HELLO!

There are people and their legacy who ought to have crossed paths with you, especially since their interests and yours are similar. I know a lot of people. But there are a handful of persons who have lived, died, and somehow, I never met them or heard of them despite walking the same streets, with common visions. One such person was the late Gordon Roache. Several members of the Bethany congregation, where I once served, had Gordon’s artwork on their walls. I was surprised, as Gordon’s work focus on the grittier side of Halifax urban life. And yet the persons who owned these paintings were typically more drawn to the conventionally beautiful artists. The contrast was not only surprising to me. When I asked a parishioner why she had chosen the work for her walls she was as puzzled as me. “I can’t really say. I don’t usually go in for art like this. It is kind of depressing on one hand. But I can’t take my eyes off it.” After seeing Roache’s work on several persons living rooms walls I next saw them in the waiting room at the Professional Centre, where my late father went for eye appointments. Again, Roache’s work stood out, the other works were prints from famous artists, they were colourful, almost cheerful and optimistic. Not Gordon Roache’s paintings. These familiar streets of Halifax, and the people we pass without noticing, Roache captures them with insight, compassion, and affection.

For those of you on the Facebook platform, I found this site: https://www.facebook.com/p/Gordon-Roache-Fine-Art-Gallery-100063609698178/

Researching Gordon’s life I discovered these bits of biography: Having been orphaned or abandoned, Gordon’s early upbringing was at St. Joseph’s Orphanage on Quinpool Road in Halifax. Employment during his early adulthood included stints as a BC logger, a worker in a Montreal electronics shop, a fisher on a deep sea trawler in the North Atlantic, a breakfast cook on a Magdalene Islands ferryboat, and as a lineman for Nova Scotia Power. Gordon had a thing for Western-styled outfits and looked every bit the part of a guitar-slinging outlaw. His step-daughter described him this way, “He really saw the struggles of the homeless and poor and impoverished of the city and he painted them, he was a very compassionate soul”. Roache’s “warts and all” approach at his easel sometimes left rubble or dishevelment in a painting, and that was “off-putting” to some who preferred a rosier picture, she said. “He painted the homeless and the down-and-out because of his compassion for human beings,” she said. “He had a real love for those who were struggling.” His paintings are held in private and public collections around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada. “He loved Van Gogh. I think he identified very much with Van Gogh because he struggled,” she said. He was generous to local causes; his paintings were often donated to help raise funds for Hope Cottage and IWK. “He was beloved by many people, he cared so much about this city and the historic sites of this city”.

I never met Gordon Roache. I wish I had. His art reminds me there is beauty in places and people we typically look past. Peace, Kevin