REMEMBER THIS? Painting the town gray with Moorhouse

From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:

In a city surrounded by nature’s most appealing offerings, there have been many local artists who have been inspired. Countless paintings of Lake Superior, its shoreline and surrounding landscapes, have been made. Asheleigh Moorhouse found a place for himself among local artists such as John Laford, Sylvie Moon Stevenson, and Ken Danby, by using an outsider’s fresh perspective and creativity to depict the city’s daily working life and the Sault’s industry as art.

Asheleigh Moorhouse was born in Winnipeg in 1924. The artist began painting and drawing at a very young age. During his university studies, Moorhouse attended the Winnipeg Art School on Saturdays. In 1949 he graduated from the University of Winnipeg with a degree in architecture. With his degree, Moorhouse designed homes in Texas and Wisconsin.

Moorhouse was raised in a religious home, and with his family being highly involved in the Anglican Church, he decided to join the church, becoming an ordained priest in 1954. During the fifteen years he spent working in the church, Moorhouse spent much of his time with young people, working in the community. This experience led him to realize he enjoyed working with groups of youth, he appreciated their energy and perspectives. Eventually, this led to Moorhouse pursuing a career in teaching, and in 1970 he, his wife Sally, and their toddler daughter moved to Sault Ste. Marie.

Moving from the west, Moorhouse chose Northern Ontario because it was a part of Canada that he had wished to learn more about. Sault Ste. Marie was selected as the family’s new home because it was situated halfway between the two cities that were most important to Moorhouse, Winnipeg, where he was born, and Port Hope, where he was raised. The artist was familiar with the Sault but had only experienced the city through vehicle windows when passing through.

Moorhouse taught at Korah Collegiate and Vocational School. Teaching English and Film Arts allowed Moorhouse upwards of 24 hours a week to spend honing his craft and perfecting his individual style. His influences included his first art instructor at the Winnipeg School of Art, LeMoine Fitzgerald, poster artist Toulouse-Lautrec, and Alex Colville’s distortions of reality (1976 ‘Artist depicts inheritance’ Sault Star 1, May).

In 1972 Moorhouse had his work exhibited for the first time in the Sault. There were 45 of his paintings on display in the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library’s Centennial Room. The exhibit included paintings that were representative of Moorhouse’s first year in the Sault and his attempts to capture his impressions of the Algoma district and the city itself. Of his work in the exhibit Moorhouse said “Personally, I don’t know of another artist who had tried to paint this city…I want to react to where I live and want to present it. It’s here, in the city, that we spend our time” (1973 ‘Moorhouse paints the town – gray’ Sault Star 30, Nov.).

Acrylic paints, a technique the artist called, “acrylic construction” and collage were used in most of the paintings. When using acrylic paints, Moorhouse would use differing styles of application depending on how he wanted the finished piece to look. Using heavy, thick, blobs and strokes with bold colours, but also many were done in washed-out, muted colours, with a focus on pattern. Most of the 45 pieces in his first show were created using the second style – muted, with varying pops of colour.

“Acrylic Construction” was described by the artist as, “a new thing I started a year ago. It is my impression of the Algoma area, combined in acrylics and stones from the Lake Superior shoreline” (1972 ‘Superior inspires another artist’ Sault Daily Star 18, Oct.). Moorhouse, like many of us, collected rocks and pebbles from beach visits and was left wondering how to best make use of their unique colours and shapes. The stones were attached to canvases and functioned as focal points in many works. The rocks added dimension, texture and a natural element to Moorhouse’s art.

Moorhouse found that collage was another favourite method of creating. He made use of two types of collage; the first included intricately folded tissue paper glued in layers, with images gradually developing through the paper pieces. Secondly, Moorhouse used real mahogany panelling, mounted with acrylic shapes and dried leaves. The material was then covered with a clear veneer glaze.

Moorhouse exhibited another style in 1973 with his show, A Working Place. The exhibit included eight charcoal sketches. In this series, instead of a focus on lakes and landscapes, Moorhouse looked to portray the 'real openness' of the Sault. He immersed himself in the city, spending time in the dump and taking trips below Algoma Steel. With this sketch series, Moorhouse looked for texture and pattern in the city and its workplaces.

