JORDANVILLE – Comparing himself to the great American poet, the reclusive Emily Dickinson, Jordanville resident and artist John Parker says the best way to live life is in the glory of his summer garden, or by the warm hearth of a winter fire. In the summer, Parker photographs the flowers he nurtures, and in the winter, he sketches by firelight their essence from these photographs. “I don’t like watching the news. Just let me enjoy the beauty of life and my garden,” said Parker, who prefers not to deal with the harsher realities of present times, like politics and war. Since he was four years old, this former Richfield Springs bed and breakfast owner and former Hollywood actor has been drawing. By his teen years, he was drawing cartoon strips but soon decided he lacked the skills for the story telling aspect of the job. Although born in Pennsylvania, Parker spent a good part of his life in California, moving to Hollywood after serving four years in the U.S. Air Force. While living in Hollywood, Parker said he attended acting school with funding provided through the GI bill, despite his inborn desire to draw and paint. He then went on to perform in numerous plays and dozens of independent films. After a while, the rigorous and unpredictable life of an actor, the stress of auditions and being without work after a play or film was completed led him to explore other career paths. He continued to stretch his artistic arm and even sold a few paintings and earned money doing portrait photography. “I wish now that I had gone to art school,” he said, pointing out that his talent is all self taught. In 1985, he headed back to the east coast, landing in Richfield Springs. Here he owned and operated the Jonathon House Bed and Breakfast, part of a dream once shared with his older brother, Peter Bickford, who passed away in 2002 after battling cancer. “Operating the bed and breakfast was like acting all over again,” Parker said. “Every morning I’d get up and dress up and play the role of proprietor of a bed and breakfast. I’d wear a bow tie and make a grand event of serving breakfast.” His daily goal then was to “try to make it an experience the visitor would always remember, that it was more than just a place to sleep and have breakfast.” By 1996, he and his brother decided it was time to retire, so they headed a bit north and found a place to call home in the quiet folds of country living in Jordanville. It was here the two siblings lived, until his brother succumbed to his illness. He became overwrought with grief at the loss, and soon began painting and sketching to ease his pain and his depression. “He just loved Emily Dickinson and would often tell me about her,” Parker said, reminiscing about the conversations shared with his brother. After reading a collection of letters between Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Parker said it was their first meeting that inspired him to paint this portrait. He detailed Higginson’s letter describing the first time he met Dickinson and how she came in from the garden dressed all in white, carrying two day lilies. Parker decided that this was the moment he wanted to create. He painted the portrait, “gave it to my brother and he cried. He loved it,” Parker said. “It’s all about creating moments, capturing moments to share with others,” he added, his eyes glowing with life. Among his other pieces of artwork on display at the library are stills of teacups and flowers, water lilies, and a pencil sketching of a hand lighting a candle, in memory of his brother. However, Parker pointed out that his most favorite creation cannot be viewed in New York, as a filmmaker in Texas commissioned and owns the three prints. The first is of an Indian chief, the second of an Indian woman holding a baby, “in a Madonna-like pose.” The third print is a desert scene with a string of beads half buried in the sand. The beads can be seen in the first painting, around the chief’s neck and in the second scene around the baby’s neck. “It tells a story,” Parker said, something he has spent his entire life doing, telling stories, despite his unsure beginning as a cartoonist. “I’ve tried to capture life in a moment, whether it was in my art, or a photograph, or on stage where I had to make the character as real as possible so that the audience believed that character was a living human being actually going through that experience,” Parker stressed. “It’s all about conveying a feeling,” he continued. “Getting someone to feel something. Even if they don’t feel what you wanted them to feel, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you got them to feel.”
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