Hello everyone! Last month I had the opportunity to interview Corner Brook artist Terry Boland. I’m glad I had the chance to talk to him about his story and how creating art has been with him his whole life. The interview had enough information that I easily could’ve made ittwice as long. I hope you enjoy reading about this wonderful artists life and work.
JB: How did you first get into creating art?
TB: When I was a young child I remember being interested in drawing. It intrigued me but I don’t know why. I grew up in Curling, there wasn’t much art around in those days. In school we never did anything, I never took an art course. It was just a thing I had to do on my own. It always stayed with me my whole life, wherever I’ve traveled I’ve always ended up having a studio and feeling a need to create.
Nuit 150+ was amazing, that was the highlight. That was like Woodstock in the old days. There was this glow, I can still see it, the streets. All of these people running into the streets!
JB: What are you working on these days?
I’ve gotten into producing shows. Right now I’m working on my fifth concert. It’s going to be at Swirsky’s for St. Patrick’s day, a fundraiser for Mary’s kitchen. My role is to get the performers, book the space, and introduce the show. I’ll be announcing the broadcast for the Bay of Islands Radio and doing interviews between the acts. I like that kind of work.
JB: What was your experience with Nuit 150+? To the best of my knowledge it was one of the biggest art events to happen here on the west coast of Newfoundland for a long time. I certainly remember it fondly
TB: Nuit 150+ was amazing, that was the highlight. That was like Woodstock in the old days. There was this glow, I can still see it, the streets. All of these people running into the streets! oh my god it was so… everybody was in awe. It was just amazing. Then hockey day in Canada was great as well. I did two art pieces for the show at the Rotary Arts Centre.
JB: How do you choose the medium? I know you used Wooden sculptures for hockey day in Canada, triangular sculptures for Nuit 150, and you did a painting recently of the man in the mountain.
TB: With the man in the mountain I wanted to do something local. My friend Ronnie gave me a huge canvas, that was last winters project. That was done with a cocking gun and black cocking, which gives it that particular texture. When you try to paint it with latex paint it coagulates and creates a fabulous marble feeling. It looks very interesting.
The medium reflects where I’m at in that point of my life. A lot of things I learned to do I learned because of the circumstances around me. At one point there was a lot of silk screening equipment where I lived, so someone would teach me.
While I was in high school I had this strong calling that the greatest thing one can do with one’s life is to give it, to help eliminate suffering.
JB: Tell me a bit about how you got to where you are now. I know you left Newfoundland and came back later on.
TB: Yes I’m originally from Corner Brook, I grew up here and left when I was seventeen. In 1965 I went to Chicago and joined a religious order called the Alexian Brothers. They were an order that ran hospitals. While I was in high school I had this strong calling that the greatest thing one can do with one’s life is to give it, to help eliminate suffering. It was very specific to give comfort to those that were suffering. Religion was very powerful those days, that iconography of giving oneself totally to caring for someone was very appealing.
So I joined these brothers, but at 17 I was the youngest in the group. Here I was from Corner Brook, never off the island, they flew us into Chicago, then we all got on a train and they shipped us to Northern Wisconsin. For me, being in America coming from where I was from was an incredible learning experience. They took us to the big museums there, we saw the Picasso’s. The brothers were very supportive of the arts.
JB: Sounds like utopia.
That was a very unique period of time, certain things happened. When I moved into the monastery they gave you a schedule for the week and that’s all you needed to know because it never changed. No exceptions. Everything was planned out from where you sat at the dinner table to how many crackers were put on your plate. Everything was controlled, no questions. Then in the fall of 65 a new order came from Rome, all the orders had to reform. They said we’re going to look at everything new, then the fights broke out. Some people wanted things changed other people wanted things to stay the same. They fought it, was a battle, and everybody left, the monastery collapsed. It’s important to remember that for 400 years in Catholic religious life there was no change whatsoever.
JB: That’s incredible. What did you do afterwards?
TB: Then I moved back to Newfoundland in 1967. I went back to high school because I needed some courses in order to study medicine. When I graduated in 68 I went to Memorial and began studying medicine. Then in 1970 two of my friends and I drove to Toronto to get work for the summer. When I went to Toronto I found something I truly fell in love with. The city, the restaurants, the theaters, everything! I didn’t go back to Memorial. I got a job there for the summer working in the veterans hospital.
