Rick Janson Art Studio

I knew I was going to paint this the moment I saw it. It somehow reminded me of an Edward Hopper painting as a shaft of sunlight cut between the buildings and illuminated a lone person. I’m sure the lone person was probably on his way to the butcher shop or to take in a pint at his local, but in the art world that brief moment does captures a certain amount of alienation. Oh, how clever we are.

We were touring around the Clyde coast in Scotland when we arrived at Saltcoats. They say you can tell how the local economy is going by the number of Charity Thrift Shops on the High Street. Saltcoats had a lot of them. It is a kind of cyclical economy, where people give up their old stuff, buy new to them old stuff at prices they can afford, and the profit goes back to charities that in turn support the community. Mind you, Saltcoats also has an awesome Aldi, which we dropped in on. (Please please please Aldi: come to Canada. The feeble competition in the Canadian grocery business is ripe for toppling with a decent chain of good priced and well-managed supermarkets).

I have to confess I did manipulate this image by more than just the choice of what to include in the frame. In the original, my proximity to the image meant that the buildings tilted away from me looking up. I did manipulate that image on my iPhone to straighten out the corner building so that it is perpendicular to the roadway and creates a visual box with the opposite white building. And I waited until the pedestrian entered the light. That is one of my favorite party tricks. I once won a national award (CALM) for a picture I took of a group of demonstrators just as they reached a similar shaft of light.

And for all the people who claim to be inspired by Hopper, I have to say that while the light and the individual did remind me of his work, Hopper is also very specific to his era and has a certain style that is missing from my own efforts.

Saltcoats gets its name from the harvesting of salt here since the 1200s, using a nearby coal seam as fuel to heat up and evaporate the sea water and leave behind the salt. It was granted the status of “burgh” in 1528, expanding its economy to include agriculture and fishery products. Hand looms meant local production of muslins for nearby Glasgow and Paisley. Several shipyards operated out Saltcoats, one of many along the Clyde that started disappearing as early as the 19th century. While once a bustling seaside holiday destination, Wiki notes that cheap flights to the Mediterranean put an end to that too. There are many notably individuals from Saltcoats, including Men At Work singer Colin Hay, who was born there in 1953. We had last seen Colin with Ringo Starr’s All-Star band in 2024.

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Its always sad when a show comes to an end and you have to retrieve your work. Yesterday the You Do You show concluded at the Leslie Grove Gallery in Toronto. Fortunately, directly across from the gallery is the Nola Eatery. Its an intimate restaurant with terrific food and reasonable prices. The menu is limited, but there is likely something on there for just about everyone. I had a spaghetti mariniere that was generously portioned with mussels — yum. Looking for a great afternoon? Why not visit the gallery then step across Queen St. E to Nola?

My next focus is on submissions to the juried Oshawa Art Association annual show at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa. The submission process asks for two pieces, which likely means the jury is looking for one.

I’m hoping to also put prices up soon on my website for the first time since I established it nearly a year ago. I have now the means to take credit and debit card payments for my work, which should come in handy for the Scugog Studio Tour May 2-3. At the moment I can take credit card numbers over the phone if there is not in-person contact. I do have considerable space to show my work on as a guest artist on that tour, so I’m hoping to bring a lot with me (save the one or two pieces that will be at the RMG — the two overlap).

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Meanwhile, want to see more? Click here. There are also many older works peppered throughout this site.