In a partial list of jobs that Roland Rochette had during his long life, several involved storekeeping. Here the artist records his recollections of the time of country stores with a painting that uses the brown surface of a board to simulate the wooden interior of a shop. Carved and found elements add to the scene.
HARDWICK — The old-fashioned general store is well stocked. Behind a counter bearing a huge wheel of rat cheese, the storekeeper dressed in a traditional apron stands. Barrels of crackers, shelves of fabrics, boots, tools, and a big butcher block surround him. Fresh produce is displayed in row after row of wooden boxes.
Someone could spend hours browsing in this establishment, but not buy anything there, because the store exists in a painting made by Roland Rochette.
Mr. Rochette’s granddaughter Julie Brochu smiled as she looked into the scene.
“I remember him laughing as he carved the cucumbers,” she said. Pointing to a tiny metallic coffee pot and coffee grinder on the rear wall of the
Roland Rochette. Photo courtesy of GRACE
store, she said “These came from my mother’s refrigerator.”
On Saturday, December 13, Ms. Brochu, along with a small fraction of Mr. Rochette’s many descendents, attended the opening reception for an all-too-rare exhibit of her grandfather’s work, at the Old Firehouse here. The historic building is the home of Grass Roots Art and Community Effort (GRACE), an organization that championed Mr. Rochette’s work.
Shows of Mr. Rochette’s work are uncommon because almost all of his paintings are privately owned. GRACE began putting the show together with the help of Bert Francke, whose late partner, GRACE founder Don Sunseri, was a friend of Mr. Rochette’s and collected his work. When word of the show spread, a number of Mr. Rochette’s relatives offered to lend paintings they owned, said Michael Gray, program director for GRACE.
Longtime residents of Greensboro Bend may recall Mr. Rochette, a man on whose body the weight of years did not rest lightly. Toward the end of his long life, Roland Rochette lived behind the post office across from the old railroad station.
Although Mr. Rochette looked every day of his more than 90 years, his spirit, as revealed through his many paintings, was filled with the energy and playfulness of youth. The impression of a keen and good-humored observer of life made by his artwork receives a strong boost from quotations posted on the wall near the paintings.
“I paint to show the changes in life, you see, and the wages. When I worked at the automobile plant I worked for 80 cents an hour. The same people today get 16 to 18 dollars an hour. You see the difference? In life, you see. That’s to show the people there never were good old days,” Mr. Rochette said in an interview with the Vermont Folklife Center.
Caspian Lake is filled with sailboats on a windy day in Greensboro. Willey’s Store is at the bottom right of the painting. Other Greensboro landmarks and camps surround the busy lake.
The automobile plant was only one of many careers pursued by the painter. A partial list included ferrying people across the St. Lawrence River in his native Canada, selling newspapers, cooking at a lumber camp, working in country stores, and farming.
Mr. Rochette started his farming career after a bad accident left him unable to work for more than two years, while providing him with enough in compensation to buy land in Greensboro. He left the farm to do factory work in Connecticut, but eventually retired with his wife to Greensboro, where he sold bait to make ends meet.
When he was 84 he noticed the attention that Grandma Moses received for her paintings of country life. “Well, I says, if an old woman can do it, why not an old man? So I told my wife I’m going to try that,” Mr. Rochette later said.
In painting Mr. Rochette found his true vocation. His work revealed the places and things he knew well. His scenes of Greensboro Bend capture perfectly the architecture of a small Vermont railroad crossing; Caspian Lake in Greensboro is filled with boats and surrounded by elegant camps with Willey’s Store anchoring the scene.
Mr. Rochette usually depicts architecture in three dimensions, using small pieces of wood to build scale models of familiar buildings, like the
Mr. Rochette lived in Greensboro Bend during his final years. Here he captures the architecture of the small railroad village with the station, two store porches, and the old feed store.
railroad station in the Bend. He also added texture to painting with sand, small stones, or pieces of pine cones sent him by a relative who moved west.
His first work, according to the interview, was a painting of the local church, made for a parish fund-raising event. It sold, as did most of Mr. Rochette’s other paintings. Mr. Sunseri helped connect Mr. Rochette with collectors and made sure he had a good supply of materials, Mr. Gray said.
While Mr. Rochette went to some of the early GRACE workshops, it was never as a participant, Mr. Gray said. He sat in as sort of a “spiritual guardian,” he said.
Mr. Gray said the show of Mr. Rochette’s work will be up until January 8, perhaps longer if there is public demand. GRACE is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, but the gallery can be visited anytime by appointment, he added.
When Mr. Rochette died in 1986, at age 99, Mr. Sunseri wrote a tribute to his colleague comparing him to the equally long-lived and energetic master, Pablo Picasso. In it he recalled that Mr. Rochette was pressed to make a painting of heaven by a collector who offered to pay handsomely for the commission.
Mr. Rochette refused saying, “I only paint what I have seen with my own eyes.” Mr. Sunseri envisioned his friend, in the company of other masters
When Mr. Rochette needed a brown wash to highlight the bare branches of the maple trees in this sugaring scene, he improvised. “I think he used coffee,” said Michael Gray, program director of GRACE.
able at last to paint the landscape of paradise.
A few of Roland Rochette’s many descendents visit a show of the Greensboro Bend artist’s work at the GRACE gallery in Hardwick. Mr. Rochette’s granddaughter Theresa Davis looks on as great-great-grandsons Dylan and Walker McAllister and their mother, great-granddaughter Stacy McAllister, look over the work. According to Ms. Davis’ sister, Julie Brochu, Mr. Rochette had about 13 children. Ms. Brochu said she has no idea how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren there are, but noted her mother has 16 grandchildren. Photos by Joseph Gresser
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