50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield: Mel Vincent: Painting Another Time in Oregon's Life

50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield
Celebrating arts and culture in our community

Featured in The Springfield Beacon (December 19, 2008)

Mel Vincent: An artistic testament to an era

By Austin Berger
For the Beacon

As the story goes, there was a simpler time in America and in Oregon. A time when you knew the people that lived in your town. A time when you knew who worked at the gas stations and country stores. And they knew you by your first name.

Regretfully those times have long since passed, crumbled to ashes and whisked away by an autumn wind. Usually the only testament of that era are country stores, old relic post offices, or mechanics garages that somehow…someway… stood the test of time.

And for Mel Vincent, an 82-year-old Lane County resident, capturing what little remains of this sanguine rural existence that once was has turned into a great body of work for this local watercolorist.

Inspiration to Begin: Like budding artists who copy the works of masters, Mel was copying sketches out of magazines during his junior high years in Nampa, Idaho. That led to being the cartoonist for the school newspaper. At age 21, after three years of managing a bombsight in the Navy Air Corps during World War II, he went to the Minneapolis School of Art on a G.I. Bill.

While going to school, Mel also worked part-time doing advertising sketches for Breuners, a local Minneapolis furniture company. Unfortunately, the art school wouldn’t allow him to split his time between being a student and a worker. In the end, he chose work and within five years, he had his own art studio. “Times were different back then,” says Vincent. “Back then you could make a decent living without a college education.”

Soon enough, work took him back to the West coast, which in turn eventually led him to Eugene-Springfield. That ultimately led to the development of his favorite subject -- the Oregon scene. From oceans to high deserts, all within a hundred mile radius, Mel found the terrain easy to capture with watercolors. “It’s a transparent medium … it depicts the atmosphere of Oregon landscape quite well," he says.

Perhaps it’s his small-time Nampa roots that drove Mel to choosing country stores, a subject frequent enough to have been developed into an entire book. It could also be his empathy for small businesses. Truth be told, he says, “I don’t know why we’re drawn to what we’re drawn to.”

Mentors: Given that Mel spent a lot of time cutting his artistic teeth during his school years, it makes sense that a teacher would have served as one of his most important mentors. He credits Sylvia Stone, his high school art teacher as a crucial influence. “She taught me more about drawing than anybody else has in my life.” He also credits Edward Hopper, whose similar artistic depictions of New England serve as an inspiration.

Quality of art in life: Art has given Mel quite a lot in his life thus far. It gave him the necessary skills to make living with a job in a field that’s somewhere in the ballpark of what he likes to do as a hobby -- a situation seldom found in the real world. It also helped him as a bachelor in wooing his wife. On their first date, at the United Services Organization New Year’s party he sketched a drawing of her.

The debate still continues over when exactly Mel drew the sketch that night, but nevertheless, his wife still has the drawing. But most of all Mel says his art has always served as a creative outlet to express how he feels about Oregon and a simpler time therein.

His legacy as an artist: Any kind of art is a tough game, according to Mel, so his lasting piece of advice to budding artists is to not quit your day job. He’s very quick to dismiss the assumption that he made a living off his watercolors. “I didn’t make my money doing this…it’d be impossible for me,” he says. “Some people can do it, but I don’t know who they are.”

Hopefully, Mel's drawings will remind younger generations of a time in where everything wasn’t a Safeway or a Wal-Mart. Some of the country stores he has drawn have already been condemned and/or demolished. But he’s not too concerned about buildings, or his legacy as an artist. At the end of the day (followed with a hearty laugh), Vincent says his biggest concern is what are his kids going to do with all his pictures when he’s gone.

Copies of Mel Vincent’s book on Oregon Country Stores is for sale at the Emerald Art Center Gift Shop. More photos of his art are found at .....

"Remote Post Office" by Mel Vincent

__________________________________________________________________________

About the Artist

Birthplace: Nampa, Idaho

Media of choice: Watercolors

Favorite subjects to paint: Oregon (particularly old country stores)

Favorite place to paint: In his home studio

Favorite awards: Best of Show - Watercolor Society of Oregon

Arts Organizations: Emerald Art Center (member 6-7 years)

_________________________________________________________________________

All art images and photos of the art are copyright by the artist.