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29
Mar
The Knaresborough railwayman who switched track and painted for the King
Most people don’t pay much attention to the guard on their train, but if you’re travelling on the Harrogate line, there’s a fair chance your day-return might be checked by a man who lives life on his own terms and embraces the opportunities that come his way.
Paul Mirfin has worked for train company Northern for 23 years, and it’s fair to say that railways loom large in his life. He even met his wife on the train. She was a passenger and he punched her ticket.
But he recently cut his hours as a train guard and opened a studio and gallery on platform 2 of Knaresborough station. He now works as a professional artist, even though he only picked up a paintbrush six years ago.
He told the Stray Ferret:
I used to sketch pencil drawings, but I was always a bit afraid of paint – I thought it was a bit of a beast to control.
But then my mum died in 2019 and covid came along a few weeks later. I started suffering from anxiety and had to take some time off.
It was then that I started watching Bob Ross, and I just found it so relaxing. So I bought some oil paint and tried to do a Bob Ross painting.
For the uninitiated, the late Bob Ross was an American artist whose TV series, The Joy of Painting, ran to 400 episodes and was aired in the UK during the pandemic. His soothing voice and positivity – often referring to “happy little trees” and “happy little clouds” – won him a new generation of British fans and helped to boost paint and brush sales in 2020.
Bob Ross's The Joy of Painting was screened during the covid pandemic.
Paul said:
I used to look at artists’ work and think ‘how on earth did you do that?’. But as an artist, you look at techniques, and learn, and start doing it yourself.
Bob Ross has a very specific technique, but you mature and move on. He’s a great inspiration, but I’m more inspired now by JMW Turner – the movement in his big skies – and I love Van Gogh.
I paint in Impressionist style, using thick oil paint and palette knives. I enjoy doing big skies. If you’re going to paint a sky, I always think you should paint it as dramatically as you can!
Impressively, it wasn’t long before Paul’s hobby attracted fans, and the recreational quickly became commercial.
He said:
I’m not really into painting trains, but I love painting infrastructure: bridges, tunnels, signal boxes. I know a lot of people who are into trains, and they started selling really well.
My first painting was of a viaduct, and I put it online and someone asked ‘How much?’. I sold it for £50 and threw in a copy of our album, Ancient Roads. It was a good deal – that record had been Album of the Week on BBC Introducing!
Paul Mirfin in his gallery.
Paul has been playing music for far longer than he’s been painting, and has toured South Africa and California. He’s even played a gig in Slovenia – on a train, naturally.
Now 51, he formed his group, the Paul Mirfin Band, about 10 years ago. He said:
I’ve always been in bands, ever since I was 15. Both my parents were very artistic – my mum was an amateur painter and my dad went to art college, although he was a painter and decorator – but I always went down the music route.
I met some guys and we gigged upstairs at Blind Jack’s, playing folky things, and we got quite a big following quite quickly.
The Paul Mirfin Band is about to bring out a new single recorded at Homefire Studios in Harrogate. The appropriately named Gospel Train will be out in April.
Paul also run music therapy sessions at Craft and Social, the Knaresborough provider of day services for adults with learning disabilities.
He said:
I love the people and it’s very rewarding. We write songs together – they sing, and there’s a couple of people who play instruments. It’s loads of fun.
But while music provides a constant soundtrack to Paul’s life and trains feature throughout, it is his art that is now providing the narrative drive.
Paul said:
It’s still all new to me – I'm still sussing it out. I’ve got a sign saying I might be in the pub. I’ve had people come into the pub and ask if they can buy a painting. And when I’m gigging, I sometimes sell a painting in between sets.
The gallery has been going really well. I’ve been on the railways for 23 years, so I obviously know the passengers. They’ve been very supportive, and the railway’s been really great with the practical side of it, so it’s been a really positive thing.
It’s nice to have a studio. This space feels like me. It’s the light, the shape of the building, the brickwork.
I like to be quite sociable. The band is a very sociable thing, but art isn’t – it’s just me and the canvas – so being here where people can drop in is great.
Paul Mirfin in his studio.
Like his inspiration Bob Ross, he’s also making sure he passes on his skills and helps inspire new artists, holding painting classes in his studio from 6 till 8 on Thursday evenings.
Recently, he was commissioned to create paintings for the staff facilities at railway stations in Harrogate, Huddersfield, Doncaster, Leeds and Newcastle, and before that he was even commissioned to paint a picture as a gift for the King’s 75th birthday (it was of a tree the King had planted outside Bettys).
Paul Mirfin has come a long way over the last six years – he's married a passenger, switched track, and discovered a passion that has transformed his life. He seems to sense he’s on a roll.
He said:
Sky Arts have asked me to enter for Artist of the Year. I probably should, shouldn’t I?
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