Tom Phillips

            On Tuesday morning when I went online the first thing I saw was a message informing me that Tom Phillips had died. From the way he was when I’d seen him twelve hours before, horribly emaciated and barely conscious, this news was not a surprise.

            I first came to know Tom Phillips in 1982 when I started trying to get work modelling for artists. He was the contact and the booker for most of the drawing and painting sessions at Artists 25. That studio had been formed by a group of artists that had been involved with an art institution called Three Schools, which closed down in the late 70s.

            Tom was kind of a man-child in the sense that he exuded no sexuality whatsoever, even when he was singing some bawdy Elizabethan song. The Me Too movement would yield a fallow harvest from Tom Phillips. Although he had lot of friends, all of those relationships were platonic as far as I know and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he died a virgin, though of course I may be wrong. Early on I asked him if he was married but he replied that he was wedded to his art. He once invited me back to his place for dinner after a session but when I told him I had other plans his strange response was, “I won’t ask you again.” Tom was already retired when I first met him and at the time he couldn’t have been much older than 50. I inquired as to what he’d done for a living before retiring and he told me that he’d coloured bricks. It hadn’t occurred to me to find out at the time if he’d meant that he chose brick colour from scratch based on the minerals and metals that go into them when they are made or if he tinted them afterward.

I think it was after his retirement that he taught at the Etobicoke School of the Arts for a while.

Tom lived for his art and I think he drew and painted almost every day. He was also a wood sculptor and he did woodcuts as well. On top of that he also wrote poetry that consisted mostly of word play. I know I have some samples of his writing buried somewhere in my place but after turning my apartment upside down yesterday I couldn’t find any. A few years ago one of his paintings got shipped to Paris to be part of a show at the Louvre.

He was extremely dedicated to the Artists 25 studio and saved its life on many occasions by paying the rent out of his own pocket. The studio is in his will but one member told me that whether A25 gets any money from Tom might depend on how his family works things out. Tom inherited money from his parents and though I don’t think he played an active role in how the money was invested it seems that it was invested well. He casually mentioned to me once that he was worth about $2,000,000. His relatives apparently started fighting over his money about five years before he died. Some of them wanted him declared incompetent, which always seemed like a strange assessment to me. Is it insane to live one’s life fully as an artist?

Tom lived at least 75 years in the house in which he was born in Etobicoke. I visited there once about twenty years ago when Tom gave my daughter and I a kitten. Every room was packed with his paintings, drawings and other artwork, the hundreds of science fiction books that he'd read, as well as electronic equipment, because Tom also liked to tinker and fix things. For about twenty years I had a set of speakers that he’d fixed and gave me. Coincidentally they began to fail around the same time that Tom began to go downhill.

About five years ago Tom started to fall down and so, though he kept the house, it was decided that it was best for him to go into a retirement home. He had a knee replaced a while later, and got around with a walker for a while before switching to a cane and then back to a walker and then the cane, depending on if he had another fall. The care facility where he lived was good in many ways for him because they made sure he ate right and got his insulin. He remained active and tried to paint every day. He stopped running the sessions but he tried to attend them as much as possible. I asked him once what all the other residents do at the place where he lived and he answered, “They’re waiting to die!”

In addition to the many hundreds of drawings and paintings that Tom had done there are perhaps of few hundred that have been done of Tom. Professional models have a tendency to show up for their gigs but Tom would sometimes hire first time models that for one reason or another did not show up to pose. In those cases Tom would sacrifice his own painting time and jump onto the stage to sit for the other artists, often in the nude. That may be one of the reasons that so many models liked him: because he understood what they go through.

The sound system at the studio was the result of some of Tom’s lawn sale hunts and his tinkering with tools and solder. He loved to have classical music playing and would often call out the name of the composer and which recording it was as soon as it came over the radio. He perhaps talked a little too much for the other artists while they were trying to concentrate. Often he would spontaneously deliver some little bit of original word play, a short poem or even a piece of song the context of which few of the other members got. Or he would be chuckling over some private joke and then say, “Sorry!”

