Down East artist celebrates ‘transplanted’ life

CALAIS – He chases news, punches buttons in the control room as a disc jockey and still finds time to paint.

Artist Tom “Fire Dog” McLaughlin was all smiles Tuesday at a reception in his honor kicking off an exhibition of his paintings at the Washington County Community College Library. The library is located on the second floor of the Main Building overlooking the St. Croix River.

McLaughlin, 57, is currently featured in WCCC’s Artist in Residence Series. His art will be on display throughout this month.

When he is not wielding a brush, he is the news director and disc jockey at WQDY-WALZ FM on Main Street. He has been with the Calais radio station since 1989. He also is a friend to the other journalists in the city.

Born in Boston, McLaughlin grew up in nearby Dorchester. Mass. His father was a firefighter, and that is how McLaughlin got his nickname. Firefighters at the station where his father would work and where McLaughlin used to hang out pinned the name, Fire Dog, on him.

McLaughlin said he was encouraged to paint and draw from a very early age. His aunt was the art supervisor for the Medford public school system.

Eastport painter Dougal Anderson was a maternal cousin of his.

McLaughlin began to focus on his talents in the 1960s and since then he has won numerous awards. He attended the New England School of Art and Design, graduating in 1972.

McLaughlin is a member of the Copley Society of Art in Boston and one of the original artist members who formed the Eastport Gallery in 1986.

Depending on the subject, McLaughlin likes to work with pen and ink or acrylic paints.

What is appealing about McLaughlin’s work is that it can at the same time be very serious and playful.

His painting of a taxicab in downtown Boston captures that playfulness.

While jaywalking in downtown Boston, McLaughlin related, he was nearly mowed down by a Checker Marathon taxi. The painting was first shown at the Cambridge Art Association Members Show at the Federal Reserve Bank Gallery in Boston.

In 1985, Boston Globe art critic Christine Temin wrote, “Tom McLaughlin is one of the outstanding new faces in the show. His ‘Taxi’ is a yellow cab of that old-fashioned, stuffed-armchair style. The brightly painted taxi is aimed right at us, yet poses no threat. We can tell just by the license plate, dangling from a single screw, that this taxi has an extremely pleasant, if somewhat disheveled, personality.”

Several other pictures on display in this month’s show also feature scenes from Boston.

But McLaughlin did not neglect his transplanted Washington County roots.

He did a pen-and-ink drawing of a picture he called “Broken Home.” The home once stood on Route 1 in Robbinston. Passing motorists observed its gradual decline over the years. Shortly after he completed the drawing, the house was torn down.

WCCC president Bill Cassidy Tuesday praised McLaughlin’s talent. He said he also remembered when the dilapidated house in Robbinston was a “fine, manicured place.”

McLaughlin thanked Cassidy and the college for allowing his work to be on display at the school. “I’ve been painting for a long time,” he said. “I have always been doing this, maybe not often as I like.” He said he got back to painting last year. The first picture he painted was of the Broken Home.

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