Muralist paints himself into Sussex landscape
SUSSEX -
After spending a second summer painting murals in Sussex last year, Fred Harrison was a bit surprised to find himself crying on the long drive home to London, ON.
"I didn't want to leave the hills, the landscape here," he said.
He realized he'd begun to fall for the area's rural beauty and its people the first summer he worked in Sussex.
Harrison painted four murals as part of the Sussex Mural Project. In 2006 he painted "Sussex the Dairy Town" on the Sussex Artists' Co-op building and "Coming of the Railroad" on the Lounsbury Furniture building in Sussex.
He enjoyed chatting with people, learning bits of local lore he could incorporate into his scenes, and even worked the names of Sussex children he met into murals at a child's eye level.
Last summer he painted "Hugh McMonagle A Prominent Vale Villager" on Bill's Corner Store in Sussex Corner and "Logging, Lumber Camps and Sawmills" on Bethany Bible College's Nicholson Hall in Sussex. He also painted highway signs inviting people to the mural capital of Sussex, and the mural at the Covered Bridge Tourist Information Centre at Youngs Cove.
His truck, colorfully painted with a dairy cow and the message "Sussex New Brunswick: Mural Capital of Atlantic Canada," has become a familiar sight around Sussex. He plans to replace the cow with a yet-to-be-decided mural logo, perhaps a salmon with a painted tail.
When his son finished university last year and went off to work in China, Harrison decided it was time to think about where he wanted to be. After his second summer on the Sussex mural project, he returned to stay with local woodcarver Darren Byers and his family until he found a small house in Upper Goshen last November. He's grateful to Byers and Roachville muralist Andrew Giffin for introducing him to the local artistic community.
He just had time to get moved in before heading off to Alberta for a three-month indoor mural project over the winter months. Since returning in March, he's been busy repairing and enhancing murals in town.
"I'm the mural doctor for Sussex now," he said, adding he's also doing sign painting jobs, an indoor mural in Rothesay, and is teaching painting classes in Sussex he enjoys doing oil paintings on canvas, particularly landscapes.
For him, Sussex is an ideal central location, in the hub of three New Brunswick cities and an easy drive to the ocean, the Bay of Fundy, the other Maritime provinces and Quebec.
He grew up in Sault Ste. Marie and studied art at Sir George Williams University, now Concordia University, in the 1960s but was "never a ‘hippie' until I got identified as such in Canadian Geographic," he said with a laugh, referring to a magazine article published last year.
He worked in theatre, art and calligraphy in Montreal, moved to London, married, and worked in commercial art until the industry became increasingly computerized in the 1980s. He has since made friends with technology: "I got a computer a year and a half ago and learned how to send emails and photos."
He enjoys the way murals can make ugly buildings disappear and highlight previously non-descript areas. He believes murals "make buildings and towns come alive." He painted his first one on his parents' garage door, did some murals in homes and restaurants, then moved on to public projects.
While regular-size paintings must have a single focus, he explained, "generally murals are too large to take in at a glance, so the gesture that goes through a mural is the first thing to consider. The eye should be able to travel through in rhythms, so it ends up composed in vignettes of smaller rhythms people can focus on."
The mural theme and building shape are important factors in how a muralist creates the scene, he said. A muralist for two decades, he was impressed by the preparation work done on the mural walls before the artists even began.
He's currently touching up the Brian Romagnoli mural near the downtown Tim Hortons in Sussex. The long mural depicts "Camp Sussex and the 8th Canadian Hussars (Princess Louise's)" and its vignettes are linked by painted tan and gold ribbons. He's been adding architectural shadows and depth to the mural and smoothing out curves in the ribbons to enhance the mural's definition and dimension.
Previously he was tasked with "upping the color" on British muralist Ken White's "Sussex Vale Exhibition Building" mural. White used a soft cream and blue color scheme that "works in the more delicate light of England, but got washed out in the bright Canadian light," Harrison said, explaining he carefully brought out more dimension in White's work to make it "pop."
While each muralist signed a contract permitting future enhancements by other artists, Harrison takes care, when working on another artist's territory, to understand the artist's style and intention so he can enhance the original concept.
"When I'm done this retouching, you shouldn't know I've done something. It's the best compliment I can give to the artist involved," he said.
Of his four local murals, his favourite is the logging one on Nicholson Hall, where he used a stained-glass effect in the log driving scene.
"I like colour and that let me use the pure colors and the definition with the bold black lines," he said.
His enthusiasm for the Sussex area has brought at least two more people east: his younger brother and his sister-in-law liked what they saw here and are moving from Saskatchewan to Portage Vale this summer.
"The lifestyle appeals to me. People are more self-sufficient here. I was really lucky to find my little cottage with two acres, and I live on a road with a covered bridge and two old white frame churches. It's very picturesque," Harrison said.
"I'm really just looking forward to working in the Maritimes. I've been lucky."
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