MESSAGE FROM PAINT-IN 1969

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THERE’S A MESSAGE FROM PAINT-IN

Cobourg Sentinel-Star, September 3, 1969

The many phases of man’s world seemed evident in downtown Cobourg in the youthful effervescence of the paint-in.
From the very young to the fully grown, they were there in long hair, beards, jeans, minis, with legs twined around step-ladders, long arms with free-moving brushes and imagination flowing into design.
What artist does not relish a window?
While vandals see nothing more creative than smashing a window, the majority of young minds are fired up inside with the incontrollable desire to use any window as a ready-made canvas.
They have that Alec Guinness mood, the Guinness who attacked a whole wall with garish colours in the headlong frenzy of a creator.
Behold the windows of downtown Cobourg!
The poet, the animal lover, the romanticist, the slogan writer, the commercial artist, the dreamy abstract one, the realist, the schizo, the funster; the characters of life were there leaping from inside youth to the window caricature of self and society everywhere.
Never was there such an exposition in downtown Cobourg.
There was that Royalist colour and design on the Thomas Electric window, the magnificent horses at Bradley’s. the comics page at Evan’s, Rosemary’s Baby at Stedman’s, a love-in at Cortesis’, the strong man at Woody’s; poetry at Woolworth’s … the prize-winning intricacy at Tom’s. the past, the present, the future, up and down the street.
There was no generation gap. The adult world enjoyed the paint-in and some saw what was not seen before … the tremendous potential of youthful talent in this town, out town, any town in Canada.
It was early morning, Friday, when the Sentinel-Star [Foster Meharry Russell] returning from a Boards of Education meeting, was hailed by Wally Keeler, Kathryn McGlynn and John Allan to see their artistry.
Here was a vignette of the past, for since the early days of printing the Gutenberg Bible, the flow of words in essay and musical line, design has been a part of books, poetry and life.

I CALL YOU WOMAN
REALIZING IT IS NOT ENOUGH
AND TURN AWAY
I THINK OF SISTER OF THE SUN
DAUGHTER OF THE DAY

Comes the indelible realization from the paint-in that there is not generation gap, except for the odd character on the street who doesn’t even understand a modicum of his own era.
The Sentinel Star was looking down Division Street late Friday afternoon.
Some young people were still busy on creative work on and off ladders.
A man and woman passed.
“This is a hippie town. They are all hippies.”
The man turned around and looked backward where a lad, paint brush in hand, was busy creating his thing. Said the man to the woman;
“Je ___ ___, they are painting the windows!”

There are a few in every crowd who do not understand, be they young or old.
Youth will never grow old, so long as they enjoy Archie and the comic page, age will ever remain young in the reflection of the creative light on the young face … for it is for youth to be up and doing and the adult to understand what the activity is all about.
And that for us at The Cobourg Sentinel-Star is the message of the paint-in.