BRUNSWICK, Maine — Matt Barter, a Brunswick artist, grew up in Sullivan, a small town in Downeast Maine where his father dug worms, fished for lobster and created art on the side.
Philip Barter actually built his family's home from wooden beams he found on the beaches.
Over the years, Philip Barter became a leading Modernist painter. His work is now shown in the Portland Museum of Art and the Farnsworth Art Museum, and his life and work are the subject of a book by Maine art critic Carl Little.
Fresh out of the Maine Media Workshop and with one documentary completed, David Jester of Brunswick saw in his friend Matt the ideal topic for his next project.
"He, himself, is such a great character for a film," Jester said recently outside Barter's Brunswick studio, The Barter Art House. "And then you take the family legacy of art and you put that together and I don't think you could have a better topic."
Working with Topsham filmmaker Leigh Doran, Jester has spent months filming father and son as they create their art -- similar, but so different in many ways.
Both artists focus on what they have seen and known all their lives: the real working waterfront.
"You don’t find many other artists that take on the subjects that Matt and Philip do," Jester said. "I mean yes, other artists do, they show lobstering and the coast. I always think of a Wyeth painting where there is guy leaning off the boat and pulling on the lobster trap, and it’s so, like, this idealized version of what life is like and how they work. Instead, Matt paints them working on the docks and the shoulder season … like when they’re getting the boats ready, the hard work that goes into this life."
"I remember working with my dad around the boatyards in Sorrento Harbor," Matt Barter said. Like his father, he moved away for awhile, including a stint in California, and then returned to Maine.
Philip Barter "works on portraits of specific characters Downeast," his son said. "The story I’m trying to tell is the story of the fisherman that gets up in the morning – like 4 in the morning -- goes out quietly, works all day, comes home to his family, goes to sleep and wakes up and gets up at 4 in the morning and goes out to go fishing. It’s the story of the quietness and the humility of the Maine fisherman."
"Matt focuses on the intermediate times—fixing the boat, getting the crates ready, drinking a PBR," Jester said.
How family influences art, and how it can diverge, forms the theme of their film—at least so far.
"As we go along, we find out Matt's motives behind why he started to be an artist and what drove him along the way," Jester said."
"The family component, the relationship between a father and a son ... and what you pass on to the next generation," Doran said. "Also it's the story of kind of forging your own path, being inspired by painters who came before you but also coming up with something that's unique."
But both filmmakers were quick to point out that the focus could still change.
"The beauty of documentary is revealing itself as you go along," Jester said.