“I always wanted to paint, but was afraid.”
Artist Stanley Thomas was talking about the years before he picked up a paintbrush, when he was still in the military. He had always enjoyed drawing, but never had any formal art classes, and shied away from painting.
Thomas was speaking at the BWG Public Library & Cultural Centre where about three dozen of his vibrant, expressive paintings are now on display, both downstairs and up on the second floor.
It was his first wife who encouraged him to pick up a paintbrush, when he retired from the military 15 years ago. She not only encouraged him, but went out and bought brushes, a canvas, an easel, even acrylic paints.
“I had no idea what acrylic was,” Thomas says. “She said Hon, you need to paint!”
His wife had bought only four colours to start – black, brown, light sienna, and white. For years, that was his entire colour palette.
Thomas remembers his very first painting. “It was kind of crude – but I still have it!” he said. It hangs on a wall in his home, a reminder of where he started, and how far he has come.
Working from nature and from photographs, he began to explore the world around him. Even though he had retired, his art at the time was only a part-time hobby, on and off. Thomas was busy in ‘retirement’, teaching adult education classes with the Merced Office of Education in California, pastoring his church, raising a family.
His wife was one of his biggest fans - “She just loved the stuff I did,” he said – but he admitted, “From pastoring to school teaching to family, I didn’t have a lot of time.”
But Thomas kept at it. “As time went on, I got to be a little more comfortable with colour,” he said. “I added a red. I added a blue.”
He left behind his monochromatic palette and began to explore color, shadow, and perspective – all still without any formal training. As his style developed, he was told, “You have a gift – you have something you can’t even begin to learn in school.”
Thomas puts it more simply: “What I see, I can paint.”
His works range from African wildlife to colourful butterflies and birds, paintings of the American Civil War, Black lives in Jamaica – which he has never visited - basketball stars and jazz musicians, and religious paintings that express his faith.
When his first wife passed away, Thomas moved to Georgia to be with his family. He was still painting only one or two pictures a month - but then came a complete change in direction.
Thomas moved to Canada just over a year ago, met and married his second wife, and since then, his creativity has exploded.
“I’ve done almost 200 paintings,” he said. “I’m where I should be right now. Ideas are coming out everywhere.”
Ballet dancers. Musicians. Choirs caught in a moment of joyous song. A series of Indigenous dancers, inspired by a visit to a Pow Wow.
The show at the BWG Public Library for Black History Month is his first real solo exhibit. Back in California, Thomas did persuade a shopping mall to give him space to display his work in the window of a vacant jewellery store, and on Saturdays, he would come out to the mall, set up his easel and paint.
But this is the first time he’s shown in a gallery space. The works range from his early four-colour paintings, to his more recent work, filled with colour and motion. Some are on canvas, others are painted on salvaged wooden cupboard doors.
Thomas does sell his paintings, but that’s not the primary reason for the exhibition.
“I really have a heart for this. I want children to see these paintings,” Thomas said, especially kids from backgrounds that may not include the arts, or who can’t afford to go to galleries or museums.
He has a message that he wants to share with young people, who may hesitate to try their hand at the arts: “I was there too…. I don’t want you to wait to be as old as I am to paint. You should be able to do it before you’re 40, so you can really enjoy the gift that you have!”
Thomas, now 64, is still exploring new subject matter. He painted a train in motion for his four-year-old grandson – who said, watching him paint for hours, ‘Grandpa, you do crazy painting!”
He recently started a series on vintage cars, and now is challenging himself to paint night-time scenes, capturing “the different shadows, the lighting, the reflections.”
Thomas used to regret that he had never had art lessons; now he’s grateful. It has allowed him to explore, grow and learn on his own. It's like singing. “It’s like preaching,” Thomas said; creating a dialogue with the painting. “I just have to look at it and see it, and it looks right to me.”
He hopes that families will stop by the Bradford Library to check out his work, on display for the month of February, Black History Month. “Kids have an opportunity to experience art. That’s important,” he said. “It may inspire them to do something. Everybody needs a push. This may be a push for somebody.”
As for Thomas, he plans tocontinue to do what he does. “I’ve had some great opportunities,” he says. “I’m just enjoying life. I’m having fun. I enjoy what I do.”
And, he said, “I’m not afraid of colour any more.”
