Local artist helping out the stars

By Stephen Dyell

What’s On Thorold

The beat of a drum is undeniable to the human ear but local artist James Willan saw it differently.

The Thorold native began his art career after finishing up graphic design in school as a hobby. His art work was mostly based on canvases filled with paint strokes and colourful designs to appeal to the art world.

Once he began working, he noticed several performances where the bands would just toss out their drum heads into the garbage. Willan took the wasted entity and began using the leftover material into his art work.

“I have different types of styles but the one is called scribbles,” stated Willan describing his most recent piece. “When I got out of school I use to do this just on canvas. It was really cool but then I started working at the casino.”

After he returned home with the drum heads he began to paint the blank drum heads with his scribble designs.

“I painted on two or three drum heads and put them on wall thinking nothing about it but that night I sold all of them which just snowballed,” Willan said.

It snowballed all the way to Christmas when he decided to give his boss one of the painted drum heads. Willan caught a break as his boss saw the potential in the designs and began showing them to those coming in for performances.

Performances from members of the Eagles to appearances from Jeff Bridges also meant more drum head paintings from Willan as his success blossomed to local celebrity.

Fast forward to last weekend when a special performance took front stage.

Band from TV features the likes of Greg Grunberg from Heroes to Scott Grimes from ER. The group features actors and actresses famous in the world of television who get together to perform for charities and were the feature performance.

Millan had created a specific scribble piece of the band which they all graciously signed. The piece of art work will then be auctioned off to the bands various charities.

He doesn’t mind the small sucsess he is receiving in Thorold as he is living out a dream and is happy with what he is doing now.

“It’s been fun. I’ve met a lot of cool people.”

His gallery can be found at Willan Studios on Albert Street he creates his masterpiece. If you are interested in a drum head piece of art, they range from $1,000 to $1,500.