Rick Janson Art Studio

The first time I ever went to Cobourg, Ontario was for supplies. My friend Dave had invited several of his high school pals (including me) to spend the weekend at his family cottage near Rice Lake. Being teenagers, it wasn’t long after we got there that we decided we needed some stuff. The rockin’ tunes and football games amid the cow patties would not be enough.

Over the years Cobourg keeps drawing me back. The town has a little over 20,000 residents — not exactly a sprawling metropolis. Yet at one point its promoters thought it would be an attractive location for Canada’s National Capital, especially with the opening of Victoria Hall in 1860 by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). Instead Ottawa won that honour despite a Cobourg lawyer, the Honourable James Cockburn, being among the so-called “Fathers of Confederation.” What could have been!

It may not have been chosen as the capital, but the population of the town swells on Canada Day when many people are drawn by its sandy beach, the live performances at the Victoria Park bandshell, a midway on the pier next to the harbour, and a large craft fair that borders the waterfront.

When Canada very briefly had its own version of the UK TV series Landscape Artist of the Year (you can still see the series free on Tubi) one of the locations they chose was the Cobourg waterfront.

For me I also frequented the community in the past for my work, negotiating labour contracts at the hospital and with the county’s ambulance services. Cobourg is the largest municipality in Northumberland County. The union I worked for was also a supporter of Cobourg’s Horizons of Friendship, likely the only Canadian international development agency based in rural Canada. Horizons does development projects throughout Mezzo-America and invites its patrons to travel with them each February to see their work first-hand. I travelled to Nicaragua and Guatemala to witness the amazing contributions Horizons was making to people in those countries. Those trips were life changing.

Victoria Hall serves as the town hall, a music venue, and up on the top floor is the Art Gallery of Northumberland. Up until I saw the call on Facebook, I had no idea it was there atop the most notable building in the downtown. It doesn’t have much visibility from the street.

The call was from the gallery shop, which had the idea to include art sales among its offerings. It seems a bit weird to sell art work next to an art gallery, but what the heck! I responded, and they accepted a painting I had done of Victoria Hall — what else?

When it was first received, the manager of the gallery shop didn’t recognize the location until I pointed it out to her. “It’s here.”

That remained in the gallery gift shop for about six months, the gallery telling me there were nibbles but no committed buyers.

I often try to produce work that reflects the local community when I know I’m going to show there. I likely have painted more images of Saint John, New Brunswick owing to a fundraiser for a local hospice in that city. I had a crop of Oshawa paintings I showed at this city’s Little Theatre. I wanted to do the same for Cobourg.

What I liked about the image is that there was a looseness in the paint that often eludes me. It’s actually harder to be messy! The perspective on the hall was also different — most images of I have seen are either taken from the harbour or from King Street. Likely one of the reasons why it was not immediately evident to the shop. The view this time was looking down George Street, not far from where Horizons is located. I might have been coming from there at the time.

Lest something actually happen with my relationship with the gallery shop (it didn’t), I produced several more smaller images of Cobourg, of which I have a supply of 8″ x 10″ giclees still buried somewhere in my studio.

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