Driving
east down the wide Ottawa River valley, heading away from the
setting sun, Randy and I soon found ourselves running out of
urban sprawl.
The township road rolling due east out of Navan for about eight
kilometers begins a series of wide sweeping curves through tall
phalanxes of ethanol-bound corn glowing green and gold in the
low sun of a summer evening. This is serious farm country, with
perhaps the odd welding business, the odd quarry, but mostly
the endless stands of maize, carpets of soya bean and motionless
milk cattle scattered like pebbles over a stony meadow too rocky
to plant.
The farther east we drive, the more francophone the mailboxes
get - Cleroux, Laplante, Sauvé, the occasional Tremblay.
Slowing down now to read the municipal addresses out by the
road, Randy and I start to count off the numbers until we crest
a slight rise and come down the backside. "This has to
be it." says long-time friend Randy Stille. I cross the
road into the oncoming lane to let a tailgater pass and turn
left onto a shaded lane of gravel and dust. The drive leads
down an incline from the highway to a small farmhouse and a
complex of sheds. The road also leads me to the conclusion that
you never know what lies at the end of any road. This road leads
to Art MacDonald.
Not really sure we are at the right place, we come to rest
on a patch of rutted and dried earth with a small but well kept
farmhouse embedded in shaded trees on our left and a large barn
to our right. The sun is lowering on the horizon as we open
the creaking doors of my old Volkswagen. Standing up, I look
at Randy with a look that asks, "Are we at the right place?"
The solid plywood door to the shed is pushed open and a tall,
older man steps outside and greets us with a welcoming smile
and proffers us his big, well worn hand. This is Art MacDonald
- folk artist, and one very busy man. Randy had seen examples
of his unique work while visiting the home of Art's daughter
- beautifully crafted folk art weather vanes made from bent,
folded, crimped, polished, riveted and painted sheet metal.
Each piece was a weathercocking replica of one of the great
aircraft of all time.
There were Harvards, Lancasters, Spitfires, Sopwiths, Fokkers,
Beavers, Mosquitos, Expeditors - you name it, Art had made it.
Art MacDonald is a wizard with metal, turning sheets of heavy
gauge metal and rivets into aeronautical and meteorological
works of both accurate detail and whimsical fancy. Art is a
true folk artist and like every folk artist, he denies he is
such. "I just do this to keep me busy," says MacDonald,
"If it wasn't for this, I wouldn't have anything to do,
probably just fade away." He comes by his remarkable skill
with metal naturally after a lifetime working as an aircraft
rigger and heating and ventilating fabricator.
Born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, near Sullivan's Pond, MacDonald's
first real job after high school was as an on-the-job trained
aircraft rigger for Fairey Aviation across the Shearwater airfield
at Eastern Passage. Riggers were aircraft maintainers that worked
only on the airframes themselves and not on engine repair. Aircraft
serviced by Fairey were simply towed there across the road from
the big Shearwater naval air base. MacDonald worked at Fairey
for two years during which he helped with the conversion and
repair of RCN Seafires. He recalls ruefully the time when 18
Seafires,just retired from service, were set aflame, just for
the practice of putting the fire out, such was their perceived
worth.
Later, Art also worked as an aircraft rigger for Orville Pulsiver
of Atlantic Aviation working at their floatplane operation on
Lake Waverly, Nova Scotia. In 1951, while working with Atlantic
Art soloed in a J-3 Cub and soon received his private pilot's
license.
After
a career in Nova Scotia as both an aircraft rigger and a heating
and ventilating metal fabricator, Art moved to the Ottawa Valley.
He worked in many aspects of aviation around the Embun, Ontario
area. He was part owner of the Embrun Airport and its general
manager for some time. As well, Art also worked on aircraft
maintenance for Johnny May's Air Charter, flying throughout
the north of Ontario and Quebec. Though now in Ontario, he continued
doing airframe work in Nova Scotia with Airmac Flight Co. at
Port Hawksbury.
His love of aviation made him the owner of a series of classic
aircraft such as the Erco Ercoupe, Piper J-3 Cub, Piper PA-11
Cub Special, Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser and Beech 18 Expeditor.
The Expeditor airframe was eventually donated to a museum in
Quebec.
Art MacDonald is also a family man. He has 7 children, 16 grandchildren
and 4 great grandchildren. After retirement, he combined his
love for his grandchildren with his love for sheet metal work,
creating hand crafted metal toy trucks and aircraft as gifts
for his family. It soon became an obsession as he created more
and more detailed toys and eventually weather vanes of exceptional
quality. Each of Art's meticulously crafted weather vanes starts
with research into the shape and proportion of the aircraft
to be built. He then creates cardboard templates from recycled
cereal boxes - a task that takes a trained eye and an understanding
of how the metal will eventually be formed and connected. He
also creates metal jigs or forms around which he bends the final
cut metal components.
What appears to be a week's worth of work, actually takes the
gifted and experienced metal smith about 20 hours on average
for each of his aircraft weather vanes. This does not include
doing the research and making the templates and jigs. Considering
the amazing detail, quality workmanship and the custom paint
schemes he is willing to do for each customer, the cost to create
each is amazingly affordable.
Depending on the complexity, the vanes range in price from
$80 to $200. And Art is never short of orders for his artwork.
He has weather-vanes spinning in the prevailing winds from Calgary
to the Netherlands, and from Virginia to Windsor. Anyone wishing
to contact Art regarding a commission should contact Dave O
’Malley (domalley@aerographics.on.ca) to get in touch
with the artist.
Above all, Art still loves working in his shop,surrounded
by his tools,his work and his memories of a wonderful life in
aviation.
