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article
Aaron Paquette
Painting
out the Grey
W
hen Aaron Paquette was three he saw his first painting, and remembers being amazed at how all the separate little marks grew together to become an image. As the years went by he found himself with an aching need to create art and share it with others. At 36 years of age Paquette, now a well established artist, has been making a decent living from his creations for the past eight years. It wasn’t always so. When he was about 18 years old he set off across western Canada with his portfolio in hand. Everywhere he went he got the same answers; “No thank you, but it shows promise.” He was duly discouraged and headed home. He continued to paint and took apprenticeships in Tiffany-style stained glass and another in goldsmithing. After completing those Paquette knew he had to decide
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which way to go. He chose his first love - painting. He went home and sat himself down and asked himself the hard question. “If I could only paint one painting in my life – what would it look like?” He got out his canvas, paints and brushes and got busy. He created not one; but a series of paintings that he took to the Bearclaw Gallery in Edmonton. By the time he returned home there was a message to bring more of his art to the studio. Since then Paquette’s paintings have been displayed and sold at the Eagle Feather Gallery in Victoria, Willock & Sax in Banff, the Birchwood Gallery in Yellowknife and the Wahsa Gallery in Winnipeg, as well as the Bearclaw Gallery. At the moment he has a traveling exhibit with the Art Gallery of Alberta. Some might say that Paquette got lucky; others would say he was an overnight success. Paquette would not agree with either as he knows exactly how he got to where he is today. “If I treated this like a hobby, I would have had the same results as if it were a hobby. I made a commitment to myself to create something every single day,” he says from his Edmonton home. “Beyond that I wanted to make something that was lasting, at least every week.” He was true to his resolution and did a painting a week, 52 weeks of the year. “Having that as a focus has really made all the difference in the world,” he says. Ten years ago, as the world heralded the twenty-first century; Paquette was quite literally a starving artist. For him, the choice between buying food and buying supplies was an easy one. He chose art supplies. Hunger wasn’t all that he faced during this time. “Being an artist was difficult on my marriage,” he