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Buffalo plate, designed by Tom Hulme
20th Century
Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
TEXT ATTACHMENT


Credits:
Tom Hulme

2

Jim Jesse is a retired high school art teacher. He never worked in the local potteries. The closest that he ever got to them was when, as a youngster, he and his friends would play by the creek behind the Medalta factory. Occasionally, in the huge shard pile of broken and discarded ware behind the buildings, he would find an object that was relatively intact, perhaps with just a small crack or chip but still usable - a treasure he could take home for his mom.

Jim was born and raised in Medicine Hat and attended the local schools, although he laughingly admits that he only went to school to play hockey and baseball. From the ages of 8 to 16, he lived with his younger brother and his widowed mother in a tiny house on Princess Avenue in "the Flats". It was the very same house his mother had lived in as a young girl. The house has since been torn down and a four-plex now stands in its place.

It was during the time he lived there that he became acquainted with the family next door - Tom and Ruby Hulme and their daughters, Lola and Shirley. While he did spend some time with the two girls who were around his age, he also had chats occasionally with their father with whom he shared a love of drawing.

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Fire in Elkwater, Cypress Hills Park, Alberta
20th Century, Circa 1933
Elkwater, Cypress Hills Park, Alberta, Canada


Credits:
Tom Hulme

4

As a youngster, Jim was always sketching and he would show his work to Tom and seek his advice. As he matured, he, in turn, became more interested in the artwork that Tom was doing. One painting in particular has always stayed in his mind - a painting he had admired from the time he was a young boy. It was of a 1933 forest fire in Elkwater, a resort in the nearby Cypress Hills Park. Tom apparently had someone fly him over the area and took photos from which he made a wonderful painting, full of energy and colour, like the raging fire itself. It was probably one of his best works.
Eventually, Jim's mother re-married and the family moved to another area of the city.

5

Wildlife, ink drawing
20th Century, post 1950
Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada


Credits:
Tom Hulme

6

At the age of 19, Jim moved to Calgary and worked with his uncle for four years, learning the skill of sign painting. In those days, the art and the lettering were all done free hand and one developed a good eye and steady brush.

For twelve years, he also worked for the Calgary School Board in the Maintenance Department, a job he thoroughly enjoyed. When things were quiet, he would often find a secluded corner and practice making portraits in soft pastels and pencil. During this period, he honed his skills and often did commissioned work.

Time passed. Jim got married, became a single parent raising two children, and started attending night school.

Armed with the confidence of having done well in his night school course, Jim decided to go to university full time as a mature student. His degree was to be in Education with major in art and minor in history, but he ended up taking mostly art courses. After graduation, he taught in the Calgary school system.

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Portrait of Tom Hulme by Jim Jesse, pastel
20th Century, post 1960
Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
TEXT ATTACHMENT


Credits:
Jim Jesse, Artist

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All the while, he kept in touch with Tom and would always pay him a visit when he came down to Medicine Hat. On one such occasion, he took a photograph of Tom on the front verandah and later turned it into a soft pastel portrait. When it was completed, Jim surprised Tom by giving it to him as a present. Tom was quite overcome by the gesture and Jim was amply rewarded by the obvious pleasure with which his gift was received.

Over the years, their friendship continued to grow but remained a formal one. On his visits, Jim always took care to be on his best behaviour. In those days, young people were respectful of their elders and Tom, by his very appearance, was not one to tolerate nonsense or misbehaviour of any kind. He was quite imposing, with his Roman nose, his British reserve and his pipe. A private man who didn't like the limelight, he refused to do an interview with the local paper for years before he finally relented.

Tom was a very much an individual, with definite views. Many times, the local art club invited him to join its membership but he was not interested. He didn't think much of the paintings they produced. "I wouldn't hang them in my garage", he used to say to Jim. And that garage was apparently a sorry excuse for a building. It was not so much that the art was bad, but that the style was too modern for his taste.

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Tom Hulme watercolour
20th Century
Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada


Credits:
Tom Hulme

10

It certainly wasn't because he felt his painting ability to be superior. He didn't think that he was much of an artist. He referred to his painting as a hobby. Line drawing, water colours and soft pastels were his more competent areas. Painting in oil was frustrating, the resulting work too stiff. He once told Jim that he would sometimes be so dissatisfied with a piece that he would throw it on the floor and jump all over it - an image that those around him would find difficult to conjure up - and swear that he wouldn't make another painting in his entire life. That feeling wouldn't last, and before long, he would be back at his easel.
There was very little evidence in the Hulme household of the art work that Tom produced at the Medalta factory, maybe a vase or two and books of glaze recipes. This was perhaps another way to keep his job and his home life separate. After his retirement, he did do some artwork for Medalta Potteries (1966) Limited, a pottery factory in Redcliff, Alberta, and he did keep a few examples of that work which was mainly line drawings of wild life such as mountain goats, bison and elk.

There was one Medalta project of which Tom was very proud and that was the hand painting that he did on the Hailie Selassie dinner ware. According to Tom, there were two sets of dishes manufactured for Selassie - the hand painted set, possibly for the royal family, and the stamped set which was for the household staff. The factory was given strict orders to destroy any defective ware on site. Given those circumstances, it was by a stroke of good fortune that a couple of imperfect stamped pieces made for the household staff found their way to the Medalta Museum collection. A hand decorated item has yet to surface.

Jim moved back to Medicine Hat with his second wife Mona and took a position as art teacher at Medicine Hat High School. He remained in contact with Tom and Ruby until their passing.
He remembers them with a great deal of fondness, Ruby for her kindness and gentleness, Tom for his high moral standards and ethics, his forthrightness and his modesty ("he knew what he knew and didn't feel the need to broadcast it, unlike people today").

In his own home, Jim has some tangible memories - a water colour painting of a winter scene with water and trees which was a wedding present, a couple of pastel paintings and a pastel portrait that Tom did of John Kennedy.