INTO THE MYSTIC: A MEMORY OF GORDON ONSLOW FORD Whose Paintings Explored the Innermost Reals of Consciousness by Bob Percy

In 1997 I accepted an invitation by Gordon Onslow Ford to be his studio assistant for two days a week. Gordon had been using kozo paper in his own way since the early 1950's. His paintings in the late 1930's and 1940's were on linen typically. Gordon had been asked by Andre Breton in 1938 to be the newest and ultimately the last member of the Paris Surrealists. WWII scattered the surrealists and Gordon made his way to the central mountians of Mexico until coming to San Fransisco in the late 1940's. In the 1950's he studied Japanese calligraphy with Zen Master Hodo Tobasa. Gordon seemed to blend his own spontaneous painting method with his practice of calligraphy to produce an energetic, unique, and most beautiful body of paintings. These paintings were done with casein and sumi ink on raw kozo paper (Haruki). When I began to work with Gordon in 1997 he was still painting on his kozo paper and his stroke remained a spontaneous, calligraphic line, and now he was using acylic paint. Gordon painted flat on a low table that seemed to be built to accomadate the 81" x 36" kozo paper. He was able to walk around the table in order to paint from all sides. Before Gordon began painting I would "size" both sides of his kozo paper with thinned greyed gesso to prevent problematic shrinking of the paper while he painted and so it would dry flat. like his studio assistants before me, I developed an archival method of mounting his paper paintings onto Belgium linen for stretching onto bars. Gordon would allow a few inches of the natural or painted linen to show between the edge of the painting and the frame. This acted as a transitional space between the painting itself and the wall on which it would hang. When Gordon painted over 10 feet long or wide, I would stretch canvas onto the wooden bars. During those few years before his passing on November 7, 2003, Gordon asked for his kozo paper to be attached to the canvas before he began painting. Even though the paper I attached was sized with thinned gesso, Gordon thought that the surface of the finished painting had a "warmer and more active" look than didhis paintings on straight sized (gesso) linen. Gordon told me what he liked most was that he could paint much thinner on the paper and that the feel of the brush on the paper was more "enjoyable".

Gordon painted on everything, canvas, linen, kozo, every kind of paper, cardboard, old maps, old mail, books, table tops, wood, walls, floors, in and on cement and more, but it was kozo paper that was his favorite and the surface he most often chose. Once he showed me his watercolors from his youth, there were hundreds of wonderful land and seascapes. Gordons artistic legacy is a magnificent body of work, a journey with beauty and delight. For more information on Gordon Onslow Ford you can visit www.lucidart.com. To contact Bob Percy about his paintings or art mounting technique please email him at percy.r@sbcglobal.net.

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