Gordon Barrick
The Artist and His Work
search:
The following commentary was written by Gordon Barrick's son,
James Gordon Barrick.
Almost nobody drove to work in those days.
They took the street-car. Gordon Barrick did too.
It was only a step down to Clifton Boulevard and the nearest stop.
In those days almost everyone worked on Saturdays as well.
Most people worked from 8:30am to 5:30pm, except bankers, of course.
But Gordon Barrick was a member of another group, the second shift people, who worked from 4:00pm to Midnight.
Those were Gordon Barrick's hours, just as it was for so many others who worked at the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
They worked in the late afternoon and on through the night so that readers would have their morning newspaper.
But it took almost two hours a day extra to go to and from work on the street-car.
Gordon Barrick used this time well.
He always had his little black notebook with removable pages.
As he rode along he studied his fellow riders and sketched ever so many of them with his pencil.
Over the years he must have made hundreds of these sketches and we have many of them which appear (in the printed Catalog).
He must have done his sketching mainly at night, on the way home, for many of his subjects seem to have dropped into a brown study or are just plain drowsing.
Gordon Barrick did this day in and day out.
He slept until 10 or so every morning and this gave him until about 3:00pm, or a little later, when he would have to leave for the Plain Dealer.
Of course Sunday was the family day and on Sunday night, he would often tell his only son a bedtime story.
This was a very special time, for the stories were always about the adventures of a small person of the woods and outdoors called Squigelem.
And Squigelem often did amazing things, things that both Gordon Barrick and his son would have liked to do.
But no matter, Squigelem seemed to be a living breathing person and he led us both over hill and dale and he always left us feeling very good about ourselves.
And so smiling peacefully one of us fell asleep while the other, smiling too, tiptoed out of the room.
The collection of Gordon Barrick's surviving streetcar sketches may be viewed here.
