Tom Thomson's "Open Water, Joe Creek" 1917

Many people feel that the last spring of Tom Thomson was by far his most creative and original. I agree. Everything natural seemed to excite and inspire Tom. He was very much alone and going to new places with his brushwork. You can't go anywhere original by following others. The sky is the limit for a solitary artist.

The story behind "Open Water, Joe Creek" is actually quite interesting. Both the sketch's sky and landscape portions hold the keys to unlocking the tale. 

Open Water, Joe Creek
Alternate title: One sketch Spring 1917
Oil on wood panel 8 7/16 x 10 9/16 in. (21.5 x 26.8 cm) 
Tom's Paint Box Size

The Global Positioning System (GPS), is a satellite-based radio navigation system that I use to locate my painting locations with an accuracy of a metre or so. It is as important to me to remember where I was inspired to create a painting memory as well as when that occurred. GPS allows me to retrace my steps in space and time to recall past adventures. Clearly, Tom did not own a GPS but using CSI, we are still able to locate his vantage when he observed "Open Water, Joe Creek". 

Happily, "Joe Creek" was included in the title probably assigned by Tom's friends, Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald when they met in the Studio Building in the spring of 1918 to sort through the pile of panels left there. The water-stained map from one of my paddles of Canoe Lake provided the remaining information that was needed.  Tom would have been located 75 to 100 metres north of the "Guide's Cabin" on the west bank of Joe Creek. He would have been looking across the creek to another of his favourite campsites, number 14 on the map. 

The main current of Joe Creek is identified as the blue arrow
in the above graphic. That ice is the first to be removed
from the channel by the strong flow of meltwater in
the spring. The remaining areas of ice as recorded by
Tom in his painting are depicted as white in the graphic.

The open water which caught the attention of Tom, Lawren and James would have been the main channel of Joe Creek. The spring melt would have augmented that current eating away at the ice from the bottom up. Crossing a strong channel even in the middle of winter is never safe unless you are prepared and perhaps wearing your bathing suit. The channel as painted was wide open and ready for the paddle. 

Significant ice still hung on along the near shore and in the bay across the creek. There would have been a back eddy on the edge of the current as well creating a lull in the flow of water and encouraging the ice there to linger. 

The sundial of the birch tree shadows provides the other vital clue of time. The shadow of the birch in the front left starts at the base of the tree and trails across the snow surface to the left. With the knowledge of the location, even without having to revert to the GPS, the map reveals the relative orientation of the shadows to the direction of true north. The timing of Tom's painting was just after lunch on a fairly sunny day. 

The sun was on Tom's right shoulder as he painted, looking across Joe Creek toward his popular campsite. The forest around that camp was in colourful and bright buds as the trees responded to the call of spring. The clouds above the horizon were also brightest in their central sections and darker around the edges. We could have deduced that the altostratus clouds were clearly front lit as was the scene even without the shadows trailing across the snow. 

Note that Tom accurately recorded the variations in the colour of the sky from the pale whiter blue of the horizon resulting from Mie scattering to the deeper blues of higher elevations and Rayleigh scattering. 

There is more to this story, and the altostratus clouds hold that key. Although there were no obvious gravity waves in those elongated bands of altostratus, they were clearly associated with the deformation zone process. These clouds were shaped by the relative winds in the free atmosphere above the planetary boundary layer. One band of cloud stretches from edge to edge of the panel and that must certainly be the result of a deformation zone. 

The deformation zone conceptual model is repeated below. The green arrows of the confluent asymptotes stretch outward from the central col, "C". A single line in the sky reveals all of the meteorological features which are important if you wish to truly understand the weather. The added information of the relatively clear skies overhead suggests that the associated vorticity minimum (the blue "N") was stronger than average. Tom was still enjoying the remains of a significant high pressure centre in advance of an approaching warm conveyor belt of weather.  

Tom's location relative to the Deformation Zone Conceptual Model
The mid-level deformation zone depicted correlates very well with
 the very elongated band of altostratus cloud that Tom observed.

