Radio Maine Episode #87: Philip Barter
October 30, 2022
Philip Barter turned 83 in 2023, and the Portland Art Gallery celebrated his 60 years of creating iconic Maine art with a solo exhibition. Much of the work presented was sourced from Philip’s private collection that he has meticulously stored away for decades. This is what Carl Little, Maine art critic and author, says about Philip Barter: "Barter's art harks back to Marsden Hartley and other American Modernists and their abstracting ways; a kind of school has sprung up in his impressive wake. You can hear the gallery-goer point to a brashly painted Maine landscape by a contemporary and say, 'I see a bit of Barter there.'
"Like Andrew Wyeth, he has his emulators. And you can understand why: the appeal of Barter's stylized renderings of trees and rivers, mountains and clouds, is powerful. His ability to extract the essence of the landscape provokes marvel. He sees the geometry of a peak, the jagged coursing of woodland streams, and a snowfield's curving contours. His palette, often not for the faint of hue, underscores his lively vision."
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to, or watching, Radio Maine. Today I have with me artist Philip Barter. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Philip Barter:
You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Philip. I'm very interested in the work you do. In particular, I'm interested in a lot of the work you've done with landscapes, and when I'm looking at some of your pieces, it seems like there are some themes for you that keep coming up.
Philip Barter:
Which are?
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Well, tell me about this piece that I have behind me, there's the trees in the foreground, the mountains in the background and you have water. That seems to be something that I've noticed more than once in your landscapes.
Philip Barter:
Well yes. I paint similar landscapes a lot. That's a view of Frenchman's Bay with Mount Cadillac in the background from Sullivan.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So that is named "Across the Bay."
Philip Barter:
"Across the Bay," right. Frenchman's Bay.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Very good. Have you spent a lot of time on the water?
Philip Barter:
I've worked on the water for years and A couple of times when I have been away from the water I got homesick so I had to come back. I've worked on boats both on the West coast and on the East Coast.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
And how is it that you began incorporating art into your working life?
Philip Barter:
Well, I guess that's easy because I paint what's familiar or what I'm used to or what I know. So one thing led to another. A lot of the paintings I paint now are of boats that I can see they're not nostalgic. I've always tried to avoid nostalgia in my work, but for instance, when I paint a car, they're usually of the forties or fifties because that's the only cars I know that I can identify going down the road. That's a 38 Ford or that's a 37 Chevy or whatever. So when I paint cars in my paintings, they're usually of that vintage. It's just because I paint what's familiar, and boats the same way. It's usually the older wooden style lobster boats, jonesport style or her career, whatever. So yeah, it's something I'm familiar with.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So tell me about some of your earlier artistic influences. Are there artists that you felt like you really learned from as you were beginning your career?
Philip Barter:
Well, yeah. I used to get in trouble drawing in school because I paid more attention to my drawing than I did school. In high school I saw a Van Gogh painting and it just knocked me back because there was just that much power in something that. I related to the strong powerful colors and brush strokes. It just took my breath away and I said in some way or other I want to be doing that.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Do you feel like you've gotten closer as time has gone on, to that place that you feel like Van Gogh was able to get to?
Philip Barter:
Well, obviously as I'm self taught, I learned from the masters, because I studied. I couldn't say I really studied, but I really observed as closely as possible Van Gogh's work. I imitated it and copied some paintings early to find out just how he did that, how he accomplished it, how he got that effect. Then later, as I was actually studying art in California with my friend Alfonso. I painted with him for two or three years and in our studies we saw a Marsden Hartley painting with lobster fishermen on the docks at Korea, Maine. That really just blew me away. I said, I'm going back to Maine and pick up where this guy left off. And so, that was my goal. I came back and I moved within five miles of Hartley's studio in Korea. I lived in, I bought a piece of property in Roseboro and built a house in the woods and started painting again. My friend Dennis Vibrant, had a local gallery and he started showing my work there and that was in the early sixties or mid sixties. He actually sold some . So I think my first check for those three paintings I sold that fall, I got like a check for $1,200. I said, Wow, that's a whole year, I don't have to work. I can just stay home and paint. So, I did that and it kept getting better.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So I know that, you like to do things in series and, one of the series that you've done in the past is the ledges. Tell me about the ledges.
