By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
David Baker was a man on a moving May mission.
He would chronicle the creek which twines so tightly through our everyday lives while flowing largely unseen.
Dowagiac Creek seems on a mission itself.
"In human terms," Baker explained Wednesday night at The Museum at Southwestern Michigan College, "whether idling through a pond, flashing over the stones or roaring over a waterfall, the Dowagiac Creek pursues its eternal journey. The sense of purpose as it swells and gathers speed seems almost human. Buddhists consider moving water a metaphor for the passage of one's life.
"Aesthetically," Baker continued, "the creek was a wonderful challenge. Moving water is quite difficult to paint. I chose not to paint more than two days per week. Or to follow the creek in geographic sequence. My thought was to try to find a new vantage point and a new composition for each painting. Occasionally, I intentionally altered my palette and technique, as well. I was determined not to make the same painting twice."
Baker learned, "Many of the views of the water are only accessible when one parks the car and approaches on foot. Often I was struck by the extensive engineering and construction involved in spanning the creek," including at six junctures inside the City of Dowagiac.
Mostly he tried to "ignore this juxtaposition and focus on the eternal movement of the stream through the landscape. The amusing lark of last May became a three-month odyssey. I discovered a great deal about the life of this geographic presence that I only dimly knew before. I marveled at its course and was often astonished by its beauty. It is both ordinary and superb – often at the same time."
It was while painting at Russ Forest County Park in Volinia, between Dowagiac and Marcellus, that a "whimsical notion" struck Baker to follow the 17-mile Dowagiac Creek, as museum guests were instructed to do with the blue tape "river" winding along the carpet between the paintings in the Upton Room and the lecture seating across from the auditorium in the Dale A. Lyons Building.
"I knew it eventually flowed into the St. Joseph River," he said. "It's quite visible at Lake LaGrange and the Mill Pond, but I knew little else about its source or its journey. An idea formed itself. Armed with county maps from the courthouse, I determined to paint the entire length of the Dowagiac Creek. I would do watercolor painting at every location where a road crossed the creek."
Primarily a painter, Baker, who has been teaching art for 25 years at Southwestern Michigan College, works in oil and watercolor.
Due to the "seasonal rhythm" of his work, for the past six years "much of my painting has been done outside, on location, directly in front of the subject without taking photographs and driving them back to the studio and working indoors. I just like working that way, I've discovered."
His oil paintings are known for their water lilies, clouds and landscapes, but he categorizes those as "mid- to late-summer projects. In May I really enjoy painting watercolors."
"I hadn't thought about showing" the series publicly until encouraged to do so by Kathy Catania of Water Street Glass Works in Benton Harbor and Vesuvius Gallery in Glenn. The watercolors just finished a 10-day run at Water Street Glass Works and will be exhibited at the museum for the rest of this week.
"Our hope in setting up both shows was that we might reach a little bit larger audience than people who go to art shows, but also conservationists, sports people who fish or swam in the creek as kids or drive past on their way to work every day.
Baker is selling the paintings. "I've been doing this for 35 years," he said. "The basement's pretty much full. I don't have room in my living room to hang 24 paintings. It's kind of like puppies – if they're going to a good home, I'd much rather visit them at your house."