Making art a lifelong passion

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This article was published 27/10/2014 (4024 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At the age of eight, John Smeulders knew creating art would be his life’s passion.

At 81, the Assiniboia resident is still painting, drawing, sculpting and teaching art.

Smeulders recalls covering cardboard from shoe boxes with a glue-like substance to make a harder surface before using them as a canvas for painting while growing up in Hilversum in the Netherlands.  He recently travelled back to Holland to visit one of his nine sisters and she gave him a wooden cutout figure of a boy that he’d painted as a young child.

He learned to draw from Dutch sculptor Frater Beatus Nys, as one of the artist’s apprentices.

“It was our job to do the dirty work and he taught us how to draw,” he said.

The skills he learned so many years ago are still evident in Smeulders’ work. While some painters work from photographs, he prefers to sketch out his painting’s subjects before putting brush to canvas.

“I’d sooner sketch. You see more that way.”

“For me, drawing is one of the fundamentals of art,” he said.

Since moving to Winnipeg from St. Catherines, Ont., two years ago so his wife, Mae could be closer to her family — some of whom live in the Starbuck area — he joined the Winnipeg Sketch Club so he can practise his skills on a regular basis.

He also belongs to the Starbuck Art Club and Norman Art Group, and is now teaching drawing and painting classes for Creative Retirement Manitoba.

“It’s been busy since Day One,” he said. When interviewed on Oct. 21, Smeulders was in the process of preparing some of his paintings for show at the Art Expo at Assiniboia Downs, which was held this past weekend. He will also have his work in the Starbuck Art Show on Nov. 1 and 2.

He enjoys going to art shows where he can meet people and they can see his creations.
Some of his work comes from commissions and he usually demonstrates his skills at art shows by offering to sketch show attendees.

“It takes a while for people to know you’re here,” he said.

Smeulders emigrated from Holland to Canada in 1952. “I had heard a lot about Canada from one of my brothers-in-law,” he said.

He attended the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont. and earned a degree in art education. However, he accepted a job as a commercial artist and worked in that capacity for about five years. He said spending long hours at his job often left him too tired to work on his own creations at night.

“It was consuming all my time,” he said.

He switched to teaching in 1967 and continued in that field, teaching at the high school, college and university level until 1989 in Ontario communities including St. Thomas, London and Sioux Lookout.

He also continued refining his own skills by taking art classes.

Smeulders works in oils, acrylic, watercolour and also sculpture. In the 1970s his series of brightly-coloured silkscreen prints was shown at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall.

“I love it all,” he said. He keeps his various skills sharpened through his teaching as he demonstrates techniques for his students.

His work reflects his travels including trips to Colima, Mexico where he and Mae have taught English language and art classes for local residents. He has painted a series featuring traditional Mexican pottery with the shapes reflected in female bodies.

He recently completed 30 oil paintings of the nature that surrounds a family cottage in northwestern Ontario. Smeulders said he has a studio set up in a motorhome on the property so he can easily work when at the cottage.

To see some of Smeulders’ work, visit http://studiosmeulders.faso.com/about

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