I paint every day
I paint for about six hours every day
Sunday, Christmas Day, every day
I love this, but if it was away from my home
I wouldn't be able to do this
So I can come over in my pajamas
and I can come over early in the morning
and I paint
It's just a way of life, it's not work
I dream about my paintings, I think about them
and it's not just the actual painting, it's about thinking about it
and I borrow, and I steal ideas
I borrow from other artists, and I steal ideas
And I often say, just because you draw and paint
that doesn't make you an artist
When I first came back from the war
We all came back in about 1944-45
Arthur Erickson, Jack Shadbolt, Bruno and Molly Bobak
all these great people, Ron Thom
we all came back together, we all met
actually we met at the old art school where Bert Binning
and Fred Amess, and Charles Scott and Jack Shadbolt taught
I learned from all these people
I stood on the shoulders of giants, I really did
And it's good, it's quiet
Bert Binning said, "You've got to get property
where you can go outside and have a pee outside
That's where you've got to have a house so you can do that"
Binning taught us the design of a teapot, or the design of a chair
and so we all built funny houses
You know what I think?
Design is part of what kind of bicycle you ride
what kind of chair you sit in, what kind of car you ride
You know, cars were being copied at one time
like airplanes, with fins and things
those nonfunctional things
I love functional things
We went to St. Ives, and we lived in St. Ives
for six months, twice
and we met Bernard Leach, Hans Coper, Lucie Rie
I've still got Hans Coper's painting
I've got a lot of Bernard Leach, we put it in the dishwasher
I'm giving all my Bernard Leach to the University
It has to go to Bernard Leach
When they opened the kiln, you could buy a pot
for six pence, 12 cents then, in those days