Jackson's David Baker

Master of Vitreous Flux

Most people retire by the time they reach their 70th year. Septuagenarian David Baker of Jackson likes to say he retired at age 36 from a life of working for a living, to "daring to live to work, to give all my time to the field of art."

Thirty-five years later, Baker, 70, is well-established as one of Mt. Washington Valley's premiere artists. His Roadside Gallery has become a Jackson landmark among travelers on Route 16 during that span, while his works have appeared in numerous publications, including The American Artist, Yankee, Ford Times and Art Review. More recently, his 40- by 60-inch work, "Tuckerman Ravine," sold at public auction to a Massachusetts collector of White Mountain art for $5100. The dare, from all indications, was a wise one.

"I sold that painting for $200 in 1952 to Tom Martin, then the owner of the New England Inn. At Wayne Mock's auction in December, someone paid $5100, which is more than what I paid for my house back in '46. Tom must have bought his painting at the right time," Baker laughs, "and I must have bought my house at the right time."

Things weren't always quite as certain. Born in New York City in 1915, and raised in Medford, Massachusetts, Baker says he knew as early as high school that art was to be the career for him, but after graduating from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1938, his plans were interrupted by the onset of World War II. Although he continued working on his art while seeing duty as a quartermaster in the Pacific theatre during the war, it wasn't until after the Bakers moved to Mt. Washington Valley in 1946 that he began to think about pursuing his dream in earnest.

Working for Carroll Reed at the Carroll County Hardware Store from 1946 to 1951, Baker's art initially remained at a standstill, while he learned the ropes of dealing with the public and how to fix washing machines. Learning to communicate with customers proved to be a worthwhile investment, however, as Baker notes it taught him how to relate to people on a one-to-one level.

"It was the best course I ever took, not being afraid to communicate verbally with people those four years at the hardware store. One of the most exciting things about working there," Baker said, "was they taught me the really old school idea of meeting, greeting, trusting and knowing the customers by name, and them knowing you. It was a very strong, per-sonal, warm community experience that the growth of this area has depleted somewhat, by necessity. But I was able to use that all these years in greeting people as friends when they came into my gallery. It's been a slow, one-on-one process of making a living through strangers coming in and purchasing my personal works."

After his fourth year at the hardware store, and 18 years after graduating from art school, Baker ended his quiet desperation by sitting down and deciding that it was time for him to find out "just how good a Baker" he could be. His friends encouraged him to give it a try, as did his wife, Mary Jane.

"I had a wife and four children to support," recalled the soft-spoken, articulate artist at his studio this week, as snowsqualls created a sea of white outside, "but they were behind me all the way, as were such friends as Lou Hodgkins, an excellent teacher and watercolorist, and John 'Jake' May, the famous cabinet maker and woodworker. Jake was very helpful in telling me, 'Look, you have talent, do something with it—don't waste your time doing what you're not happy with.' "

Reed was also supportive, allowing Baker to show some of his works in the hardware store. One of his first sales was to Peter Limmer of Intervale, maker of the world renowned Limmer custom hiking boots. "I did a lot of trading for my paintings in the early years," Baker related, "and I believe I received two pair of wonderful Limmer walking shoes for my first sale."

The barter system was used on numerous other occasions in those early years, according to Baker, including to pay for the delivery of the four Baker children. "Dr. Twottle finally said he had enough paintings of mine," Baker joked, "so we stopped after four kids."

To test the commercial appeal of his work, Baker set up a bookcase on his front lawn in October 1951.  On the sides of the bookcase were 10 oil paintings, along with maple syrup that Baker had obtained through a barter with a local syrup producer. "I sold 10 paintings in 10 days, after the 12th of October, when the tourist tide was supposedly bad. That made up my mind to build a gallery, and start exhibiting my paintings from it, instead of from my house," Baker said.

Baker's gallery opened next to his home a year later, offering 100 square feet of space. Since that time, he has enlarged it twice, so that it now offers 1200 square feet of space. The gallery is located on the upper level, while his studio is housed in the bottom floor, looking out to the west to Popple Mountain.

While he doesn't like to consider himself a White Mountain artist in the traditional sense, Baker attributes the location of his gallery in the four season resort area of Mt. Washington Valley as having a great deal to do with his commercial success. "I'm sure that part of the success of making a living was being in an area that didn't pull up the sidewalks after Labor Day, where there's a drawing card for people to visit at all times of the year. I don't feel it has made any difference in the quality of my work being here," Baker said, "but it has helped me be successful with my gallery."

