{"id":2070,"date":"2005-10-21T10:14:54","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T00:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chasebrooktest.com\/johnmlacak\/?p=2070"},"modified":"2012-03-06T19:37:20","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T00:37:20","slug":"manotick-art-association-featured-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/2005\/10\/21\/manotick-art-association-featured-artist\/","title":{"rendered":"Manotick Art Association Featured Artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manotick Art Association<\/span><\/h1>\n

\"Mlacak<\/a>\u00a0 \"Yardscape,<\/a><\/p>\n

Featured Artist – John Mlacak<\/h1>\n

by Rosalie Daly Todd<\/h2>\n

\"Brown-Eyed<\/a>John Mlacak is an electrical engineer who served for 11 years in local and regional municipal governments, and for three years on the Board of the National Capital Commission. It seems an unlikely background for a highly successful painter of large, bold landscapes and still lifes. But John Mlacak is convinced that there is a common thread through most of his adult activities.<\/p>\n

To John Mlacak, it has all been about design<\/em> – designing products for Bell Northern Research (BNR); planning the environment for the (then) new community of Kanata; or creating a work of art.<\/p>\n

\"Le<\/a>John worked for BNR for 35 years, retiring 11 years ago. While employed at BNR, he also served as March Township\u2019s councilor and reeve from 1966-1974. Next he took a two-year leave of absence from BNR to devote all of his attention to helping to finalize the transformation of portions of several townships into the new community of Kanata.<\/p>\n

\"Among<\/a>Talking to him today, it is still apparent how committed John Mlacak was to Kanata\u2019s planning and design. At the time, he objected to accepted wisdom that Kanata would be just another dormitory suburb for Ottawa. Instead, he supported developer Bill Teron\u2019s vision of a town made up of clusters of individual neighborhoods and communities.<\/p>\n

\"Hillside<\/a>Each community would be inter-connected by pathways to shopping, parks and adjoining clusters. In the center of the communities would be the town centre, the economic and social heart of Kanata \u2013 a European-style town square with major shopping, city hall, library and theatre.<\/p>\n

How successful were they in implementing this vision? Today John Mlacak calls it a \u00ab\u00a0partial success.\u00a0\u00bb Some neighborhoods like Beaverbrook, where the Mlacaks have lived for 40 years, are a showcase for the planning concept. \u00ab\u00a0Most residents can look out their windows and see park land,\u00a0\u00bb he says with obvious satisfaction.<\/p>\n

\"Avon<\/a>\"Terrain<\/a>And there is the hockey arena adjacent to the high school, with meeting rooms and library and another 10 acres of land for park use. John fought hard for a local arena, knowing how important hockey and figure skating were to Kanata\u2019s children and the strain on parents who had to drive long distances to take them to practice. He won that battle and a grateful community named the building after him, the Mlacak Centre.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>John Mlacak was born in Windsor, Ontario to Croatian-born parents. The Mlacaks were one of many Croatian immigrant families who settled in Hamilton, Windsor or Sudbury to work in the steel, auto and mining industries. John was the third of five children and the first to be born in the new country, Canada.<\/p>\n

\"Woodland<\/a>His talent for art did not emerge until 1978 when he suffered a heart attack. During his recovery, he took art classes at the local high school. John laughs today as he describes the experience: \u00ab\u00a0I fought with the teacher! I said ‘just tell me the basic rules. Is it top to bottom, left to right?’ \u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u00ab\u00a0It took me five years to realize there were no rules,\u00a0\u00bb he says. \u00ab\u00a0That’s when the real difference between engineering and art hit me. Give 100 engineers a problem, and you will get the same answer. And they all will be right. Give 100 artists a problem, and you will get 100 different answers. And they all will be right.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

John took courses over the years at the Ottawa School of Art. An oil painter by inclination, John took water colours because that was what was generally offered. One of his first instructors, Morton Baslow, was very precise and controlled; his next instructor \u00ab\u00a0just threw the paint on.\u00a0\u00bb It took John a while to conclude: \u00ab\u00a0how you use colour is a function of the paintings you do. How you apply it is a function of style. All are unique to the individual artist; it is impossible to copy another artist\u2019s style.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

\"Woodland<\/a>He \u00ab\u00a0learned some tricks from this artist, some from another. They came together somehow and became my own composite style.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0When I started out, 99 out of 100 paintings I produced were bad; and I wouldn\u2019t sell that one good one,\u00a0\u00bb John says. \u00ab\u00a0Only recently have the number\/percentage of good ones increased.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

John says \u00ab\u00a0we\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0us\u00a0\u00bb a lot, referring to his wife, Beth, \u00ab\u00a0who does everything for our little art business but the painting.\u00a0\u00bb Beth spent 20 years as a volunteer for Canadian Parents for French, working with parents and school boards to promote French in the school system. When she passed the torch to others, she concentrated all of her many talents on publicizing and marketing John’s art. He describes her work as a 7-day a week job and one that allows him to concentrate on painting.<\/p>\n

