PART FOURFURTHER INFLUENCES, EDUCATION,
SIGNATURES & DEFINITION PROBLEMS. Betty Soarre: Who are the famous artists who influenced your work? Ones our readers would know of. Robert Yates: I guess this is where the official interview really begins, eh? Let's puff up the inflated members of the official art world just a little more, one more time again. Maybe we'll be the ones who get them to pop. [laughter] B.S.: The straw that breaks the camel's back? R.Y.: I like art, and I like the artists you mentioned earlier: Braque, Picasso and Moore, and Durer, Daumier, Van Gogh, Klee, Duchamp and hundreds of others. I am moved by ancient anonymous works: cave and rock paintings, masks and totem poles, the Easter island sculptures, Stone Henge -- things with a strong presence that are in harmony with their immediate surroundings. Gothic cathedrals and medieval details, gargoyles, the Book of Kells. These things stir wondrous feelings in me, a resonance I would like to be felt with my work -- a central image that faces the viewer while both viewer and object are surrounded by everything else in creation, including the past and future. Above all, they have to do with the here and now. I have always liked Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, Harold Town and Jack Shadboldt. I'm not sure where appreciation ends and influence takes over. I don't think about that too much. I have often "discovered" other artists through my own doodling. Without setting out to imitate them, in fact, while in a state of mindless directionlessness, I often used to turn out drawings that reminded me of other, more famous artists. This gave me an intuition as to how they worked and got their ideas. I "discovered" cubism in this way, sixty years after those other guys did. It doesn't happen so often now as it did when I was younger. I am familiar with the mainstream European idea of art history. It is just part of the enormous global movement of artistic making, and not, as it would have you believe, the other way around. I don't feel I am of a school. I am free to do what I want, to be influenced by those I like, to work in any style that takes my fancy. I'm not trying to prove anything. B.S.: Artists are notorious for their big egos. I couldn't help but notice the size of your signature on the large 8 foot high by 18 foot wide painting you did for the "Reading The Waters" exhibit at the Burlington Cultural Centre. It was about the same size you would expect for an 8 by 18 inch drawing. R.Y.: Just the size I normally write, I guess. Harold Town's signature could take up a whole page. It's like a drawing, nice and impressive. I don't know what it means. Some people are no doubt more noticeable than others. My signature is the same as everything else I write. If I were to write a grocery list and sign it, my name would look like one more item on the list. No special treatment. Any difference would be just the negligence or competence of repetition and familiarity. It doesn't matter to me. Maybe a hand writing analyst knows what it means. B.S.: Are you a successful artist? R.Y.: If we don't equate success with making money, or with fame, I am probably one of the most successful artists in Canada. It's a definition problem. If the question of success concerns you, the important thing is: what do you think? I want you to see my art. B.S.: Do you sell your work? R.Y.: I am successful in that for the most part, I am doing what I want, but sales are few and far between. So, I have worked occasionally as a farm hand bringing in the harvest, a print house graphic artist and process camera operator, a free-lance writer and illustrator, a sandal-maker/leather-worker, a stage hand for theatre, a scenic painter, and other odds and ends. Making money has always been a bit of a problem for me, but I don't really care for the acquisition of material objects. I don't need or want very much. I am blessed with a beautiful wife who has an understanding of the workings of what is commonly known as "the real world" a lot better than I do. B.S.: Many artists teach art. With your degree in art you could do that. Have you ever taught? R.Y.: I studied at McMaster, I did not say I graduated. I do not have the official recognition of a diploma. B.S.: Oh? But I remember quite a few years ago you were in the alumni exhibition at the Mac art gallery. That was the first time I noticed you as an artist -- a crucified painting of a crucifixion, with real railway spikes. R.Y.: I was invited to show. I seldom turn down a chance to show work, unless they want me to pay to show. Maybe it was an oversight on somebody's part, or maybe the organizers operated on the spirit rather than the letter of the law, I don't know. It was probably, in fact certainly was George Wallace who got me in. But I do not have the official qualification of a university education. This is another definition problem. If you need letters after your name to have a higher education, I don't have one. That is not the case however. If it means anything, I am intelligent and well read. I never thought it was important to have others tell me I was a learned person. I know many people with B.A.'s, M.A.'s or doctorates, and many without, and it doesn't seem to mean much, do you think? B.S.: Well, I don't know. . . There has to be some way of knowing whether individuals have done the necessary work in any course of study. R.Y.: I guess some people are concerned with these things. I always found that I was the best judge as to whether I had a meaningful grasp of something or not. I also have very little ambition. I don't need to impress you with my qualifications. Your interest in me as an artist should rest on what you see in my work, not the recognition I have garnered from others. Now certainly I can imagine situations where, say, for public safety you may want to test people to make sure they know what they are about when building a bridge. But looking at paintings? or reading poetry? I would rather not concern myself with that too much. B.S.: You never went to a real art school? R.Y.: No. B.S.: But your studies at McMaster were worthwhile? R.Y.: Sure they were. I learned and I have not stopped learning. That was over twenty years ago. My studies did not stop and have not stopped. I still read and write and think about things. I seem to have always been more interested in learning than in having learned, if you know what I mean. When I was in my third year at Mac, approaching the final exams, I had a crisis of belief in the system that many people of my era had. The wiser ones successfully obtained their diploma then burned it publicly on stage to show they thought it was worthless. But they still had their degree and it has probably served them well over the years. I think I believed the same things they did at that time, but the pointlessness of it kicked in a few months earlier for me. I didn't write the final exams. A drop-out. I received no degree -- I didn't feel I needed that piece of paper or the recognition it represents — so I had no degree to burn or to fall back on later. Maybe if I had submitted my freedom to the rigors of academia I could have acquired a PhD or two by now. I don't know and don't care. It doesn't mean anything to me. As you can probably sense, I have a chronic problem with definitions — what people call you, or what you call yourself. Don't ask me what kind of artist I am. |
PART ONE
Making Art; For Whom & Why PART TWO The Artist, Childhood Influence, Family & Other Artists. PART THREE Education, Relationship to Nature, Artistic Making, Trail Signs. PART FOUR Further Influences & Education, Signatures & Definition Problems. PART FIVE High Art & Folk Art, Snobbery, Colonialism, Roots, Nationalism, Canada. PART SIX Culture, Tradition, Ancestry, The Importance of Art. PART SEVEN The Art World, Hierarchies, Comparisons, Juried Shows & Fashions. PART EIGHT Perception & Conception, Critics, Words & Seeing. PART NINE Art, Beauty, Meaning, Opinions, Judgement. "Hamilton Harbour, Burlington Bay, Macassa"
with daughter Steph Donna
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