My dad was a multifaceted person, there was a lot of things that interested him, and he had a lot of hidden depth. But I’ll put him into two categories just here for the sake of clarity.
My dad, as my dad, and the person I saw him as:
He was a wonderfully gentle person, who I saw as greatly curious, a trait that he also helped to nurture in my sister and me. He was very interested in politics and how we might make society better for more people. Despite being quite shy and gentle, he didn’t hold back when discussing important issues.
He was always there to help when we needed him, and we certainly benefited from having him as a proofreader; he was so good at pointing out when our points were no longer clear, whilst keeping our spirits and confidence up. I also think he took a lot of pleasure in reading the essays that both my sister and I wrote during our time at university, as it opened up new topics of interest for him, and pointed him in the direction of texts he might want to read. But I mostly think he took a lot of pride in seeing the people we had become, as he was more of an observer and gentle encourager than the type of person to want to decide our own paths for us.
In him I saw someone who would help anyone who was interested in anything creative. He learnt new skills just in order to help me learn in areas I was interested in. And I saw how he interacted so enthusicstically with his students when he taught printmaking when I was a small kid.
He was brought up, for the first part of his life, by a house full of women. His father hadn’t fully returned from his duties after WW2, so my dad lived with his grandparents and his mother’s sisters. This early part of his life certainly shaped how he felt about how women were seen in society. Therefore, he was the one who taught me about women’s history, and he often included this theme in his work.
He also loved to be in nature, so we took regular walks together. And of course, this love spilt over into his art too. Seeing these themes when I look at his work, brings up a lot of strong sensations for me, a lot of happy feelings, but sad ones too, of course. He had a wonderful sense of humour, so we laughed a lot whilst we were out walking. A lot of our time together was spent laughing. We would make up little characters and do all the voices for them just to entertain ourselves. Looking back even further, he used to read bedtime stories to us when we were kids, and he would always have a big library of voices ready to bring the stories to life for us.
For me, there wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t creative; everything he did was done with such care, creative thought and feeling.
My dad as an artist:
For me, other than being my dad, the biggest part of him was his art making. It was like an obsession for him, and took up most of his time. Though I must say that he would always take the time out to spend time with his family when we asked.
He worked across several mediums, having trained in printmaking and sculpture, but also worked with various paints and painting styles. I think I find it easy to spot his style, however, there is such great variation in his work. You can certainly see which paintings belong in the same series, because he made bold changes in his work from year to year. Some being bright and heavy, and others soft and delicate. There are works that look like they belong somewhere earthy, and others on a crisp white wall.
I know that he was greatly inspired by nature and history, especially forgotten or little-known aspects of local history. He championed women’s role in innovation, and portrayed the connection between invention, scientific discovery, mathematics and creativity.
Whilst he would provide some explanation to his pieces, he more often desired to hear the perspective of those who were observing them. Not only seeing if they felt the same emotions in seeing them as he did in creating them, but also because he was really interested in seeing how different people reacted to seeing the same thing without being coerced into certain thoughts.
One of the wonderful aspects of his work is that the longer you stare at them, the more you see. I guess I would describe a lot of his paintings as busy, though somehow they don’t look cluttered or overwhelming to the eye and mind; perhaps a better way of describing them would be lots of layers and depth. There certainly isn’t anything scattered or unwelcome in them. As I learn more from his writings, my perspective on his painting evolves. Knowing that he had an interest in how markings are used for meaning, and have been throughout human history, it’s interesting to see how he used shapes, colours, and markings to portray his concepts. I have no doubt that as I read more and see more of his work, I will find more and more depth to each piece.
You can see some of his works here:
https://www.instagram.com/arvonwellen
https://www.arvonwellen.com/index.html