Darcy Took the Long Road to the Arts

By MARIKA STEVENSON

Many people shift careers at some point in their lives, but few are as drastic as going from a tradesman to an art centre curator.

Darcy Logan, the curator at the Bowman Arts Centre for the last five years, didn’t develop an interest in art until his early 20s. After leaving degrees in literature and philosophy, and then leaving jobs as a sawmill worker and roofer, Logan chose to pursue a career in the arts.

“It hit me like a bolt of lightning – start painting,” he says. “I was sitting up late one night so I went out the next day, I had no idea even what materials were, so I went to the dollar store and bought one of those kid’s sets of watercolour paints and just went from there.”

Logan graduated with a bachelor of fine arts from the University of Lethbridge in 2002 and began working as the curator’s assistant at the Bowman that same year. Although he’s living his lightning bolt vision, running the Bowman has had its challenges. “It’s an interesting position,” he says.

“There’s the general public that I think doesn’t really see the value in art, period, and there’s some schisms within the art community that view us as not as cutting edge or avant-garde as other things,” he says.

“Since I’ve been there I’ve really tried, right down to writing it in the mandate, to show that this community art centre is about showing the spectrum of art, from the very experimental right through to fine craft.”

For nearly a year, Logan has been working on a collection of paintings based on a Scandinavian myth that are pretty experimental themselves.

“The Norse believed that there was a ship being constructed in underworld from the finger and toe nails of the wicked dead,” he says. “When there’s been enough wickedness in the world, there will be enough material to finish building this ship and it will set sail carrying the forces of chaos to end the world.”

Logan has always been interested in myth and folklore because he feels it’s a way to talk about issues in philosophy and the world we live in without being literal.

“This Naglfar myth seemed like an interesting metaphor for the individual and the way they navigate life and often times the discord they leave in their wake,” he says.

Logan has created nearly 15 large paintings of the structure of this boat in various scenes using experimental materials like dirt, rust, burlap and a chemical two-part epoxy resin. He mixes the resin with the rust to create a glass-like pattern of red and orange swirls and blotches. He also mixes the dirt with a clear acrylic paint to act as a binder and once the concoction dries to the canvas it crackles into concrete lumps.

“It’s a really organic process, so even the failures are kind of a success because when you’re dealing with things like dirt and rust, you can’t plan too much in advance. You’ve got to let the work create itself and you respond to it as it’s doing its thing.”

Despite Logan’s interesting artistic methods and the large body of work he’s created, he considers showing his own artwork in the Bowman a conflict of interest.

“I view the whole process as a journey,” he says. “Even if nothing was to ever come out of it or anybody ever see the paintings it would still be worth it - the self-discovery, coming to an understanding about the world and your place in it - that’s the really important side.”