The use of charcoal as a medium was intended to be representative of industry and was well suited to the subject. Moorhouse had toured local industries making preliminary sketches. At the Steel Plant what he found most notable was the noise and the impersonal environment. This was in stark contrast to his tour through the Natural Resource hangar during which he observed small groups engaged in conversation over microscopes.

A Working Place included sketches of the city’s Post Office, the Yankcanuk and Abitibi. One titled Weyerhaeuser showed faceless beings stooped over their work in the mill, exemplifying the non-personal aspect of industry. Another called, Open Hearth, ASC captures the overbearing movement and noise of machines.

Moorhouse maintained his interest and inspiration by working with the Sault’s urban areas. Although, like many others, he had experienced success painting Lake Superior and its North Shore, Moorhouse turned his creativity towards the working city itself. He observed the city as, “a network of lampposts; a forest of telephone poles.” The greyness of most of the city’s buildings left an impression.

Moorhouse acknowledged that many artists had been drawn to the Sault by its natural surroundings and the beauty in its lakes, woods and beaches. However, he didn’t want to re-create what had already been created many times over. He wanted more than, 'a collection of trees.' The artist claimed that the way the city was depicted in his work felt familiar. He believed viewers of the pieces would agree that they could be of nowhere other than the Sault,

“I do want to say something of the way we are here and not just about nature. That’s an incomplete statement” (1976 ‘Artist depicts inheritance’ Sault Star 1, May).

In 1976 Asheleigh Moorhouse became a painting member of the Society of Canadian Artists. This year Moorhouse held an exhibit on the third floor of the city’s Civic Centre. The show, Sault Ste. Marie included 11 works of acrylics. It was the first exhibit to be held in the newly opened gallery.

In a Sault Star article from May of 1976, Moorhouse had said that if he could change one thing about the way he had lived his life, it would have been to discover painting, and its creative force, sooner. By the time he had, he said he was too old and had too many commitments to paint actively full-time. Moorhouse and his wife had gone on to raise six children. In his retirement, Moorhouse aspired to paint more northern towns, such as Geraldton, Nipigon, and Marathon.

“I love to look at where people are in their settings. Small towns aren’t very beautiful but maybe 50 years from now people will wonder what they were like” (1976 ‘Artist depicts inheritance’ Sault Star 1, May).

Moorhouse started teaching painting classes at Sault College in 1980 and stayed there until 1983. By 1988 he was able to do as he had wished and began painting and writing full-time. In 1988 his major project was a book called, Art Sight and Language: A Reading/Writing of Some Contemporary Canadian Art. The book’s idea was based on a paper Moorhouse had submitted in a contemporary art class at Algoma University College in 1985.

The instructor of the course was Michael Burtch, Director of the Art Gallery of Algoma. He encouraged Moorhouse to expand on his theories surrounding the changes in gender roles and how those changes were reflected in contemporary art. The book was published by Penumbra Press and provided a unique perspective based on Moorhouse’s wealth of life experiences, broad view and an understanding of contemporary art. The book went on to be used as a textbook in art classes across the country, almost immediately after publication.

In June of 1989, shortly after the publication of his book, Asheleigh Moorhouse died. The Sault Star remembered Moorhouse as, “master of all mediums (who) presented artworks in a myriad forms, but it was his artist’s eye and his unique quality of capturing everyday scenes in the Sault that brought people to realize the beauty around us as well as the occasionally stark realities of the workplace” (1989 ‘Illness claims well-known artist’ Sault Star 20, June).

This summarizes the artist’s work well and does justice to his individual perspective, style and painting ambitions. There are 16 pieces of Asheleigh Moorhouse’s work in the permanent collection at the Art Gallery of Algoma.

Each week, the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library and its Archives provide SooToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past.

Find out more of what the Public Library has to offer at www.ssmpl.ca and look for more "Remember This?" columns here.