By Sorrel Hoskin

Harry Fryer's art studio is barely big enough to wield a paintbrush - never mind swinging a cat. So when a local women's group wanted to come and view where the New Plymouth artist worked - he had to put them off. "Can you imagine 20 women in here?" he laughs, drawing aside the curtain to his cubby hole and revealing just enough space for a small desk, a multitude of paint brushes, a few pictures, and, of course, an artist.

But the tiny studio, the old front porch of the Paynters Avenue home, is a perfect hidey hole for an artist on a wet winter's day. It's here that Harry creates watercolour wonders that have his followers crying out for more.

Harry is a well-kept secret. Shy about publicity and modest about his abilities, the octogenarian watercolour artist is not into exhibiting his work. In the past he's turned down offers from gallery directors keen to exhibit his art, explaining that it turns play into hard work.

Sitting at his dining room table, overlooked by a watercolour of Thornton Bay in the Coromandel Harry takes some convincing he's worthy of an article. "I don't see what the fuss is all about," he says modestly. "My art is just a nice past time for me. That's all I really regard it as - nothing commercial at all."

Shangrila: Thornton Bay in Coromandel is a favourite camping spot for the Fryer family. Image: Harry Fryer.

Art in the blood

Art is in Harry's blood. The youngest of eight children he has been into pencils and paper as long as he can remember. 

"Ever since I was a kid I've been into drawing. I started off with just pencils sketching. My father was working at the Dannevirke Evening News - so there was no shortage of paper."

Harry headed north to New Plymouth to put his art skills to work as a cadet draughtsman for the Lands and Survey Department (now Land Information New Zealand) in 1941.

He served in the coastal defence in the Taranaki Regiment , Intelligence Section, during World War II. "Not spies! Providing prints and charts and maps and things - nothing to do with MI5 or 6 at all, sorry!"

In Lands and Survey jobs fell Harry's way until he attained the position of divisional draughtsman which he held until his retirement in 1980.

"A lot of people think draughting is just drawing plans and maps but there's a lot more to it than that. I checked that the survey was OK and the title and that sort of thing. The chief draughtsman relied on me to make sure everything was OK."

Harry spent 38 years working for Lands and Survey, retiring in 1980 just as computers came in. "I never regretted a day of it. It was great work."

He took a little of his work home with him. In his art studio is the chair he used as a draughtsman - the perfect artist's seat. "They were upgrading the chairs when I left so I bought this one!"

After so many years as a draughtsman it iss natural the artist will approach his work with a draughtsman's eye - "How can you get away from it? It's just there."

A helping hand from the kids

Harry's four children got him into water colour painting. "Back in about 1970 they gave me a water colour set for my birthday and I took it from there. I'm entirely self taught. I get books from the library - I think 'I'd like to paint like that' and try it out."

Well travelled: Harry's painting Taranaki Morning has been on display in Mishima. Image: Harry Fryer.

Over the years he has developed his own style, one he describes as half realist/half impressionist.

He credits local artists Colyn Nicholl and Jock Leggott for helping him with his artwork. "They gave me constructive criticism and my art just grew."

Giving back to the art world, Harry has spent 20 years on the committee for the Taranaki Arts Society and was president for three years.

An artist's style

More than 30 years on he still gets artist's block - but has found an easy way to deal with a piece he doesn't like. "Put it in the bath and wash the painting off - then you just paint over the top!  I was born in the depression years - I suppose I'm a bit miserable!"

Harry likes to include objects, and bits of scenes he likes into his artwork, making each painting unique. He points out a sketch of Mt Taranaki, with an old hay rake in the foreground. "That could be any Taranaki scene - but I sketched that hay rake in Tauranga and put it in there!"

Harry is mainly into landscape painting, and while in the past he would go out to his subjects these days he works from photos or old sketches. "Now I'm a bit old - the bones creak too much!"

Ask the artist what the drive behind his painting is and he grins "Oh that's a hard one! I think it's just a creative urge, you like to create something, make something. It's a way of getting your feelings down on paper. If somebody happens to like what you have done and buy it - OK."

His followers have told him he should charge more for his artworks. "But I'd rather sell them and have them on display in someone's house than stored away somewhere."

Artworks dot Harry and wife Fay's home. On one wall a herd of cows walk down a country road lit by early morning sunlight. "That picture went to Mishima," Harry says proudly. The well-travelled painting was one of two of Harry's artworks chosen, among others, to represent Taranaki at New Plymouth's sister city's anniversary celebrations.

Another artwork reveals a little slice of Australia. A rustic cottage nestles among gum trees, caught on canvas when the couple was holidaying nearby. "You wouldn't know that our motel was just over here," chuckles the artist, pointing to the left of the painting, "And this gum tree was a power pole!"
 It's evidence of the artistic licence that Harry likes - and makes each of his artworks unique.

Harry paints about 40 artworks a year and sells them all. If he did more - they too would sell. Asked about the popularity of his pieces the artist laughs "It's flattening if not flattering!" He reckons he'll keep on painting as long as it is still enjoyable. "Or at least until I can't see!"