Then I decided I would go back to school in Toronto. I went to the Toronto institute of medical technology. I did a course there and I graduated as a respiratory technologist. I worked in the hospital there for a year and after that I wanted to travel. Me and my buddy went to England, bought a bike and spent the next ten months cycling Europe. We cycled through every country in Europe. I had nothing else to do other than make art so I drove around on my bike and did sketches.
I’m like Forrest Gump. I always felt my life is either like that or like Homer Simpson (haha).
In the fall I got on a train to Barcelona, as it went through France I had to transfer cars. So I got off, went to Barcelona, and I forgot my portfolio on the train! A year’s worth of the best work I ever made, all gone! I thought I was going to die when I realized it. I still wonder if it’s going to show up someday.
JB: Sounds horrible. What did you do after your travels?
While I was in Europe the religious thing began to come back because there was a lot of monasteries there. I came back to Corner Brook and went to work at the hospital as a chief respiratory technologist. I had a good job, I was teaching at the nursing school but I wasn’t satisfied. The thing came back to me again. so in 75 I went back to Toronto. I was living there hanging out and I ended up meeting another religious order called the Franciscans. This was around the time of mother Teresa. I was reading her book and it inspired me again to answer that call to the poor, so I joined the Franciscans and that’s what they did.
When i finished my novitiate with them I started studying theology at the university of Toronto, I got my masters of divinity. At the same time I was always doing artwork. Then an opportunity arose where I applied to the Ontario College of art and I got advanced standing.
I’m like Forrest Gump. I always felt my life is either like that or like Homer Simpson (haha). So many things have happened by accident. I’ve had tremendous events happen in my life just because of the luck of being there.
Later on someone shared an idea with me to open up a restaurant for the poor. That intrigued me and we managed to bring it fruition. We bought a building, renovated it, and it turned into an immensely successful restaurant. It’s called St. Francis table. The first meal was served on Christmas of 87. Within a week we were serving 200 meals a day, 7 days a week.
JB: How much did you charge them?
TB: One dollar. 1987 was the year the loonie came out so our logo was a loonie.
The Toronto star was looking for a story, they put us on the front page and it was a massive media success. Crews from all over the world came. With that kind of publicity the donations started to poor in.
It cost a million dollars and within ten years everything was paid for. No government money, no church money, all individual donations. It never failed. High school kids would come down and volunteer one day a week and people would load us up with food.
I did that until 96. St. Francis table actually just celebrated their 30th anniversary. It served over a million meals, all for one dollar.
At another point in my life I started working in the aids hospice. This was during the aids epidemic and everyone was dying, when there was no cure. It was a small one with only six rooms, they pretty much all died within six or seven weeks. They would die really fast. The disease in its height was terrible because your immune system doesn’t work. Thrush would grow in your mouths, your body couldn’t fight anything. It was very horrible, they’d waste away.
I did that up to 2000, then my father got sick and I came back home to Newfoundland. My mother asked me to come home and help with him, so I came home and he died quickly. That’s how I came home.
I realized I kind of liked being home after all that time away. I talked to the local bishop and he gave me a parish called st. Finton’s which is past Stephenville. The house they gave me was an old convent, a big coal building in the middle of the woods. The first night I got there after spending so much time in Toronto, I went in this house and there was no t.v., no radio, nobody. I remember lying on the couch and thinking ‘My god, it’s so quiet that I can hear the blood in my head!’ (haha). I thought well I’ll stick this out for about six weeks. There’s no way I can live out here in the middle of nowhere. But it ended up being marvelous.
I always saw my work as a part of community development. My core is at that, how people feel about themselves is very important. Newfoundlanders and mi’kmaq people, all of that is about recognizing the giftedness of that and celebrating it
JB: What were you doing there?
TB: I was the pastor at st. Finton’s, the Old House and the Heatherton. I had these 3 churches to take care of. The people were really good and the art thing took off because I had this huge house with a large studio. I had opportunities to make signs and posters for the churches. Then I started woodworking with other people in the area. I always saw my work as a part of community development. My core is at that, how people feel about themselves is very important. Newfoundlanders and mi’kmaq people, all of that is about recognising the giftedness of that and celebrating it, so that people feel better and they’re more productive.
After I finished that I came back to Corner Brook to work at the hospital and started here at the Rotary. My career continues on.
JB: That was quite a journey of leaving home and coming home.
TB: Yes it was a long one, but art has always been in there.
JB: Unfortunately I need to wrap this up due to time constraints. Thank you for letting me interview you.
TB: Thank you.
You can see Terry’s “Man in the Mountain” Painting at the Rotary Arts Centre. Corner Brook, NL.