For 30 years, I have watched the careers of Grant Leier and Nixie Barton unfold in a blaze of inspiration. Judging by the frequency with which I聽come across their work, they might be this area鈥檚 most popular artists. Now, after a lifetime of reinventing himself, Grant is at work on large canvases featuring familiar motifs.
鈥淎 lot of people were asking: 鈥榃hy are you painting the same things?鈥櫬犫�� Grant told me. 鈥淚t鈥檚 because I know them and I have a history with them and I love them and they have been successful before, so I know that I can recreate them in a better way that I am more excited about and they are going to be even more successful, I hope. Actually, I鈥檝e introduced new elements, the ornamentation is more intricate and they are evolving that way.鈥�
And Nixie has returned to working with acrylic paint after a decade of encaustic. A visit to the Barton and Leier studios is always a source of inspiration. They are surrounded by artwork and a delirious display of found objects, and the atmosphere is one of joy.
鈥淚 know that sounds Pollyanna-ish,鈥� Grant told me, 鈥渂ut loving what you do, it鈥檚 huge. And, as artists, we are very fortunate.鈥�
It seems a long time ago that I first visited Grant鈥檚 studio in the Duck Building on Victoria鈥檚 View Street. It was 1989, and he was surrounded by a flotilla of little red Chinese shrines. He was preparing a show for the Fran Willis Gallery on Store Street.
And soon after that, I met Nixie 鈥� her name is a short form of Nixiola, who was her mother鈥檚 favourite aunt. Nixie worked for Prestige Framing on Oak Bay Avenue while an art student at the University of Victoria. Her boss, Roland Hill, knew Grant Leier in Calgary and one day asked Barton to pick Leier up at the airport. Hill knew they鈥檇 hit it off.
鈥淭ell him that you are going to marry him,鈥� Hill called out as she left. Six years later, in 1989, they were married at the North Park Gallery, on the opening day of their successful show.
Grant graduated from the Alberta College of Art in 1978 and rose to dizzying heights in the creative end of commercial art. He did the Coca-Cola arch for the Calgary Winter Olympics, and a major commission for the Alberta Pavilion for Expo 86. About that time, he moved to this town, and his style of collaged paintings was soon gracing posters for the Belfry Theatre and the Metchosin Summer School of the Arts.
In 1991, Grant and Nixie opened the Barton Leier Gallery on Cormorant Street, and brought many other artists to our attention. After five years, they left that Cormorant Street space in the hands of Martin Batchelor, their picture framer, who continues to operate there to this day.
Grant and Nixie鈥檚 new home was just off De Courcy Road near Yellow Point. A battered ranch-style bungalow on eight acres, it was close to Nanaimo, Barton鈥檚 family home. What had formerly been banal and suburban was soon overflowing with creative pizzazz. The kitchen cupboards glowed with tea-chest gold, and the floor sported hand-painted carpets.
Soon, Leier planted the acreage with every showy and peculiar growing thing. Grant鈥檚 motto: 鈥淏e聽the Brave Gardener.鈥� Set about were torch-cut sheet steel rats welded onto garden stakes, and the outbuildings were joyously encrusted with plaster ducks and rubber dinosaurs. The聽Guerrilla Gardener TV show visited, and what seemed at first to be insupportably remote became a 鈥渄estination.鈥�
Amid this extravagance, the two produced hundreds of paintings for their burgeoning careers, supplying galleries in Whistler, Banff, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Victoria. They had a gallery on site, and then added another in downtown Nanaimo, followed by a remote studio for Grant at nearby Cedar and one at home where Nixie could work with encaustic. She also shared this ancient medium with students at the Metchosin Summer School of the Arts and at Painter鈥檚 Lodge in Campbell River.
A few years ago, health issues made it impossible for the two to continue at that hectic pace, and they simplified their lives, dropping the retail business and moving to a quirky house near Departure Bay in Nanaimo. Now, they stay home and dedicate all their time to painting. For his recent show at the West End Gallery鈥檚 Edmonton headquarters, Grant produced some of the most complex canvases of his career.
鈥淚鈥檒l tell you a story,鈥� Nixie explained. 鈥淕rant鈥檚 up every single day at five o鈥檆lock in the morning, he鈥檚 up and he鈥檚 painting. He does that every single day. And nothing has made him happier than to be able to do this without having to go to gift shows to buy the stuff to put in our galleries. He鈥檚 never been happier than to be able to just go downstairs to his studio.鈥�
Grant agreed: 鈥淚 feel like the luckiest guy in the world. I paint for 60-70-80 hours a week sometimes, when I am getting ready for a show. And I鈥檓 loving every minute of it.鈥�
He admits that he鈥檚 customer-driven, 鈥渁 bit of an art slut really,鈥� he smiled. 鈥淚 love to paint so much. I was trained as a textile designer, and I like to do things in series.鈥�
He seemed almost embarrassed by his organization. Currently, he鈥檚 at work on his next exhibit 鈥� 10 months in advance.
鈥淚 just spent seven weeks drawing it. I now have 26 large paintings drawn out.鈥� Each is designed, outlined on a white canvas and ready for painting. 鈥淭hey take 100-150 hours minimum each to paint. The drawing is fun, but after seven weeks, I鈥檓 glad to be in the underpainting stage, which takes two months. And then the overpainting stage, and that takes four or five months. And then that body of work will be ready: 26 paintings.鈥�
Nixie Barton, as ever, is bustling and unpredictable. I always seem to come away from a visit branded with her sugar-pink lipstick. What鈥檚 that colour?
鈥淪tayput Salmon,鈥� Nixie replies, bursting into laughter. At the moment, she鈥檚 rediscovering acrylic paint. A new series of landscapes are set between gold-leaf borders. Her word paintings, simple or mysterious, radiate with her love of colour. Though not as technically dazzling as Grant鈥檚, Nixie鈥檚 work is more subtle and mysterious, hovering between suggestion and finish.
In 2005, Goody Niosi created a lavishly illustrated book for TouchWood Editions about these two, aptly titled The Romance Continues. And 12 years later, it does continue. There is something very positive going on here, art to make you feel good.
Grant Leier and Nixie Barton are聽represented in Victoria by West End Gallery (1203 Broad St., 250-388-0009)