February
1, 2018
Dark
Nostalgia
Kathy
Renwald
Step
into the world of illusion and mystery. Pause at the fortune teller, see the
curling lip on the ventriloquist’s dummy and don’t forget to pick up a glass
eyeball.
Welcome
to the home of Ron and Gayle Eady at the intersection of dark and light.
“Some
people get it and some people don’t,” Ron says.
“It”
is a boxy commercial building in the Stinson Neighbourhood the couple bought 10
years ago. They left behind a lovely old farmhouse in Burlington to move
downtown. Now, close to the CP main line, “We have a great view of the
Christmas train,” near parks and the escarpment they are happily imbedded in
the gritty creativity of Hamilton.
“We
made the move at the right time,” Gayle says.
House prices were high in
Burlington and low in Hamilton. The sale allowed Ron to quit his job at outdoor
advertising company Eclipse Imaging of Burlington, to concentrate full time on
art. His paintings based on industrial images, were taking off.
The
building was a blank slate to showcase his art, and their
antiques. They’ve been collecting for 40 years. In the past 15 years
the focus has been on ventriloquist dummies. The marvelous and macabre faces
appear to follow you through the house. They come from England, France and the
US, dating to the 1800’s, beautifully crafted and haunting.
“I
like them because they are pieces of art, hand carved, and hand painted,” Ron
says.
A
display of medical mannequins occupies a special place in the house. Dentists
and eye doctors needed to practice their skills, and the mannequins awaited.
“To
go to the trouble to make these so beautifully, some have gears so the head can
be tilted, the craftsmanship is wonderful,” says Gayle.
Beyond
the mannequin display is Ron’s office where a tiger from an original circus
wagon looks over the room and more medical curiosities are arranged on the
artist’s desk. “Early on I did a series on quack medicine, but these
props don’t make their way into my paintings now.”
Their
personal collection of dummies, carnival games, eyeballs, hotel signs, even an
HSR rotating bus sign remains at home, but they also sell pieces through their
business Vintage Stylings. They have stalls at the Hamilton Antique Mall on
Ottawa Street and Southworks Antiques in Cambridge.
Though
the props aren’t represented in Ron’s paintings, they act as inspiration he
says. His big industrial landscapes capture the darkness of
smokestacks, blast furnaces, raw metals, and lonely freighters on vast grey
lakes. Even when he ventures to paint a natural landscape, a canoe on a pond
for instance, you have the sense that something is going to go wrong.
“I
like illusive imagery, it makes you ask, ‘What’s going on here.’”
Eady’s (www.roneady.com) paintings in oil and
encaustic are in private and public collections in Canada and the US. He is
represented by the Abbozzo Gallery in Toronto and Earls Court Gallery in
Hamilton where his next solo show is in 2019.
Making
a home in a big box allowed space for both a painting and sculpture studio.
Using old beams, Eady is sculpting bold figures that seem to pick up cues from
both the ventriloquist’s dummies and medical mannequins. “I like to
use the character of the wood to let the personality come out.”
All
three of the Eady’s daughters are artists, involved in photography, fashion
design and collage, and surprising to Gayle they all love antiques.
“I
call it dark nostalgia, that’s what I see in my paintings and in our
collection,” Ron says.
“We
both love coming into Hamilton on Burlington Street and the factory views,”
Gayle says, “And then coming in on the beautiful Cootes Paradise side we feel
so lucky to be here.”
