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Scarborough Fair at the Chadds Ford Gallery

By Richard Schwartzman

Spring of 2009 arrived at the Chadds Ford Gallery with a huge splash of color behind the banner reading “Scarborough Fair.” It was another opening night for one of the areas more popular artists, Paul Scarborough and once again, as has been the case since for almost 30 years, Scarborough’s fans filled the little gallery.

The Claymont-born artist said he tried something different for this show.

“I tried to project more of an atmosphere type of painting. It’s much different than my past paintings. I have a different outlook on the presentation of my work. I wanted to give a sensation of sort of lost and found, a mystery and truth type of thing.”

As an example he pointed to his painting of a Jack-o-lantern on a stonewall in which the pumpkin stands out because it’s lit and is depicted with more realism than the surrounding elements of the painting, he said.

His growth and progression of work for the show is part of Scarborough’s own growth as an artist.

The former draftsman, and member of the pipefitters’ union whose interest in drawing started in the third grade, wants his work to evolve while simultaneously keeping to at least one personal tradition that his fans have come to expect.

Fans love to look for and find a cardinal somewhere in each of Scarborough’s pieces. And to paraphrase from an old Beatles’ tune, the cardinal is Paul.

Scarborough said he was in the habit of putting birds in many of his paintings while he was doing mall shows back in the early 1970s. There would be flocks of birds, single birds, and then he started using a cardinal, usually of good size, sitting on a milk crate or fence post. It became a signature, of sorts, and he said that the cardinal represents him, the way he puts himself into his paintings.

The search for the cardinal has become a pastime for many who go to his exhibits. He said he’s had to take some paintings apart to put one in because people want it.

“People insisted I put a cardinal in the painting. … If they don’t find one, it costs me paintings,” he sad.

Scarborough is reluctant to give away secrets, but said sometimes the cardinal will show up as a simple speck of red where sunlight glistens off the ocean in a seascape, or maybe appear as a constellation of stars in a night scene.

Yet, while that tradition continues, there is also the continuation of growth and evolution as an artist.

And part of that growth has a parallel with the cardinal being in his paintings.

“When I paint something, I paint it with the thought of living it. I paint something that I feel is a part of my traveling in the local area. My style has developed to a point where, I think, it’s become a much more personal look at the way I see things in the local landscape. This has been distilling down for a number of years,” he said. “I want to make a person get absorbed into the painting and not just look at it and miss the thought I was trying to put into it.”

Even Scarborough’s color palette has grown to help show that more personal expression. He said he’s always loved color, but much of his tones earlier were muted. That has changed over the years with colors becoming stronger and bolder.

“I enjoy subdued color, but I also love the fall and I love the spring. I can’t help but express it when I see a great burst of spring pink or yellow,” he said. “There’s nothing like an azalea to make you think of spring and there’s nothing like a great maple tree along the Brandywine to be set off amongst all the green with that big burst of orange. I love to express that if I can capture it. That is what I want to do.”