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Working his pictures hard
by Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio
December 10, 2004

John Jarpe's studio is filled with his abstract images. Most are in progress, but a few such as this work, are completed. (MPR photo/Chris Roberts)

John Jarpe works hard as a painter, and he works his paintings hard. He usually labors for several months on each piece in his St Paul studio.

	John Jarpe

St. Paul, Minn. — John Jarpe's paintings are like windows on an alternate universe of color and texture. Their three dimensional quality is so strong you feel like you could delve down to touch an object or shape in their depths. Jarpe, a Lake Elmo native, doesn't use such flowery language to describe his work.

"I call it abstract painting," he says. "It has a lot of texture and a lot of color, and most often the paintings are mistaken for ceramics."

That's probably because many of the paintings have a burnished sheen. It's a patina that forms after Jarpe applies layer upon layer of latex, then acrylic paint, then epoxy or furniture stain to the canvas. Jarpe believes art is work, nothing more, nothing less. Good art he says, is inspired work.

	Painting

Jarpe's method is extremely laborious. He starts with a piece of plywood cut by his dad. He gives it a heavy coat of latex pain, then smooths it around and lets it dry.

Then he splatters, drips or rubs on a couple coats of acrylic paint, brushes on a layer of polyurethane and allows that to dry overnight.

The next day, Jarpe begins to apply washes, lighter paints which consist of pigments suspended in water.

	Working the surface

"And I'll blow it around with a heat gun which is a blowdryer, that gets up to 800 or 900 degrees. And I'll blow the paint around, and as I blow it around it dries in places."

Jarpe then plays around with the heat gun for a while to the point where some of the paint has dried, and some is still wet. At that point he wipes the painting down and the wet paint comes off.

"Then I'll usually put water on it and scratch it with a pot and pan scouring pad to get texture and scratches in it, wipe that off, and then cover it with polyurethane again and come back the next day."

Jarpe repeats this process day after day after day.

	The heatgun

"Ad nauseum," he says.

Usually he'll have 15 to 30 paintings going at the same time. They lie side by side in his studio, like giant paint splashed floor tiles. Each piece takes from three to six months to complete. Some are 60 coats deep. Jarpe says they become finished works of art when he decides they are, or when someone he trusts decides, or when they sell.

"And oftentimes, I'll have a show and I'll put some paintings up and what doesn't sell, usually there's a reason for it. So I'll take the paintings back and then work on them and then recycle them for the next show."

Twenty-eight of Jarpe's paintings currently hang on the wood paneled walls of Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. They'll be there through January 6th.

	Finished work

The color in his pieces is uniquely luminescent. Many are so layered with paint they have ripples and ridges, like iridescent topographic maps. Jarpe says there's no hidden meaning in his work.

"The painting is what it is, it's paint. And that's all that it is. It's not any studied object or based on anything I've seen in the world."

One of Jarpe's biggest fans is Susan Webster. She's Chair of the University of St. Thomas Art History Department. Webster was once Jarpe's professor.

"John is one of those people who's kind of eccentric and kind of genius and kind of really creative, like over the edge sometimes."

	Susan Webster

Webster talks about one early Jarpe painting where he smothered layers of color with priming plaster. Then he hopped in the shower and carved it into patterns while the water poured down.

She bought that one.

Webster says the glow and depth of Jarpe's work makes her think of the giant leap artists made in the middle ages when they moved from tempera, a water and egg-yolk based paint, to oil. She says oil allowed painters to add much more depth and dimension to their work.

"And John with acrylics and other very high tech materials, manages to create that same quality, with even greater depth," she says.

	Art is work

John Jarpe never knows how his paintings will turn out, and therein lies the fun and discovery. He's worked a lot of blue collar jobs to support his art, including dishwasher, carpet cleaner and apartment caretaker. He's also spent a lot of time working on political campaigns as a volunteer or paid staff member. He now wants to paint full time, and his family and friends are telling him to go for it.

"It's an awfully wonderful thing," Jarpe says. "I've never had anybody tell me, 'John, it's time to grow up and why don't you go to law school and start a conventional life.' Everybody around me has said 'I can't imagine you doing anything else.'"

And that's what Jarpe is going to do, day after day, layer upon layer of paint.

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