Monday, July 26, 2010

Recommended Summer Reading - 'Blazing Figures: A Life of Robert Markle'

I encountered Robert Markle a couple of times in the mid 1980's. Following art studies at Georgian College in Owen Sound, I spent a couple of years working at the Tom Thomson Gallery, and with area artists on various community art projects. In 1987 we were installing a group show of local artists at the gallery called The Painted Room, when Robert stopped by to see what was up. We were in the process of installing elements from Markleangelo's, the restaurant he had outfitted in Toronto earlier in the decade. My friend from school, Lincoln Croft, had a couple of works in the show as well.

That same year I happened to be runner up to Mr. Markle in an Owen Sound mural competition, sponsored by the Downtown Business Association. Admittedly his was the better piece by far, and it remained on various Owen Sound walls for many years. I wonder where it is now? Later that same year I remember attending an artist talk he gave at the Durham Art Gallery, where he discussed his work, and showed slides of his Great Horned Serpent of Egremont - a massive construction on his Holstein area property made entirely of century old cedar rails.

Robert Markle lived outside Mount Forest, about twelve miles from where I was raised in Clifford, for twenty years. He would have traveled the same backroads and drank in the same hotels that we did - he was renowned for his visits to the local taverns and strip clubs that were the source of much of his work, and famously 'held court' regularly at the Mount Royal Tavern in Mount Forest with his country and city friends. Sadly, he died in 1990 on his way home from a night out in a violent collision with a tractor.

(Robert Markle, far right, 'holding court.')

J.A. Wainwright begins his excellent book, "Blazing Figures: A Life of Robert Markle" telling the story of Markle's death. And throughout this biography, and tribute to a lifelong friend, he spares nothing in the telling of this fascinating story of the life of one of Canada's most dedicated and determined artists. Markle made drawing and painting the female figure his life's work, employing his masterful skills in an endless quest to interpret the relationship between the artist and his muse.

Wainwright's book flows like an undulating Grey County road, giving space equally to the highs and lows that are inevitable in the life of an artist like Robert Markle. "Blazing Figures: A Life of Robert Markle" isn't just an art book - so don't be intimidated. It is the story of a man and his search for self amidst tempera washes and lots of beer!


Note: The next time you are traveling highway six through Mount Forest, look for Markle's main street mural, a fixture on the side of the grocery store for 25 years.

No comments:

Post a Comment