Jack Winn moved to Stratford four years ago, and is already making his mark as one of Stratford’s more multi-talented creative types. Jack is a classical musician, a visual artist, a burgeoning poet, and the founder of the Stratford-On-Avon Sherlock Holmes Society. What better place for such an enigmatic soul to call home than a former Masonic Temple? It makes perfect sense once you get to know Jack.

Stepping into Jack Winn’s apartment is like visiting another era. A long corridor lined with Group of Seven inspired paintings draws the eye toward a large front room bathed in light from the immense original 1860s window casements. Beneath towering ceilings, his welcoming space has the feel of an Edwardian drawing room with its fine antique furniture and Tiffany lamps and vases. Dominating the wall over the Victorian sofa is an enormous white canvas painted by Jack: a whirlwind of reds and blacks whiz and splatter in striking contrast to the traditional British townhouse atmosphere. As I’m invited to make myself at home beneath this dizzying work of art, Jack sits in a curvy armchair upholstered in an Ancient Egyptian print. Smoky the cat emerges from beneath the sofa and curls around Jack’s legs while we chat about music.

Jack Winn loved music from an early age, and began studying the upright bass in grade five. He was fortunate enough to attend Toronto’s Lawrence Park with its excellent music programs and large student orchestra, but there were drawbacks.

“I had to choose between art or music: there wasn’t room allowed on the curriculum to study both.”

It seems sad to force such a tough choice on young creative people. Who knows what his contemporaries might have accomplished if all of the arts were given equal weight? But don’t despair: in Jack’s case at least, he may have come to the visual arts later in life, but he rediscovered his passion for art with a vengeance.

Jack continued his musical studies after high school at Western University, and enjoyed a long stint as Principal Bassist with Orchestra London. Eventually, he took on the role of assistant professor of music at Western.
“My mother thought that meant I assisted the professor,” he wryly notes. “You know: making coffee and photocopying musical scores!”

Accepting the lead as Principal Bassist for the Stratford Symphony Orchestra meant a move to town, and Jack soon put his own stamp on his new Masonic digs. His landlords made the upstairs loft space over his apartment available as an artist’s studio, and Jack embraced the offer of the massive space with gratitude.

“Such a huge space means I can create works on a much bigger scale,” he explains. “My paintings have grown as large as six feet square.”

Climb up the narrow wooden steps to Jack’s studio and you enter a much more gritty world than that of his refined home downstairs: the curves of the arched ceilings are original to the Temple, and mysterious traces of Masonic symbols are still visible against the murky greenish blue ‘sky’ of fading painted stars. As the act of creation is indeed a sort of sacred human mystery, it is an apt space for Jack to utilize. Finished paintings and works in progress hang from the rafters encircling the attic. Sketches for new ideas are tacked up in sight of his easel and the floor space he uses for large-scale work.

“I plan out my paintings first, but a lot of the time the rough sketch goes out the window. Once I get working, the ideas take over and the finished canvas doesn’t always resemble the initial idea in the end.”

When Jack first took up painting 25 years ago, he’d had no formal training: just a heartfelt love for the art. “I kept saying to my wife at the time, ‘I should take up painting one of these days’. Finally, she brought home canvas, bushes and oil paints for me… and so it began.”

Jack learned by trial and error. His big goal was to be able to paint something that would look at home alongside the work of his Group of Seven heroes. From his hallway downstairs, he shows me a framed wilderness landscape, the light and shadows deftly captured with bold streaks of oils. “It took me about twelve years to get there, but I think I finally did it.”

Besides Van Gogh and the Group of Seven, Dadaism has a huge influence on Jack’s abstract work. He bravely explores bold concepts and likes to meet his materials halfway. Lately, he’s been using a mix of oil, acrylics and automotive paints which gives a dramatic, stormy density to his canvases.
“I enjoy that 3-D effect of a tarry build-up.”

Jack Winn’s love of the quirky side of life and art continues to find new creative outlets. He’s recently pieced together a collection of words and images ‘Behind the Façade: Poems of Hate and Loathing’. Bleak yet blackly funny, the poems have a bouncy skipping-rhyme cadence accompanied by photographs of seedy back alleys and the ‘underbelly’ of Stratford that we never see in tourist brochures. Though amusing, it is also disturbing to find yourself laughing at the dark verse—particularly if there’s any truth behind the words.

“Oh, there’s always truth behind any art,” Jack grins without malice. “Falsehood is what gets you in trouble.”

With an outlook like that, there is little wonder that Jack so greatly admires the enigmatic persona of Sherlock Holmes and the writing of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Since 2010, Jack has hosted semi-annual fêtes for fellow Holmesians through his Stratford-On-Avon Sherlock Holmes Society. A thematic array of snacks and beverages greet the members as they gather in ‘the Strangers Room’ for lively discussion and screenings of Sherlock Holmes films and series.  There are no rules, and a fun, kooky evening in excellent company is guaranteed.

Jack regularly exhibits in gallery shows with the London 8 art collective, and his work was recently on display at the Stratford Garden Festival alongside fellow local artists Marc Bauer-Maison and Lucinda Jones. Jack is always happy to open his studio by appointment. Please visit his website for contact details, intriguing imagery, and news of upcoming events.