Never too late to create

Michael Wear’s quaint first-floor apartment is part living space, part studio, with vivid paintings adorning the walls and works in progress drying on a table at the center of his home.

“Time flies like an arrow from a bow,” the 70-year-old painter says, his hand resting atop his canine companion, Brownie. “When you’re over 65 or 70, your time is coming to its conclusion. What art does for me is it allows me to focus on creativity.”

The swirling medley of colors keeps Wear rooted in the present, ready to act whenever inspiration strikes.

Sometimes he finds himself awake at odd hours of the night, and rushes to the living room at 2 or 4 a.m. to put the creations from his dreams onto real-life canvas.

Wear discovered his passion for art later in life — this January he began taking an art class offered to residents of the Elms Apartments in Kalispell, under the tutelage of artist Mary Sierra. The former carpenter took to painting quickly, but not of the traditional sort.

Back in his previous life in Ashland, Oregon, he’d witnessed a friend demonstrate a process known as fluid art, where paint is poured over a surface to create flowing, geode-like patterns. Paints of varying weights and colors are added to a cup, which is then flipped onto a canvas to create a multihued acrylic pool. The artist then moves the canvas around until it’s completely covered, and may choose to manipulate the colors further by dragging the end of a brush through them or blowing across the paint with a straw.

He gestures to a piece he’s dubbed “America Rising” pointing out yellowish, off-white forms that resemble states — California, Oregon and Washington — and the spiraling crimson mass reminiscent of the East Coast. In a verdant canvas on the adjacent wall, Wear identifies a dragon — the creature’s nose, eyes and snout becoming evident, like one might see the shape of an animal in a cloud.

“Sometimes I’ll be sleeping and something will come to me like that and I’ll wake up and see if I can do it,” he said.

The more he produces, the easier the ideas seem to flow.

Now that he’s tapped into the creative part of his psyche, Wear can’t shut it off.

And he wouldn’t want to.

“I’m just doing it because I really enjoy doing it. It’s kind of like a fountain of youth in a way. I just feel really inspired,” Wear said. “The creation of beauty is a good thing to do. We only have a little bit of time left, so why not enjoy the last part of your life? Why bemoan age?”

Wear is one of four participants in Sierra’s class and he says he’s not the only one to reap the benefits of artistic expression.

“When [one man] first came to the class, his hands were real shaky, really jittery …. and she started teaching him how to do some sketching, and after about two months, when he comes to the class, there’s no shaking in his hands,” Wear explained.

Another woman who paints mostly natural themes has found that art has kept her mood up, despite a long and dreary winter.

Whether the pain is mental or physical, Wear said creating art provides relief.

“A lot of people don’t have anything to do when they retire so they just sit around and watch TV or they focus on their body,” he said. “When you’re focused on your art, you actually feel painless.”

Down a hallway on the second floor of the Elms is a series of tables where Wear and his fellow creatives make art on Fridays and Saturdays. On the wall hang the fruits of their efforts: Wear’s vibrant paintings next to charcoal landscapes, painted flowers and intricate drawings. In May the complex will host an art show so the building’s 50-some residents can take a gander at the class’s creations — and perhaps find inspiration to stimulate their own pursuits.

“People will say, ‘I’ve never done any art,’” Wear said. “Well, that doesn’t matter — It’s never too late to learn something.”

Reporter Mackenzie Reiss may be reached at 758-4433 or mreiss@dailyinterlake.com.