Tom was painting on the leading edge of the mid-latitude weather system. The cloudier centre of the warm conveyor belt was still to the west. There were no clouds overhead or to the south of Tom's location allowing the sun to bathe his scene with light. The moisture of the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt had simply reached the deformation zone and was shearing off to the east along the confluent asymptote downwind from the col. 

The multiple bands of altostratus  can be explained as 
 swells in the atmospheric ocean. Tom's location and
field of view are the yellow star and accompanying
blue (left) and red (right) arrows.

Further as described in detail in "Tom Thomson's Spring in Algonquin Park, 1917", sometimes the absence of a clue is the clue itself! There were no obvious low clouds within Tom's field of view except perhaps the two pieces of cloud in the upper left (refer to the above graphic). Those clouds lack the brightness, flat bottom and hard edges of cauliflower cumulus so I took them as being pieces of altostratus. It is a possible alternative to identify those two clouds as cumulus but personally, I do not think so. But I cannot be certain. The lack of low cloud on the horizon places that area within the shadowy realm of the deformation zone shadow of the warm conveyor belt. 

There are no low cloud clues be seen in the scene and Tom could not include the wind direction or speed in his brush strokes. With no low clouds to diagnosis, I must remain suitably vague about how deep Tom was into the warm sector of the approaching weather system. 

Tom's location within the Conveyor Belt Conceptual Model

If the surface winds were strong easterlies, Tom would have still been within the cold conveyor belt of a strong, slow-moving storm and the warm front was to his south. The cold conveyor belt slows and veers to the south as the system intensity decreases and/or the system motion guided by the jet stream increases. The science of these deductions may be found in greater detail in "Weather Lessons for Everyone from the Cold Conveyor Belt Wizard".  

If the winds were southerly at Tom’s location, Tom was either within the cold conveyor belt of a weak, fast-moving system or more likely, the warm front was to his north (the yellow star in the above graphic) and he was in the warm sector of the system. There is no way to know for certain.

The provenance of this painting is interesting as it includes Barker Fairley who was included in the famous photograph taken at the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto in 1920. Barker Fairley (1887-1986) was a British-Canadian painter and scholar who was an early champion and friend of the Group of Seven. That image featured six of the members of the Group of Seven just as they were getting started. Barker was seated between Harris and Johnston.  Franklin Carmichael was missing.  This was a very serious group intent on creating a Canadian expression of art. 

Six of the seven who would form the Group of Seven were seated at the Arts & Letters Club
in Toronto around 1920.
From the left: F.H. Varley, A.Y. Jackson (in front), Lawren Harris (with cigarette),
Barker Fairley (non-group member with pipe), Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer
and J.E.H MacDonald (with hand to his chin). Franklin Carmichael was missing.  
Photograph by Arthur Goss courtesy of the Arts & Letters Club.

"Open Water, Joe Creek" as it would have appeared      
in Tom's pochade box in the spring of 1917

Inscription verso: 

• l.l., TOM THOMSON; 
• u.m., in ink, OPEN WATER / JOE CREEK; 
• u.l., in graphite, Not for Sale;
• c., in graphite, Not for Sale-JM.;
• r.c., in graphite, FAIRLEY; 
• c., in ink, BARKER FAIRLEY; 
• u.m., label, Open Water-Joe Creek / 14 (circled);
• label, AGT Dec 30/40; 
• u.r., label, SMITH COLLEGE / MUSEUM OF ART / LOAN 61:41 Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario. 

An image of the actual back of the panel would assist in making this all much more clear. I take a high-quality image of the verso of each of my paintings.

Provenance 

• Estate of the artist Elizabeth Thomson Harkness, Annan and Owen Sound 
• Barker Fairley, by 1940 
• W. Allan Manford, Toronto, 1970 
• Private collection, Toronto 
• Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario

Time and place are important to deciphering the story behind any creation. Art needs to be placed into its proper and complete historical context to be fully understood. The clues required to do so can be hidden in plain sight but the required sleuthing is often not easy... 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick

PS: Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now contains all of the entries to date.