Luminous, atmospheric colors dominate the landscape. Smoky night skies hang over sharp, angled architecture and quirky citizens. Welcome to the painted world of Robert Waldo Brunelle, Jr. This experience is now on display at the Williston Coffee House through July 8 (1996) in an exhibition called "Fear of Toys."
Brunelle, a fourth generation Vermonter and resident of Jericho, was born in Rutland in 1958. He spent time as a boy watching MGM and Warner Brothers cartoons, avidly pouring through comic books, and faithfully drawing in his own sketchbook. "Through a strange quirk of family demographics, most of my living relatives were over the age of sixty," he says, "which means I grew up surrounded by the 19th century. Thats why the past is always more interesting to me [than the present]."
This sense of connection to the olden days fed and early love of history, and interest which would later inspire a painting called "Baxter Street, Rutland." Small circles with images of family members - a grandmother and a grandfather among others - pop out from a whimsical map of his hometown. It's an endearing image that displays historical facts using conventions of the comics.
In 1976, Brunelle enrolled in St. Michael's College with a double-major in history and fine arts. His painting teacher, Lance Richbourg, helped to translate Brunelle's drawing skills, well-honed from years of private practice, into the medium of paint. Upon graduation in 1980, he decided to continue his education at Castleton State College, where a program enabled him to earn a teaching certificate while accumulating credits for his masters degree. And so, in 1981, Brunelle began to teach art at Brown's Middle School in Underhill, where he remains to this day.
All this time he was painting. Working mainly with oils, Brunelle developed his style, combining various influences ranging from Edward Hopper to Honore Daumier in order to achieve his look. Brunelle's figures are realistic, but with a strong tendency towards comic characture. While he favors an element of subtle, almost perverse humor, the picture is always ordered in a very specific manner. "I like my paintings to be one step away from abstract," Brunelle explains. "My work usually starts off with a mental snapshot. I seem to have an amazing visual memory, a stockpile of images. For magazine photographs thirty years after the fact."
He begins his creative process by recalling the scene or location he wishes to depict and recreating it in detail with a pencil sketch. On paper, Brunelle works out all of the sticky problems of composition, lighting, and character before he ever puts brush into paint. "This method frees me up because I dont have to feel I'm a slave to photographic reality," Brunelle says. For example, he currently is involved with a series of paintings about abandoned houses. Beginning with a recollection of the real subject, Brunelle draws the house, abstracting it but not so far that the house becomes unidentifiable. Many of the settings of his paintings bay be familiar, in fact, even it it takes a moment or two to realize it.
Perhaps the strongest characteristic of Brunelle's art is the way he uses color - dark yet vibrant, moody yet strong. This distinctive color scheme took root in college, where Richbourg encouraged Brunelle to experiment. "I was being rather timid with color, and Lance told me to jump right in with both feet." He took Richbourg's advice to heart and today his technique is instantly recognizable thanks to his "hyper-attenuated" color.
Brunelle's subjects vary, ranging from Victorian architecture in urban Vermont to a grouping of the Seven Deadly Sins, but the one topic he returns to again and again is blue-collar life. Not a big fan of simple nature scenes - what he terms "flatlander art" - Brunelle tries to serve as its antidote. His characters fall into a category he describes as "the American peasant," making an analogy to the Middle Ages when different classes wore clothing to distinguish one from the other. "Americans like to think of themselves as not being class-oriented but its no different [then the Middle Ages]," he says. "The modern equivalent of a peasant's costume would be denim and a baseball hat." Accordingly, every year Brunelle goes to the Champlain Valley Fair, seeking inspiration from the ordinary Joes that he sees there.
Brunelle painted for twelve years before selling anything, but lately he has achieved greater success. Three people purchase this works somewhat regularly and the occasional commission comes along, all of which keeps him in materials. His many exhibits include one entitled "Insomnia: Nocturnal Urban Scenes," mounted at St. Mikes in 1983. Currently, he serves as president of the Northern Vermont Artist Association, a title he has held since June of last year [1996].
"Fear of Toys," at the Williston Coffee House, has no particular theme, other then the dynamic personality of Brunelle himself, who suggests that "behind each of my works lies a strange, humorous, and usually true story."
This article originally appeared in the 6/19/96 issue of VOX, an arts weekly based in Burlington, VT. If you're ever in Sneakers, a diner in Winooski, VT, check out his painting over the bar.
© Todd Meigs
Back to TGM's Musings