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John Edward Scott was born in Sackeville Nova Scotia in 1945 He died in Toronto on September 28,2000. The first of nine children he grew up with a deep sense of responsibility for the family since his mother had severe emotional troubles after each birth. His father's attitude was God would provide. He was a member of the Salvation Army for a time although he found it and the whole society very hidebound and repressive. He graduated from St. Johns Technical Institute in 1965.Inspite of a personal desire to learn of mechanics and engineering studies,he accepted the society demanded he remained in the academic stream of studies because of his high level of intelligence. John had an intense feel for the spirit world around him. He moved to a more open life in Montreal where he worked as a technologist for a multinational company He observed that the management looked down on the Quebecquoise girls that did the work on the factory floor.This attitude offended Johns sense of the value of all people. He finally left Montreal for Toronto when he got the feeling all the people at work were puppets. In Toronto he became a cook from 1977 to his death a job that brought him in contact with a wide and varied range of people who had to co-operate to get the food out to the customer. He had many good relationships with the people in the various kitchens he worked in.He tried to work night shifts so he could paint by daylight. Rooming houses were his living places for most of his Toronto life and he explored the alleys around them to find shapes colours and forms to use to embody the excitements and magic’s he saw and felt. John worked from the model in the life without instruction classes at the Three Schools. He also took a series of classes with Dianne Pugen. For the last four years of his life he had a three-room apartment on Oak street near Parliament He felt this space was the first real home he ever had. He lived there with a very affectionate black lady cat with a Siamese voice and extremely sharp claws .She would fetch a ball to have it thrown again and again for John’s and her amusement,she also slept in his bed. He made colour intensity a tool for building forms and space. These colours gave back the solidity and intensity he felt in the world around him. When the weather was bad he make still-life arrangements using strongly coloured fabrics and simple shaped would coloured objects and then paint or draw them to express his feel for the magics of his world. Many of the paintings and drawings used the same subject as John needed to see afresh and,clarify his vision.The extended drawings in graphite or coloured pencil took several days to complete and were used as point of departure for an oil that had oil characteristics. John always tried to avoid influences and he worked to develop his own vision.For a period he dropped heavy multi coloured watercolour on very wet paper so that it ran and mixed in a lively fashion. At another time he made extended pencil drawings to sharpen his understanding of how light describedforms and spaces. He read many books on art theory,history,and collected illustrated books about artists he liked.thus widening his art horizons. In his youth he had a strong sculptural sense and he made a number of small sculptures. John was a committed maker of works of art and he worked at it steadily. T.V.Phillips 2001 |