Philip Barter:
Well the ledges with the blueberry field in Goldsboro, I think with the Red foreground and fall trees and ledges going through the middle. Yeah, that is an interesting kind of thing because I drove by that blueberry field probably for about 25 years before I actually saw it. What I did was a great experience. And that composition, all those paintings have a similar composition, but I moved things around a little bit. And that's what I go by. If I get a good drawing, a good composition, I will work on that, as much as possible to get the most out of it. And lately I've been going back to sketches that I had a series of 20 years ago and making a new series by focusing on details within the painting, finding compositions within the painting. That's been a lot of fun, especially where I don't travel as much and since I don't have so much outside influence, I've been focusing on my own work and it's been very rewarding.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Give me an example of one of these details that you've been focusing on from one of your earlier works.
Philip Barter:
It's easier to show it but my wife has been helping me take a photo of a painting and She uses the computer to move it around to find a really good composition in it. They become more abstract because it's obviously not the subject that I'm concerned about. So I've been focusing more on my painting techniques by having these familiar compositions. I don't have to worry about composition because there it is. So I focus more on my brush work and my colors and the texture. So anyways, it has been very interesting and very rewarding.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
And what about Schoodic Mountain? Is that an important place for you and has that proven to be important to your work?
Philip Barter:
Well, yes. I see Schoodic Mountain every morning when I wake up. It's right over there. yeah, it's kind of an icon or a symbol of the area. It's a focal point. It's the biggest mountain locally. It's the only mountain and it's not actually a mountain, but a big hill, it's called a mountain though. The shape of the mountain is really interesting. It's long. It's not a peaked mountain, It's a long slope with a cliff on the end. It's an interesting composition. So if you paint it from the north, there was another. I've painted it from all around it, from the ocean and to the ocean and I've painted it in all seasons. So that's a wonderful, beautiful thing about Maine air is that we just sit in one place and watch everything go by like the seasons and the weather and it's really interesting and everything changes. It's all in flux. The shadows are different, the fall and the spring and the leaves are and then they're yellow then they're gone. You don't have to move around too much to find paintings.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So if you just are willing to sit and observe what's going on around you, then you can actually continually find things to put into your art.
Philip Barter:
Right. Well, that's what I've always identified in my job. My job description is to look at things.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
What about your floral still life? Tell me about those.
Philip Barter:
Well sometimes they're from the floral arrangements that my wife puts together and she always had flowers around the house. Like right there behind their screen is a floral. What I have been doing lately because I don’t like to waste paint. It's Expensive and I don’t like to waste anything really, But lately what I've been doing is that when I work in the studio and have a surplus of paint on my pallet, I will take a smaller canvas’ that I have all ready and primed and just start putting that paint onto the canvas with no intent or purpose.Eventually, after maybe a month or so I can maybe make out something to focus on. You are just working with the color straight off the pallet and so you have all these varieties of colors and so it makes a good floor.
I don't like to waste pain. It's expensive for one thing, and I don't like to waste anything. But so what I do is I always have primed and ready smaller canvases, and I'll just take the pallet and I'll just, I just paint on it without any intent or purpose or anything. And eventually, after maybe a month or so, I start, I can maybe make out something to focus on. And it usually flows so easily, because the color, and there's always different colors all over the, when you take it right off your pallet with no, no intent or purpose, you just put paint on the panel, whatever's there anyway. And so you have all these varieties of colors and so it makes a good floor.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So it's interesting to hear that you are starting with the color as opposed to starting with a specific image in mind. Is that right?
Philip Barter:
Yeah. Until I am working, then I'll work the background around, and then all of a sudden I can see, I can see something coming out of it . And they're a lot of fun and I have 'em all over the house and I like them. I like them and usually I have antique frames too to go with them so that makes them a little more interesting.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
You also do wood relief sculptures. Tell me about that.
Philip Barter:
Well, I got into that because basically, like I've pointed out earlier, if you're doing a series of paintings with a good composition after doing flat paintings and working at as much as I can, then all of a sudden I think maybe I could do the same thing, only do it in wood relief and use different colors, but use the same composition and it's a totally different painting and a totally different experience. And it keeps my sketches going.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So it sounds like just having that added dimensionality really shifts the way that you're able to approach your art.
Philip Barter:
Right? Yeah. It's just another venue.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Now, I know you mentioned that you've been out on the West Coast and you came back to the East Coast and in addition, Santa Fe has appeared in your pieces. So that's sort of somewhat in between the west and the east, more to the west, I guess.
