.....So somehow I came up with this brainwave to try my hand at writing fiction. Pretty funny, huh? My English Literature teacher in high school thought so, too. Don’t get me wrong, I always did well in Creative Writing. Straight “A”s in fact. I also showed some promise in visual art and had already built a reputation for my drawing and painting skills, ever since Grade One. (I never went to kindergarten; it wasn’t available to me in those days.) Maybe I’ll go back and make it up after I retire. Anyway, I regress.
In my final year of the Business and Commerce program at Gananoque Secondary School, I was a little confused about the direction my life should take. Painting? Commercial Art? Writing? Filled with typical teenage angst, I put the question to my venerable and somewhat frazzled English teacher, Mrs. Spennato.
I think it went something like this:
“Mrs. Spennato, I need some advice. I’m trying to decide what I should do after high school. I like to draw and paint but I also love to write. Do you think I could ever become a writer?”
She looked up at me, her eyes appearing unnaturally large behind over-sized, rectangular glasses. The good old owlish look, as they say. She blinked several times (maybe it was the glare from the fluorescent lights overhead) as she gathered her thoughts. “You are a really good artist, Richard,” she said most helpfully. It’s funny, though. She never really mentioned my writing.
Well, I guess I took her advice and went on to pursue the business of commercial art. That was an exciting time in my life. Getting into that business was a whole different story, but I can tell you right now, the old saying “Ignorance is bliss” was surely true in my case. I loved the business and I completely immersed myself in it for many years. Some people refer to those years as “the Golden Years of Illustration”, but I know better. The really golden years were in the 40’s and 50’s, before advances in technology made photography a viable alternative for use in print advertising. The business had already been in a slow but steady decline, ever since the days of such illustrators as Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth and Norman Rockwell. There were (and still are) plenty of talented and accomplished illustrators who followed in their footsteps, but the era of fine art illustration was essentially over. I’m really glad I got in on the tail end of it, anyway.
The real kiss of death (coup de grace for those of you who are bi-lingual) came with the advent of the computer and graphic art software. Now anyone could become a “Professional”. Did I say ‘anyone? I meant EVERYONE. In fact, almost overnight, a lot of agencies, production houses and marketing firms bought software and stopped using freelancers altogether. I found myself quoting on jobs that these companies could present to their clients as comparisons to producing the art ‘in house’, which was always going to be cheaper. The writing was on the wall for me, and I moved further away from illustration and closer to painting once more. Not so lucrative, but much more satisfying.
These days, I produce fine art paintings in acrylic and oil, and illustration for licensing through www.porterfieldsfineartlicensing.com. Sometimes I also do a weird type of ‘mash-up’, that I create through a blend of art, photography and graphic art software. (If you can’t beat ‘em; join ‘em.)
If you are curious, you can find my art at www.richarddewolfe.com or www.torontoillustrators.com and my art blog www.theartofricharddewolfe.blogspot.com.
Things do come full circle, and now as I approach my dotage, I find myself taking up pen and paper (computer and word processing software, actually) and trying to write. Where this will go, I cannot say. It brings to mind an old ‘road’ movie that starred Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Dean Martin is driving fast on a road across the dessert, in an open convertible, while Jerry Lewis sits beside him, trying to read a map that is wrapped around his face. Dean Martin begins singing “Who knows where the road will lead us, only a fool would say”. Jerry Lewis suddenly cuts in, pointing at the map, “I know, I know!”
And so it goes. I have no idea where this will take me, but like Don Quixote, I shall strike out blindly, tilting at windmills.
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