In the first few years after leaving the hardware store, before his art really began to sell, Baker and his wife, Mary Jane, a psychologist, both worked at various jobs to make ends meet. Baker rented and adjusted skis in the 1950s at the Carroll Reed Ski Shops at Cranmore and Wildcat, and also moonlighted at the Jack Frost Shop in Jackson. It was while working at Cranmore that he invented the now-classic set of six cartoons, showing amusing types of skis which Baker had dreamed up while observing skiers on the slopes. "The set included slalom skis, social skis, climbing skis, figure skis, bushwhacking skis, and the snowplow ski," Baker related. The cards were reproduced by a printing company, and sold for $50 a set. This summer, a complete set sold for $2000 at auction.

Baker originally worked in charcoal, oils, pen and ink, and watercolor. He continues to work in all today, except for oils, which he says he hasn't dabbled with for years. He is best known in the art world for his process of Vitreous Flux Watercolor, a system he invented in 1963 while experimenting with ways to "improve" the medium.

"The whole idea of Vitreous Flux came from the idea that there must be a better way to do watercolor," Baker relates. During his war years, Baker drew, sketched and painted his impressions with anything he could find—pencil, pen, fugitive inks, on the backs of telegrams, wrapping paper, and whatever odd materials he could find. That background—coupled with his desire to use watercolor unhampered by the usual limitations of size and shape—led to Baker's creation of the Vitreous Flux technique, meaning "translucent flow."

Initially using auto enamel on a masonite board, Baker sprayed six coats of lacquer onto the board at a local auto body shop. The material's glassy, non-absorbent surface allowed Baker to apply his colors directly from the tube onto the board, where, dissolved in water, they then were allowed to flow until enough water evaporated, leaving the residual mixture in a state of animation. "The board at this stage is like a watercolor palette," explained Baker.

It is in the way in which the colors dry that Baker finds the form and line he wishes to use to develop his painting. If he is unhappy with colors or a line, he can "replace"—that is, remove paint from the surface—the design with the use of paper towel. If he needs more water, he adds it with a spray can. The last brush stroke is applied to the foreground giving the paintings an illusion of third dimension.

Through it all, there's an excitement of discovery, since there is very little control over what shape will evolve, according to Baker. And that's the way he likes it. "You start with an abstract," he said, "and keep on turning your board until you find something that you think works sideways, or upside down. Then you start building into that, and creating; or even replacing the paint right off the surface, until your Rorshock starts to emanate from what's in your head. And that could be anything from a show you just went to in Boston, a good ski run, or a sailing trip.

"It's never, ever boring,” he continued, "because I never know what's going to happen when I sit down at the palette, and I don't want to know." It is that sense of excitement that lures Baker into his studio three to four hours every day. His career is now at a point where he no longer feels the need to take commissions, a position of which he is thankful.

"I don't do commissions anymore. I physically can't handle it. A person will give me an idea, and I'll listen, and if I like it, I’ll do it, if it satisfies me. That is first and foremost for me right now," the wiry artist said. "A luxury? You bet it's a luxury, and I certainly appreciate it. I'd hate to have to go back to doing things commercially. The point, though, is that so few come out that really make me happy. Making the customer happy isn't enough."

While Baker is well aware that his need to constantly experiment has cost him a few followers over the years, he maintains that it is necessary for him to retain his freshness. "I've been in the business long enough now that I'm getting second generation buyers, people who are children of people who have had my works in their homes. Very few, fortunately, ask me why I don't paint like I did before. I look at those that do and say, 'You've changed, and I've changed, too.' I insist they grow up. Of course I'm going to change—I'm a person, not a machine producing postcards," Baker said.

Showing no signs of slowing down now that he's approaching 71, Baker continues to live for those moments when, as he describes it, he "discovers more than I knew."

"The important thing is that at the end of a day's work, and it's gone well, I can't wait to get back into the studio to see if tomorrow will be as good a session. Sometimes, you do have another good day," said Baker, "while sometimes, you don't. That's the exciting thing about it."

While Baker contends that the only art to a creative artist is the act of doing it, like anyone, he nonetheless appreciates it when his art is appreciated by patrons. "It's so easy to forget all the paintings I've done, since I've done so much," Baker noted. "It's only when a person comes in and purchases a painting, or when one lands in a museum or somehow becomes important to someone else, that it rekindles the fire. And jeepers," the Jackson artist said, "it's like cutting wood—you get warm cutting the tree down, and again when you put it in your fireplace. That's a nice feeling."

Asked if he ever thinks about returning to the hardware business he left 35 years ago, Baker laughed, and replied, "No, never. Except maybe to buy some new paint."

Editor's Note: David Curtis Baker died on Dec. 24, 1999, in Jackson, N.H.