76 | Bendigo Magazine - Issue 29

PAGE TITLE

ONE PICTURE AT A TIMEAt the end of my time with Castlemaine artist Michael Wolfe, a painting in a corner of his airy framing studio snags my attention. Writer: Megan Spencer - Photographer: David Field

An elderly gent stares down with a kindly, civic expression. Housed in a gilded frame he seems out of place in these contemporary digs, more suited to the wall of a forgotten dark lounge room somewhere. “Who’s that?” I ask. “Oh that’s Wesley,” Michael laughs, “he’s the ‘patron’ saint’ of Union Studio”.

With characteristic good humour, Michael – “a Cancerian who loves pizza and beer”– shares the tale of abandonment that brought Wesley to him. “Someone brought him in and wanted the frame. They never came back for the painting.” Feeling sorry for the slightly “cack-eyed” man in the portrait, Michael adopted him as the studio patron, reframing and placing him on high to watch over their daily toil. “His eyes follow us all around the room.”

Named after the man who painted him, Wesley watches over a spacious framing studio filled with natural light, tools and materials spilling out over large benches. Campbell McNaughton – a 15 year veteran – zips around the space, taking client orders and framing pieces of varying sizes.

Through a doorway is the gallery/retail space, filled with more paintings and photos – some of them Michael’s – ceramics, books, prints, poster art, curios and cards. It’s ordered and colourful, with artworks that bespeak country earthiness and contemporary aesthetics.

Above is a mezzanine floor. Michael and I chat there about what brought him from Melbourne to Central Victoria “one crisp, sunny Winter’s morning”, and how this lovely building came about.

Originally in Templeton Street – and involved in framing since 2000 – Michael bought the business from Sonia Collard of Castlemaine vintage button business, Haberdash. The “new building” in Union Street was built in 2007-08, where Union Studio – and its corrugated iron façade – has lived ever since.

Conservation and exhibition framing is the core business. “Our focus is on artists,” Michael explains. “Artists have a very close relationship with their framers – there’s a lot of trust and loyalty involved… We take the craft of framing very seriously.”

With big-name clients such as Bendigo Art Gallery, others in Melbourne and artists John Lloyd, Tim Jones, Kim Barter and Sarah Gabriel scattered across the region, point taken. For a commercial exhibition you’d hardly hand over your precious work to someone whose ‘speciality’ was framing end-of-year footy photos. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

Being an artist helps. A practising painter since he first came to Bendigo in 1982 to study at

Bendigo CAE, “Hargreaves Mall hadn’t even started!” he guffaws. “It was a big country town – and I still like that about it.”

Still feeling very connected to Bendigo, Michael was part of its first artist co-op gallery. “It was a funny time back then,” he said, “where ‘the idea’ was all that mattered, and technique was treated with derision.”

In 1989 he returned to Melbourne and fell into graphic art, with which Michael has supported himself ever since. Then “St Kilda Road” came calling. “It was my ‘Masters Of The Universe’ phase,” he said of the advertising design job that eventually took him to South East Asia.

By the late 1990s he was married with a family on the way. Corporate burn out nipped at his heels, so he and wife Barb decided it was time for a tree change. With family in Castlemaine, it seemed the perfect place to call home.

Michael’s art story is a complex one; in among the business – and busy-ness – of his life, he’s never stopped painting, or photography. He credits several cathartic moments with evolving his style.

Defining himself as a landscape painter, a 2006 trip to the Alice Springs desert transformed not only his view of the world but his approach to painting.

“Sitting in that dry river bed looking at the undulating hills over Glen Helen Gorge, I’d never experienced that physical relationship between me and the landscape before... It was about getting inside the landscape, not just painting it,” he said.

“I have been trying to paint like that as often as possible ever since.

“Don’t get me wrong; I’m a Western artist using Western traditions. My work is not about the spiritual or cultural connection Aboriginal artists have with the land.

“But it is about technical aspects – and an emotional one – of collapsing the perspective to the front of the plane, where everything becomes flat.

“The desert almost convinced me about intelligent design! It looked like everything had been placed there. I see everything that way now.

“It’s just one picture at a time for me,” said the 50 year-old, happy at where he’s at with his work and life.

“For me it’s about ‘will this painting lead me to the next painting’ – that discovery.”

He slows down to still. “I don’t ask for profound insights... All I ask is, will it lead me to the next one?” ■

FOR ART’S SAKEFOR ART’S SAKE

Issue 29 - Bendigo Magazine | 77

“I DON’T ASK FOR PROFOUND INSIGHTS... ALL I ASK IS, WILL IT LEAD ME

TO THE NEXT ONE?”