Early that afternoon my old friend Tom was scheduled to come by to rehearse for our little gig at Queens Park this coming Saturday. It’s some kind of anti-shock therapy protest and since I just happen to have a song called “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” Tom asked me to come along and do it.

Since I had a guest coming I took some time to clean my bathroom sink, toilet and floor, then I draped my shower curtain outside of the tub so no one could see how long it’s been since I cleaned it. I don’t think Tom used the washroom though the whole time he was here anyway.

We went through “Shock Therapy” a few times. I’d practiced it a couple of times before he arrived just to try to remember all 14 verses, which really do contain the full instructions for giving electroshock therapy. After that I played a few more songs while Tom played lead.

After Tom left it was past my usual siesta time. I went to bed but couldn’t sleep so I got up again and realized that I hadn’t had lunch because I’d wanted to wait in case Tom wanted to eat with me, but he’d had lunch already. Once I’d eaten I finally did feel sleepy so I went back to bed.

When I woke up I was beyond my usual time of going for a bike ride, but I wanted to get some exercise so I decided to ride to Ossington and Bloor. At Dufferin I stopped at the light and saw the super tall figure of Brian Haddon had just crossed the street. I called to him and he came over. I told him about Tom Phillips having just died and we chatted about him for a couple of minutes. He recounted how he’d worked one Saturday at Artists 25 when there had only been him and Tom in the studio. They talked the whole time and Brian was impressed with Tom’s range of knowledge about a variety of topics and how many funny songs and poems Tom could quote. Brian was on his way to work at the Toronto School of Art and so we said goodbye and I continued on to Ossington.

After I’d turned south an overweight guy on one of those generic rental bikes passed me. That was unacceptable so I overtook him seconds later.

I turned right on Queen and was going to turn on Gladstone but a car was turning fairly close to the curb and so I waited. Another cyclist behind me rang his bell and shouted, “Go! Go!” He turned right as well when I turned and as he was passing me I asked if he’d just rung his bell at me. He confirmed that he had. I asked why and he said, “Because you didn’t go!” We both turned into the Freshco driveway and continued arguing while we were locking our bikes. I told him I was blocked and couldn’t go and besides that it’s rude to be ringing bells at people and why not communicate as well. He said, “A bell is communication!” “I told him, “No it’s not!” I repeated that there had been no way for me to go with someone in front of me but he just made a talking gesture with his hand that could have also been a rude wave and started walking away. I called after him, “Oh! I see!” What a bitch!

Grapes were still on sale at Freshco so I bought five bags and nothing else.

That night I watched a somewhat predictable Alfred Hitchcock Hour teleplay with an unrealistic surprise after the predictable part.

James Farantino plays an aspiring actor named Leo from New York who is working in Hollywood as a mechanic when a beautiful woman played by Vera Miles brings a Rolls Royce into the garage. She says her last name is Nicky Revere and so he figures she must be the daughter of the great film director, Gavin Revere, all of who’s films he’s seen except for “Death Scene”.

There’s a funny and very effective scene in which the head mechanic is looking under the hood and telling Leo to rev the engine. He does so but he is looking at Nicky while he’s doing it and the revving becomes louder and louder and very sexual as we see Leo and Nicky looking at each other.

The car needs to stay overnight in the shop and so Leo drives Nicky home and begins flirting with her already. Gavin (played by John Carradine) is in a wheelchair and orders Nicky into the house.

The back-story is that Gavin has not made a film since his accident and so he seems to be all washed up.

Leo keeps coming back and even sabotages the Rolls for excuses to come to the Revere mansion. He pursues Nicky aggressively until she gives in and agrees to marry him. Gavin’s one condition for Leo marrying his daughter is that he be able to provide for her in case something happens to him and Leo only has $300 in the bank. When I heard Gavin tell him that if he were to take out a $50,000 life insurance policy he’d be okay with the marriage, I knew where it was going.

A few days later both Gavin and Nicky push Leo over the cliff at the edge of the property.

Once they are holding the $50,000 cheque Nicky is seen taking off her make-up to show that she is not Gavin’s daughter but his elderly wife who had been the star of every one of Gavin’s films.