Jason Sharpe of Twillingate, Newfoundland and Labrador, has made a career of painting fishing boats over the last 30 years, having worked on around 2,000 different vessels.
Sharpe took to painting from a young age. As a young boy, he always excelled in art class. According to Sharpe, he was able to draw just as well or better than his art teacher at the time.
“We used to have education week. All the students would draw pictures, and whoever had the best picture would win a silver dollar,” said Sharpe. “Well, I had lots of silver dollars.”
Sharpe began to paint professionally when he began shadowing his father, who was also an artist. The elder Sharpe would travel around the island painting the names and numbers on boats. With the advent of durable fibreglass fishing boats, fish harvesters began to show interest in more complex designs and murals.
“They could spend a little more in their vessel because it was more durable compared to a wooden boat that needed to be scraped and painted on a regular basis every two or three years,” said Sharpe.
After Sharpe’s father passed away in 2009, he began to take on larger paint jobs through his company, Sharpie’s Signs. In his time, he has travelled all over the island to work on many different fishing vessels, which he said has provided him with a productive, busy career.
His latest project, Petten’s Legacy, was built in Harbour Grace, N.L. The 90-foot vessel took Sharpe around 20 days of work to complete inside and out, including a mural of the Petten family in the wheelhouse.
“[The Petten’s] really push me to the limit,” said Sharpe. “It makes me think a lot on the job that I’m doing. When I can stand back when the project is done, I stand back and look at it with pride.”
Given the nature of his job, the work Sharpe does can be seen at many ports in Atlantic Canada. He called the boats he has painted over the years “floating advertisements” for his business.
“[Petten’s Legacy] is not only going to be tied up in Harbour Grace. It could be in St. John’s next week, it could be Triton the following week after, or Twillingate or wherever the case may be,” said Sharpe. “Your work is always on display, which gives you a lot of social advertisement.”
In the future, Sharpe is looking to settle down and ply his artistic talents from the comfort of his home as opposed to working throughout the winter in cold shipyards.
“In the future, as I get older, I’m going to sway my time and my artistic skills into oil-based canvases and stuff,” said Sharpe. “You can’t pick and choose when you can do this. In the summertime, when it’s nice and warm, you get one or two paint jobs to do, but the biggest bulk of the work is when these boats are on drydocks.”
In the meantime, while Sharpie’s Signs is still up and running, Sharpe is grateful for the customers he has worked with who have given him the opportunity to continue utilizing the artistic skills he has honed from a young age.
“It’s been a good career. A lot of people don’t realize the magnitude, but it’s not only this yard — you’ve got Mid-Island Marine in Triton, you’ve got Fermeuse and Glovertown — there’s lots of yards and lots of boats,” said Sharpe. “I’ve got a lot of reliable customers, and they like my work and style. Everyone has their own style, like an artist on canvas.”
