Artist Jimmy Bashline, 1917-2008
The Sprout Fund and Community Connections join the entire city of Butler in mourning the passing of Jimmy Bashline – father, veteran, and artist extraordinaire - on May 15, at the age of 90. (See the obituary in last week’s Butler Eagle and in this week’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)
For over 60 years, Mr. Bashline’s commercial work, as a cartoonist and sign painter, and non-commercial artwork have stood as icons of Americana within the community of Butler, PA. Recently, his undoubted masterpiece, the Jay Bee Model Circus, opened on permanent display at the Butler County Historical Society Heritage Center, as a Community Connections Grassroots project. (The most recent CC newsletter included this article about the Jay Bee opening.)
Jimmy Bashline’s carvings and paintings, often concerned with the circus, combined a long-term commitment – he worked on Jay Bee for decades – with a detailed eye for the passed and passing traits that made Bashline’s own concept of America. Emerson once said that, “art is the path of the creator to his work,” a concept illustrated voluminously by Bashline, whose artwork thrived on therapeutic incessancy and detailed thematic repetition. His was an American oeuvre, a labor of love born from a Yankee love of labor and a passion for the subtle details hidden within the brash pomp and pride of Americana. But that’s really just an equally brash and artsy way to say that Jimmy Bashline knew what he loved to do, and he did it well for 90 years. That sounds like something worth celebrating.
Butler County Historical Society’s Jay Bee Model Circus is a Butler County Grassroots Project supported by a $5,000 grant from Pittsburgh 250 Community Connections and The Sprout Fund.
