Visual storyteller

Visual storyteller Roy Thomas left the dimensions of this world eight years ago.

Yet his legacy of bright beautiful artwork remains alive in the here and now; in Ojibwa culture and belief connections reach both backward and forward.

Beginning next week and throughout the summer Thunder Bay Art Gallery is host to the largest self-produced exhibit in its many-storied 35-year history.

Vision Circle: The Art of Roy Thomas – A Retrospective fills the gallery with more than 80 works contributed by art collectors from this city, across Canada and as far away as Finland. Come fall the exhibit travels to other galleries.

“When I use my paintbrush I understand that I am not the only one doing the painting even though my name goes on the finished work.” - Roy Thomas   

Roy Thomas was born in Long Lac, Ont., by water south from Lake Nipigon along the Nipigon River, by road north along Highway 11.
When Elizabeth McLuhan and Tom Hill first put together Norval Morrisseau and the Emergence of the Imagemakers for the Art Gallery of Ontario (1984), Thomas may have quietly wondered if from a field of 75 artists he would be among the five-most-promising emerging from the Woodland School. Likely, within, he already knew.

So imagine two energies: one very young, the other not-so-young.

“From the earliest age, he was drawing in the sand, snow or sky with a branch as a tool, or tracing creatures on his grandmother’s back as she told him traditional stories,” noted TBAG Director Sharon Godwin.

What did Grandmother Thomas’ voice sound like? One thinks it must have been softly musical and resonant in the fresh cool air.

When gazing at We Are all in the Same Boat we think the artist put it best:

“The four colours of ‘people figures’ in the canoe, represent our diverse ethnic origins and our connection to one another through the spirit of life. The Lifegivers are the animal (land), bird (air), fish (water) and the sun (fire). The canoe symbolizes equality amongst all people; in order to reach our goals and dreams, we must work together as one, and we must all live together with mutual respect and acceptance, as we are all in the same boat.”

Louise Thomas: “Roy wanted to paint for everybody. Not just for himself, or his family, but in ways everyone can relate to. He wanted his work, his art, to bounce back at whoever was looking at it. Because in life one doesn’t always know what another is going through;
sometimes people need to see something that will bounce back at them.

Know what? I witness it all the time, see and sense the connection.

Our boys? Well, they’ve always been around art; but Roy set an example for what he wanted them to understand. He treated art as business; he had a schedule. What he set for the boys to see is the gift he received from his grandparents. One thing always important to Roy, he made sure the boys had material. Newsprint roll-ends, we’d tape them to our walls and say ‘you want to write or draw, here, go.’ Crayons, paint, even Lego-blocks because it gets the mind going, learning how to make things. Our boys have always been that way, creating. They did have a hard time there, for awhile, when Roy left.”

Vision Circle: The Art of Roy Thomas begins at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery with a public ceremony on June 7 at 7:30 p.m.