Sunday Painter

Hello!I'm glad I went to the Camera Club meeting last night. I felt so much better when I got back. It's good to see people whom you can share common interest with. Considering there were only two of us females, I was getting used to the fact that the club was obviously dominated by gentlemen. Apart from the usual challenges that we do for each meeting others also brought their precious photographs. I was truly speechless. I felt I really have a long way to go to reach their level. The website is currently under construction and I couldn't wait to share it here with you. It's very inspiring and just makes you want to go out and take pictures.

While sharing some photos last night, one of the gents showed us a photograph of our town taken recently. All of us agreed instantaneously that the photo was very 'Lowry'. I thought, of course! This brought back memories of where I first lived in England- Manchester. The Lowry named after the artist is an art and entertainment center where they hold exhibits of the homegrown artist Laurence S Lowry.

I remember going to one of the exhibits there and at times just had dinner or did some shopping. It's a place to check out when you are in the city.

Mr. Lowry didn't like it when people thought that he was an 'amateur, self- taught and untutored artist'. His aunt thought he was no good with anything, sent him to Art School where he started learning antique and freehand drawing on his evening classes. His inspirations were Pre-Raphaelites like Ford Maddox Brown and Rosetti.

Manchester is the industrial capital of England. When I moved there I found out that the place we lived in was built for the workers who used to work in the  mines or the factories. Evidently in many areas you'd find big factories with chimneys reaching out to the sky like a pipe of tobacco. Lowry disliked living in this environment. But later on he became 'interested in it then obsessed by it,' his very words. 

One of his earlier works was the 'Coming from the Mill' which he thought was the most characteristic mill scene. People walked day in and day out almost  in the same disposition. Perhaps tired as shown by the hunched backs and the manner they walk showed an amount of urgency.

His drawings were different from others made in his time. He was aware of the impressionists in France and the current trend in the Manchester Art scene but still he created a unique form of art which reflected mostly what he felt. Most of his subjects were found in the streets of Manchester and Lancashire.

 "I am a simple man, and I use simple materials: ivory, black, vermilion (red), Prussian blue, yellow ochre, flake white and no medium (e.g. linseed oil). That's all I've ever used in my paintings. I like oils... I like a medium you can work into over a period of time"

"I saw the industrial scene and I was affected by it. I tried to paint it all the time. I tried to paint the industrial scene as best I could. It wasn't easy. Well, a camera could have done the scene straight off."

On his mother  being ill after his father died, "She did not understand my painting, but she understood me and that was enough. After she died, I lost all interest."

"Had I not been lonely none of my works would have happened. I feel more strongly about these people than I ever did about the industrial scene. They are real people, sad people. I'm attracted to sadness and there are some very sad things. I feel like them."

Lowry died at the age of 88 in 1976. Old age didn't stop him from painting and drawing. A collection of his works are carefully kept in one of the award-winning buildings in Manchester bearing his name.

"If people call me a Sunday painter I'm a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week!"