I realized early in life that fine arts were not my calling.
Ask me to paint or draw something, and you’ll probably be dismayed at the results.
How bad was it? When I was in the sixth grade, my dad instructed me to draw stick figures for an art project, rather than trying to draw people and trees.
I was rewarded with a “B” on the assignment. It was likely the highest mark I ever received on an art project.
The sooner kids learn about pragmatism, the better.
Once art was no longer a compulsory subject, I dropped it, and focused on classes I was actually good at, like English, history and mathematics.
Needless to say, my drawings never wound up on the refrigerator door. To make matters worse, my sister is very talented artistically, and was even a top finisher in some international art competition based out of Japan when she was in the third grade.
(Put one point in Christa’s column for our sibling rivalry).
So you can imagine my reaction when the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum (EAGM) invited a couple of representatives of the Mercury, and others in the community, to be part of their tile mosaic project in conjunction with their Canada 150 celebrations.
Part of me looked forward to the opportunity. I’m a big fan of murals, so I found it appealing to be involved with one.
But I also dreaded the invite. I hadn’t held a paint brush since elementary school.
I spent days agonizing over what I would include on my tile. When I was at the EAGM earlier in the day to take photos of the students working on their tiles, the ideas still didn’t come. I was stumped. I was suffering from artist’s block.
It didn’t help that the publisher of the Mercury, Rick Sadick, joined me for the evening. He breezed through his tile. It looked great, and his work can compare favourably with any tile created locally.
Compared to mine, he created the Mona Lisa of mural tiles.
My tile had a sky with a couple of shades of blue, a yellow line beneath the blue to symbolize the sun breaking through the cloud, some green at the bottom of the tile to represent the ground, and a few brown-yellow blobs that were supposed to be wheat sheaves.
One person suggested they looked like corn. I’ll argue that my sheaves were big because they were part of a bumper crop.
I was one of the last people to complete a tile. The instructors smiled and complimented me on my work, but deep down their thoughts should have been “this guy better not quit his day job.”
The tile is included in the mural. Years from now, people will point out their tile. I’ll find someone else’s and claim it’s mine.
Incidentally, the mural as a whole looks great. The EAGM made a smart choice in paying tribute to the late Ida Petterson, who was not only the first female mayor of Estevan, but she was the first female mayor of any Saskatchewan city, and a champion of the arts. She was a strong advocate for the Estevan National Exhibition Centre, which eventually became the EAGM.
The mural also boasts the obligatory pump jack, an agricultural scene and blue sky in the background, and a few images unique to our city.
The instructors from Mural Mosaic were very good at guiding people through the project, although there were a few people, like me, who were in over their heads.
Despite my artistic inadequacy, I hope I get the chance to one day contribute to another tile mural. And you can be sure that I’ll be ready next time.