Thanks to their successful team effort, John is able to produce and sell 40-50 paintings a year. John admits that it would be very hard to do a quality job without Beth who looks after the preparatory work; decides when and which charity to donate a painting to; turns the visitors’ books from shows into a data base for a Christmas card featuring a new John Mlacak painting each year; and much more. One glance at the professionally written publicity materials she has produced demonstrates that John is not exaggerating her importance.<\/p>\n

\"Au<\/a>While employed, John realized that his work would squeeze out his art if he didn\u2019t make a commitment to paint at least once a week. He also realized that taking courses forced him to keep that commitment. \u00ab\u00a0Otherwise, if I let myself get away from it, it would take three months for me to work back to the level at which I was painting,\u00a0\u00bb he says.<\/p>\n

John\u2019s commitment and productivity have increased since his retirement. He works in a basement studio in his Kanata home and keeps a painting schedule that most artists would find unusual. A light sleeper, who has to be at his peak energy level to paint, John operates on what he describes as \u00ab\u00a0two, 12-hour days\u00a0\u00bb. He does chores until mid-afternoon; sleeps for an hour or two; paints from 6 p.m. until about 1 a.m; watches some television; and then manages to sleep.<\/p>\n

\"Magic<\/a>Lately John has been doing large\u2014four foot by five foot — oil paintings. He has \u00ab\u00a0fun painting large. It gives me lots of room to express myself and the impact of the painting is greater.\u00a0\u00bb Ironically, as his canvases get larger, John finds himself moving in closer to his subject matter. \u00ab\u00a0I focus in now. Instead of doing a sunset, I am doing the sun on a group of trees,\u00a0\u00bb he says.<\/p>\n

John paints almost exclusively in oils. They allow him to change, enhance and revise his design. \u00ab\u00a0With water colours, you have to get it right the first time,\u00a0\u00bb he says. \u00ab\u00a0And I never get it right the first time.\u00a0\u00bb Also he feels that his large-size paintings would be hard to do in water colours.<\/p>\n

\"Les<\/a>John uses Windsor Newton oil paints and Stevenson alkyd medium. His brushes range in size from two to one-half inch. He uses Turpenoid to clean his brushes and just dabs the dirty brush into the jar and brushes the old colour off onto a piece of glass he keeps on his work table. This avoids the opportunity for dirty colours and, as importantly, is a non-toxic way to work, John says.<\/p>\n

His large canvases are specially-made for him by Artex, with extra wide wood supports in the back because he \u00ab\u00a0likes to beat up my canvases.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

John paints en plein air in Fall and Spring but his move to large size canvases has made that less frequent. Even working with such large sizes indoors presented a problem for John who luckily likes nothing better than solving problems. His solution was to design special brackets to hold his canvas above his work table.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When he begins a painting, John draws his design with pencil on paper that is in proportion to his canvas size. Next he overlays a grid on the paper and then copies the paper grid and design, in pencil, onto his canvas. Finally he uses brushes and India ink over his pencil design on the canvas. For each painting, he paints three to five layers of oils which each dry in one to two days.<\/p>\n

He paints mostly landscapes but takes a portrait class every five years or so because it \u00ab\u00a0forces me to see.\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0You can\u2019t be off with a portrait like you can be with a tree. Portrait painting enforces an artist’s discipline to see relative space, distances and angles. It\u2019s a good disciplinary tool,\u00a0\u00bb John says. John does not often put people in his paintings. He feels, for example, that it is better to add an empty chair or bench: \u00ab\u00a0that way the viewer puts himself into the painting.\u00a0\u00bb When John adds people, he finds that they automatically become the focus of the painting, whether he intends that effect or not.<\/p>\n

\"Lake<\/a>John\u2019s advice to new artists: \u00ab\u00a0take a lot of classes; try different teachers; paint as much as you can. And if you are comfortable, show your paintings to see what response you get from others besides your family and friends.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

To John, \u00ab\u00a0selling a painting is an indication of how much people enjoy it. We live in a cash society and value is translated into cash. Selling is the last step in the whole process. It means that someone else enjoys what I enjoy and will give their hard-earned cash for it. It\u2019s a shared experience. I don\u2019t want my paintings sitting in a closet; it wouldn\u2019t be a complete cycle if I couldn\u2019t share them with someone.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What\u2019s next for John Mlacak and his art? \u00ab\u00a0I want to visit where the Group of Seven painted and get ideas from there. Also there are a lot of subjects in France and Italy \u2026 Tuscan hills, backyards in small French towns. I\u2019ve concluded that I need 40 more years to do the things I want to do.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manotick Art Association \u00a0 Featured Artist – John Mlacak by Rosalie Daly Todd John Mlacak is an electrical engineer who served for 11 years in local and regional municipal governments, and for three years on the Board of the National Capital Commission. It seems an unlikely background for a highly successful painter of large, bold…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-fr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnmlacak.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}