Over 40 years ago, James Marshall carved his first brick mural unknowing he would eventually have 351 large murals across Canada, a few in the United States, one in Japan, and one in England.
The artist grew up in Medicine Hat drawing scenes of the World War he’d heard about and witnessed, painting, and creating commercial artwork for his father’s printing business.
“My mother always said I was drawing on things before I could walk,” says Marshall.
After he worked in the family business for a decade, Marshall was introduced to the artistic side of bricks when he went to work with the international brick plant, IXL Industries Ltd. Marshall would travel to Toronto and the west coast to showcase a variety of bricks IXL offered. He would set up his easel and carve bricks while at exhibitions and convention centres, to show the versatility of the products.
“Doing that gave me the idea that there was something artistic there that could be done. I was already playing with sculpture and pottery, and I saw all this clay making bricks in a big way. I knew I had a new art form,” says the artist.