Philip Barter:
That's right.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Talk to me about that.
Philip Barter:
Well, I've always loved the Southwest and the person I studied with is from New Mexico and we visited together there a couple of times and I've always loved that Southwest landscape. I found out later that most main artists do love New Mexico, likely from George O. Keith, and other people have painted in Maine. George Bellows and a whole bunch. Maybe when I first started, my wife and I traveled in the winter a lot. We used to go to the southwest, Caribbean, and wherever. We went to New Mexico for probably 10 years in a row. During the winter we'd go out and spend a month or so, and I went alone camping and hiking and doing mountain things as well. One year I painted nothing but cactus on a one year trip to Arizona. So yeah, the Southwest has always been very very powerful. And I think one of the things I think that's made me , at least successful or a different artist is that I bring the Southwest Palette to a main landscape. And the combination works very well for me I think.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So what is it about the Southwest and about Santa Fe, New Mexico that you think attracts Maine artists?
Philip Barter:
I've always liked Crazy Cats comics and that's a crazy cat landscape out there. And what's his name? George I can't think of it now, but the artist that came up with crazy cats was from New York and he traveled to California to make cartoons in Hollywood. He really got blown away when he saw the landscape in Arizona with those balancing rocks and the funny cactuses and all the different plants, it’s different, it's another world . The desert, the ocean, the music and I love mariachi music.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Do you bring mariachi music back to Maine? Do you listen to it while you're are painting now?
Philip Barter:
I do a lot. Yeah, I got used to it more when I had the CDs. I always had those going in my studio, but now I'm in my studio all the time. Now I have it on the classical PBS station where there's just classical music all day. I don't have to jump up and turn it off and change channels or anything. So that's always going.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So as an artist, how much time are you spending in your studio every day? What is your process like?
Philip Barter:
Well, it depends. Sometimes I don't go there all day, but I usually go in the morning for an hour or two and in the afternoon, an hour or two, sometimes I'm just working on a frame. Sometimes I'm preparing panels. Sometimes I'm just cutting out wood pieces and priming them so it's not always just creative stuff, but there's a lot that goes into a painting besides just the actual painting itself. So I keep busy, but I used to spend all day, almost every day in my studio or out looking for landscapes.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So when you go out looking for landscapes, do you sketch them when you're outside? Do you take photos? How do you bring them back into your studio to work on them?
Philip Barter:
Okay, well, I used to always work from sketches and then I work from photographs, but instead of just working from the photograph to the painting, I will always do a sketch from the photograph I have taken before starting to paint. I learned from an artist friend of mine, Ed Gamble, maybe 25 years ago or more. He always carried this little leather pouch on his side with a pencil and pad in it. We were talking about it one day and I asked him why do you use such a little sketchbook because I was using a big sketchbook or paper but he would just bring out this little pad. He said it's because it eliminates detail. If you do a simple sketch, say a three by four inch sketch and you blow it up to three or four feet, then you've expanded it anyways, making the painting simpler and stronger I think, by working from a smaller sketch exaggerating or building it up. So that's why I always carry a small sketch, which has worked with me ever since then.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So it's interesting that you work from a smaller sketch and then you build a bigger piece and then recently your wife has been taking photos of your pieces and bringing it back to a smaller scale again. So it's almost like you've gone full circle.
Philip Barter:
Yes, because now I'm getting this little sketch and then blowing it up, it makes it very, very powerful, and you eliminate the detail. Like George O'Keefe I think said that an artist's function was to exaggerate, eliminate and emphasize. So it's like an editing process where you look at something and you edit it down and make it simple. And so that's what I do, that's one quote I will always remember. That always stuck with me because it is so true.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
How do you decide what to take out and what to leave in when you're looking at a piece?
Philip Barter:
Well, that's done with the sketch, with the sketch you would eliminate the stuff that doesn't make a good painting.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So by the time you actually make it into a painting, you've actually already done all the eliminating and you are able to just move forward with what it is that you want to put on the canvas.
Philip Barter:
That's right. Then the painting itself will speak to you as you're working on it and then you will modify and change other things. It's not like you go in with a set mind, but you do go in with an agenda but the painting changes, it changes you or if you make changes throughout the process.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Well, describe that a little bit for me. As you're looking at a painting and it's speaking to you, What, what types of things is it saying? Is it saying put a little more blue here or make this area flat?
