‘My wife ran off with my neighbour last week – eeh, I do miss him’. It’s funny what Jim Norton talks about when he’s painting. From his favourite comedian, Les Dawson, to his favourite painter, Paul Cezanne.
Thousands of photographers visit the cliffs tops every year, but painters are few and far between. So when Jim turned up, easel tucked under his arm, he naturally attracted a lot of attention – and he was happy to chat.
There’s something fascinating about watching someone put oil on canvas, turning a blank space into an interpretation of the view rather than a reproducing it, as photographers do. Jim tells a story about one of the great impressionists at this point:
‘Monet said he never paints a tree. He paints patterns and if it looks like a tree then that’s what it is.’
Jim always wanted to do something artistic but he never put brush to canvas until he retired. And with no formal training, once he left his job at Arla Foods, he set about painting nature with gusto.
It’s fair to say that Jim’s a prolific painter. Which is good news for the residents of Scargill House in Kettlewell. He donates bundles of paintings to them so they can raise funds for the community that calls it home. Asked to estimate how much he thinks he’s helped them bank and he hasn’t any real idea, maybe several hundred, perhaps several thousand. He’s not really bothered because he paints for himself. If others appreciate his work, that’s a bonus. And if he can help charities, he's more than happy to hand over his paintings to them.
But on a gloriously sunny afternoon, why did Jim choose to depict the cliffs in all the gloom of late November:
‘That just seems more real to me. It’s how I see them - dark and dangerous. But I can do pretty too.’ And to prove his point, he produced a very different version of the scene sprawling before us from under the bench. It was a classic ‘Here’s one I produced earlier’ moment. As I said, he’s prolific.