People in Struggle: The Life and Art of Bill Stapleton by Charles Henry Gervais and William J. Stapleton
8vo. pp. 128. b/w illustrations. paperback. Waterloo: Penumbra Press, [1992].
New.
ISBN-10: 0921254377 / ISBN-13: 9780921254379
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DOCUMENTING THE LIFE AND WORK of one of Canada's unsung senior artists, William J. Stapleton, this book is a combination of biography and autobiography, extended interview and private studio-tour.
Described by the Toronto Star as "The People's Artist," Stapleton celebrates the dignity and independence of the human spirit, without irony but not without humour. His contribution to the international "liberation movement" has taken him to the have-not areas of the globe, ranging from Canada's northland to Central America, Spain and the Soviet Union, and from the inner-city ghetto to the Indian reservation and the Third-World refugee camp.
Asked by his biographer whether, at seventy-five, he still has "the fire" in him, Stapleton reflected, "Sure, I still get passionate about causes, about inequity and inequality, about what's wrong with our society, with the environment and with the economic system.... Look, you have to have anger, passion, indignation, love, tenderness—the whole gamut of human emotion—if you're going to be a real artist. Injustice is always with us, and one of the jobs of responsible artists is to respond to it. Art becomes an essential voice in all the chaos of our times: a tool for bearing witness, and a weapon for effecting change."