Philip Barter:
Pretty much. Or something's too big or too little. If something's not in the right place when you're working on it and you have a color in mind, but that changes, once you get it up there and say, Well that color doesn't look right. So, it's always balancing, working flux. When I approach the easel, I pretty much know what I'm going to do, but the details will change, little small minute things that will change, but nothing but the major painting will come out right. It will look pretty much like what you had in your mind when you started it. When you're doing it and you see things that can improve, then you make another painting of that same thing with that same sketch emphasizing something else. So that's why a series of paintings is good for me because when I'm painting the painting, I see there may be improvements, but not on this one, but on another one and so on.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
I'm glad you explained that to me because I think that that makes a lot of sense.
Philip Barter:
Well I just discovered it myself right now.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Well then I'm glad you explained it to yourself when that's it.
Philip Barter:
Thank you.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
That's great. So what do you do when one painting in a series is done? I know that a lot of artists will say this to me that, I reach the place that I know that it's finished and I wonder myself as not a painter what types of clues do you have to that?
Philip Barter:
Well, the most difficult part for me painting a painting is knowing when it's none. In the beginning I was criticized for over-painting and it was so true. I was overpainting and so now I have to discipline myself and just say, that's enough, because you step over the line and you lose it. So you have to knowing when to stop and that is the trickiest part.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So again, as a non painter, what does it mean to overpaint something?
Philip Barter:
Oh, well to over paint. I guess simply put, it's just putting too much paint on it. Changing colors and overpainting. I think that's pretty much it. You want the canvas to come through too. You don't wanna lose your drawing and your vision.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So it's kind of like the idea of gilding Lily. You don't wanna gild the lily because it's like over painting, it's too cluttered, it's too much.
Philip Barter:
You actually can get too much gold on it, you can't pick it up.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
That's true. That gets heavy. Right, So there's some practical reasons why not to put too much paint on a piece. That's right.
Philip Barter:
Yes, that's right. You don't want to bury it. You wanna bring it to life. You don't want to bury it.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
It's a great way to think about it. The carrying place. What about the carrying place? That's a very poetic name for a piece that I know you've done.
Philip Barter:
Right. Well, historically I think before they maybe had a bridge there, they had to carry over this little body of water from Hancock. It flows into the bay and it's not very wide, but it's a tidal stream that runs across route one right into Hog Bay from the ocean. And it's a wonderful composition. And I've painted that painting probably 30 or more times in all, like I mentioned before, on different seasons, High tide, low tide time, middle tide, all the four seasons. And she's just a wonderful, wonderful composition. It's a perfect composition. So I use it a lot.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Well, I have to thank you for that composition because I have enjoyed it for quite a while now in my own personal space. And I also have to thank you for the pieces that, we have of yours that now live in my office up at the medical center that I work in.
Philip Barter:
Oh, great. Thank you very much.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Yes, on a regular basis I have people coming into my office and looking at the pieces and I'm able to explain that these are Phillip barter pieces and they're very special and they're very meaningful. So I appreciate you sharing yourself with me that way.
Philip Barter:
Well, thank you very much. This to me, and I guess to artists in general is, it's not for myself, I do this to share, the wonder of the creation all around is so wonderful. It's such a gift that we have that I like to share that, that part of it with others. I believe very strongly in a loving creator that gave us all this. I believe that we have to be responsible for it, for what? To take care of it with caretakers.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Well, I also agree with you and I'm really fortunate that like you, I live in a beautiful place, Maine, and now I get to enjoy Maine through your eyes as well. So that's quite a blessing to me. So I appreciate that. I know for you we've asked you to do something, today sitting and talking with us on the podcast and the radio, I know it's something that isn't easy for everybody. So I really am very grateful to you for taking the time to talk with me today and to share some of your insights about art.
Philip Barter:
Well, thank you very much. And like, as I told you earlier it seems very difficult for me now to do these kinds of things, but I'm glad to be able to do it, but it's a little harder than it used to be. I've become more reclusive.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Well, we're very fortunate that you are willing to sit down with us today. It's been a great pleasure to talk with you.
Philip Barter:
Thanks very much, and you have a great day.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Thank you. I'm Dr. Lisa Bely and I've been speaking with artist Philip Barter. You can find his work at the Portland Art Gallery and on the Portland Art Gallery website. I hope you take the time to enjoy his work because he is a truly wonderful main artist. Thank you for joining us today.
Learn more about this artist:
Radio Maine podcast interview #87