Dragon's Eye. Duncan Regehr
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REGEHR Stone Horse CASEIN ON MASONITE 16” x 21”
Teaching me to read at a very young age was my mother’s greatest gift. I inherited her love of the classics, of which she retains a vast knowledge. Although we lived far out in the country, she insisted that her four children make regular visits to the city library. We had no television and I fell in love with literature. It soon found its way into my special work. I would disappear into the woods for hours, acting out entire novels and reciting poetry and plays. During the course of a week, I would be Robin Hood, Hiawatha, Romeo, Grendel, Odysseus, Fagan, Moses, and all three of the Musketeers. By the age of twelve, I had a sense that my life would also include acting and writing.
Indian OIL 30” x 24”
Over the years I have learned through a natural process of experience how to focus energy and different states of mind for my mediums of expression. All require emotional investigation. To act, I must become an extrovert. Writing and painting are more introverted art forms. To juggle them all, to switch back and forth amongst them, or join them together by related themes, has always been wonderfully complicated. During my teens and early twenties, focus and concentration often eluded me.
In 1969, Dr. Ralph Allen, who later produced Sugar Babies on Broadway, formed a theatre company called Victoria Fair. I auditioned and was hired as the youngest member of the company.
Jugglers OIL 30”x15” 1977
Dr. Ralph Allen INK AND WATERCOLOR 16” x 12” 1972
A production of Justice Not Revenge, directed by Dr. Ralph Allen, Victoria Fair Theatre Company, 1971
Ralph, a brash, good-humored, extremely well-educated man, terrified me. He threw me in at the deep end of Shakespeare and the classics by generously giving me strong roles in his productions. Some of them, I feel, were far beyond my age and ability at the time.
After my audition, I remember standing before his desk while he leaned back in his chair and passionately expounded to the ceiling that I must treat every part, no matter how small, as the starring role of the show.
During this lecture, Max, his equally passionate Schnauzer, vigorously embraced my lower leg. I broke out in a sweat. The vice-like grip of canine amour is unshakeable, and there wasn’t a bucket of cold water in sight.
George Bernard Shaw WATERCOLOR 22”x18” 1973
Lady Bracknell WATERCOLOR 24” x 18” 1972-1973
Ralph continued on the importance of concentration.
“It’s all there in the material, Regehr, focus on that. Work with the audience, but don’t let them distract you.”
My concentration was already split between trying to impress Ralph with my mature attitude and the hopeless effort of dislodging the lovesick Max, who was steadily rocking himself into a frenzy. My whole body strained.
After what seemed like an endless sermon of praise to the sacrifices one had to make for a life in the theatre, Ralph brought his speech to a climactic finish. At the same moment, Max went rigid with ecstasy, coughed once, and slid to the floor in a wheezing heap.
Ralph swiveled around to face me, leveling his forefinger like a Colt 45.
“And let nothing,” he fired, “I repeat, nothing, deter you from the path of your career!”
“Yes sir,” I rasped. My throat was dry. “Thank you, sir!”
I quickly headed for the door, dragging my ravished leg behind me.
“Oh, by the way, Regehr ...”
“Sir?”
He knelt down to stroke Max. “You got the job, ya’ know, so don’t be so damn nervous. I want you to concentrate, but I also want you to relax. Like good ol’ Max here,” he laughed, “I hope I make myself clear,”
Upon hearing his name, Max sat up and began eyeballing my other leg with a penetrating look of lust.
“Very clear, sir.” I stumbled out of the room, muttering under my breath, “More than you’ll ever know.”
James Brown OIL 24”x18”
After Holbein OIL 15”x11” 1993
Painting people has always been my strongest interest. Most of my characters are imaginary, but literature, film, music, and theatre have always made an impact. Acting, in particular, has helped to guide my process for developing personalities on canvas.
Nearly all of my early portraits are devoid of background. I wanted nothing to steal focus or upstage my subjects. Eventually, I allowed background to enhance the central image, but even today many of my paintings are not graced with detailed settings.
Discipline was not an issue in the face of a natural drive (which has never left me) to produce work, but with so many activities to attend to, I often wondered if I could do justice to them all. Sometime during the early 1970s, I grasped the concept that creativity was not on a schedule, it was the schedule, and that all my expression came from a single core. I could “speak” in as many different languages as I chose; the “voice” would always be mine.
I began to recognize the importance of life outside of work and to appreciate experiences which at one time I had dismissed as mere distractions. My relationships with women and my adventures through travel account for some of my richest experiences. They have proved to be limitless sources of inspiration; as vital to work as working itself.
Girl in the Park OIL 20”x 16” 1973
I have no idea where the term “falling in love” came from; it may have something to do with swooning. My personal method has been to plunge headlong (and with any luck, buck naked), into the fathomless and dangerous waters of romance.
At fourteen, I breached the virgin shoreline in the arms of an older woman. I think she was all of eighteen. The event itself was so unremarkable that I cannot even remember her name. With apologies to the lady in question, I must confess that it was also the first time I got drunk. I was so ill from over-imbibing that the morning found me literally hung over the cold steel tracks of the Canadian Pacific Railway, surrounded by puddles of liquid pizza. My recovery took four days. Along with my virginity, I am certain that I lost at least half my brain cells. I had to wait another three years before the real tidal wave hit.
I first plunged into the true love of Carole May, a magical girl I had known since childhood. I had been attracted to her free spirit since the age of eleven; at seventeen I was enchanted. She was a dark, beautiful ocean in whose depths I submerged my adolescent passion. I could have drowned in her forever, but the swells of ambition washed me ashore, and love was driven out to sea. We were together almost three years before we parted. In that time we also lost our child, which created a lasting rift of guilt and a bond of sadness between us.
Blood
Opposite the note pad and your broken glass,
A certificate of sacrifice,