Remembering Joseph Kashetsky

Joe was different from most kids his age. Running under the viaduct on his way to school, his chums Jon Everett and David Zatzman would shout at him, You're not supposed to be running, and he would yell back, I'll run if I want.

About of rheumatic fever in his childhood had damaged his heart, but Joe didn't want to be treated like a sickly kid.

That was the recurring theme in our friendship, recalls Jon Everett, always forgetting that we weren't supposed to play like normal kids with Joe around, but doing it, and then remembering, and shouting at him. But it never did any good. He was determined to

live like the other kids.

As an adult, Joe expressed the same defiance. One time he and Jon, then a newly wed and writing for the Telegraph Journal, met over a bottle of scotch to listen to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Jon again reminded him about his weak heart. When I asked him if he was allowed to drink that stuff, he'd just fill up his glass and laugh.

When Joe died suddenly Jon thought that he could have possibly extended his life if he had been more cautious and conservative. But that's not the way he wanted it from the beginning.

Joe had earned the sobriquet of little rabbi because he came from a more observant family than most of his Jewish pals. Jon thinks that his haunting screaming heads' were expressions of these restrictions and his self-consciousness as a Jew. Or were they premonitions of an early death?

He'd be the last person to tell you. Joe rarely, if ever, spoke about his artistic sources, or expounded on art theory.

How do you draw so fast? David Young asked after watching him illustrate a story for children on CHSJ-TV. On this occasion, Joe disclosed his trade secret of drawing the lines in very faintly before the cameras rolled.

But when it came to his serious artwork, all David learned about what motivated Joe was a terse, You go with your feelings.

Joe and David's friendship date back to their childhood on Barker Street . David credits Joe with introducing him to Saint John artists and the city's art scene. He fondly recalls the summer of 1964 when they drove down to New York City in David's green comet. It was the year of The World's Fair. David's most vivid memory of the trip was being stopped by a cop for driving the wrong way up 34 th street and getting lost in Yonkers. Neither incident riled Joe.

David also muses about the time a limousine pulled up to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery one warm evening in Fredericton . He and Joe watched an elderly man, supported by a cane, step from the car and escorted into the gallery. It was after hours and we wondered if that person was Lord Beaverbrook.

Fred Willar, a sculptor and painter, and his wife Eunice, a photographer, first met Joe as students at Saint John Vocational School in the late 1950's. They were among his closest friends. We had fabulous times at the farm house on the Kingston Peninsula , Eunice recalls. She still laughs about the time Joe played a spaceman in an 8mm home movie made by her children. Joe also named their Siamese cat Nico' after an Andy Warhol model.

That the Willar's farm house once belonged to Ted Campbell is significant. Joe studied art under Campbell at Vocational School. Campbell, his wife Rosamond, Fred Ross, Jack Humphrey, Miller Brittain and others were part of a vibrant art scene in Saint John that achieved national prominence. Artists like Joe carried on that tradition into the 1960's. Fred Ross is still painting.

In 1970 Joe & Ene Vahi moved to Fredericton where they opened the Cassel Galleries. Ene, a former advertising photographer for MRA's, learned to frame at the Shutter Art Gallery in Saint John , and Joe had connections with local artists.

The pair chose Fredericton because the city had no gallery at the time. We never thought about market surveys, Ene laughs. It was touch and go at first. We started out with only $300, just enough for the first two months' rent.

It was team work that pulled them along. Joe cut the mats and Ene framed. Soon the gallery earned a reputation in the art world. Former provincial premier Richard Hatfield was a frequent patron; numerous collectors bought their first work at their gallery; and the gallery held exhibitions of works by prominent artists such as Bruno and Molly Lamb Bobak, as well as Christopher and Mary Pratt.

A dramatic moment occurred in the spring of 1973 when Joe and Ene were roused out of their sleep by a frantic phone call from Ian Lumsden, the director of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery . The Saint John River had overflowed in the spring freshet sending water into the lower floors of the gallery. Scores of valuable paintings were on the verge of being seriously damaged or lost.

Although Ene thought it was a joke initially, she and Joe quickly responded to Lumsden's call. The three worked frantically through the night carrying paintings to the upper floors. Ene recalls that people were paddling around the gallery in canoes for days until the waters receded.

Thirty-two years have passed since Joe's death. Hopefully, this show will stimulate a renewed interest in his art. For sure, it is heartening that the public at least has another chance to be reacquainted with his work.