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Heart of the Rock

There is an age-old adage among Newfoundlanders which states that a man who works with his hands is a labourer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

For one of the province’s foremost visual artists, however, the important thing is not what he is, but what he does.

“I work all the time—every day,” says Holyrood painter Gerald Squires. “I don’t wait to be inspired. Although being creative is still an on-going process of discovery, it is a job as much as a vocation and it requires the same discipline and dedication as any other type of occupation. At the end of the day, the value is in the work that is being produced.”

Those works continue to be produced and shown at galleries across the region, including Squires’ own facility in St. John’s. Over time, they have become firmly etched in the public consciousness as testaments to the lives and landscape of what the artist knows and loves best—Newfoundland.

Squires was born in Change Islands, Newfoundland, in 1937. Both of his parents were Salvation Officers. During World War II his father served overseas in The Forestry, and his mother, who had been a missionary in India and China for several years before marrying, raised three sons while ministering in various communities in Newfoundland. When Squires was 12, his mother was stationed out of Newfoundland to Toronto. As he was always drawing and painting, Squires’ artistic abilities were recognized by friends and teachers who encouraged him to take a commercial art course offered at Danforth Technical High School, where he learned the necessary skills required to make a living as a commercial artist working in the advertising field.

His work as a cartoonist for the now-defunct Toronto Telegram brought him immediate recognition as an emerging talent, and his paintings began showing at many solo and group exhibits across the country.

After years of honing his craft abroad, Squires, his wife and two daughters, returned to Newfoundland in 1969, settling down at the lighthouse residence in Ferryland. It was here that the artist devoted himself full-time to his work, establishing himself as the province’s premier painter and earning a reputation for his profound creative output.

He is quick to acknowledge both his father and his heritage for that steady work-ethic.

“My father was also an artist, and he had a very great talent for it, but he never considered it as a career. He didn’t have the time. No one did back then. Newfoundlanders have always been a working-class people, and were too busy trying to survive and live off the sea or the land. Most folks toiled seven days a week, all year long, just to make ends meet.” And while Squires does acknowledge that things have changed since his younger years, he is quick to dismiss the role he has played in the province’s creative renaissance.

“There is a much stronger sense of community here today than there has ever been among painters, writers, musicians, photographers, etc. A large part of that is because people have more time to do these things now, and there is the actual opportunity to earn one’s living as an artist. As well, there seems to be a greater acceptance and understanding among Newfoundlanders that art is a vital part of who we are and that it offers that sense of identity not only to our own people, but to others across the country and around the world.

“And now, more than ever, we need our artists to capture and convey who and what we are. Newfoundland has had a terrible time since coming into Confederation in 1949. We’ve lost our country, we’ve lost our fisheries, we’ve lost our railroad…and we aren’t asking for any of these things back from Canada. All we are asking is to give us our dignity as a people.”

That call for respect is a big reason why Squires continues to contribute his creative energies, including the sevenfoot-high bronze Peacekeepers Monument that can be seen in downtown St. John’s, and a series of paintings that were shown at a gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick last year.

“Right now I am illustrating a book called Where Genesis Begins, which features the work of one of the province’s great poets, Tom Dawe. He writes about the same things that I paint about, and he comes the closest to accurately capturing in words the things that are dearest to me; the people and the places of Newfoundland. It is always a joy to throw myself into a project where I can use my head, my hands and my heart.” •