sensory connection, and paralleled similar emotions he had felt, at the time of composition, made him feel his art had attained an important allure, and the representative peak, he felt was needed to continue as a landscape artist.

Richard Karon was known as a volatile critic of his own work. As artists are usually compelled, Karon destroyed many sketches and even larger paintings, he felt missed this pinnacle of personal standard. He was prone to considerable mood-swings at his easel, and might walk away in frustration, and anger, acknowledging that the palette knife, in hand, and his mindful intent, were too far apart at that hour, or for that day, or week, to create anything more than the escalation of discontent.

So when some hiker, or picnic group suddenly came upon the Muskoka artist, sitting alone in an alcove of rock, sketching the landscape below, while he might have initially been annoyed by the intrusion, he would soon perk up, when one passerby, might have complimented the depiction, tabled by his knees; as being beautiful and accurate to what they could look out, and see of the lakeland vista. Karon didn't ask for these impromptu critiques of his work, but he listened intently to the passing reviews, and benefitted from the observations. He often found the critiques, by those who had no interest in buying art, his or anyone else's, were far more honest and trustworthy, as there was no pretense, with either party, that a purchase was imminent. He paid attention to what people had to say about his panels, and was very much interested in harsh critiques, because he was aware of the necessity to mature and broaden his work. In Poland, he had many accomplished artist-types, offer him advice on his early sketches of city scenes and architectural studies, and he benefitted, as a fledgling artist, because he had purposely exposed himself to more than just praise and admiration of his finished pieces. Karon was aware of his inabilities as an artist, and made a huge commitment to adapt to new realities, and accommodate the changes around him, into his art. He wanted exposure to lakeland scenes, like this, where there was so much diverse natural activity, and nothing typical or predictable. Every visit was different. The light on the water, creating a new color. The approach of a storm, making what was a picturesque scene, into a forboding place, the water a cauldron of wind-raised whitecaps……the sky white against the tumbling grey of a spring thunderstorm.

A fish jumping for an insect, a small watersnake swimming along the shore, the thunderous bolt through the thicket, from the escape of two startled deer, was the actuality that provided Richard Karon, his sense of adventure in art; restored each new outing, and from every secluded portal he found in nature. The exciting bombardment of life forces, re-generated, time and again, his ambitions and purpose, to capture the legendary enchantments of Muskoka on has canvases.

Arthur Lismer, of the famed Group of Seven, Canadian artists, also wrote, "The artist uses nature in its present aspect, not as a standard to copy, but as a source of inspiration."