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Tracks: The Art and Times of Switchman Joe
Tracks: The Art and Times of Switchman Joe, by Joe Varro celebrates Joe Varro's railway paintings, his bunkhouse sketches in pencil, prints, personal photographs, watercolors and paintings in oil and acrylic. This book is also a social history and features Joe's narrative, a unique time when steam locomotion was on the way out and diesel was coming in. Don Kerr, poet and author of several art books will provide a critical essay on Joe Varro's artistic journey.
98 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 6, 2015
Captivating & Beautiful! I Loved The Beautiful Artistic Illustrations!!!
July 2, 2015
Brilliant art work! Words are not used much here in this book, however, as been said in the past a picture is a thousand words. Joe Varro is wonderfully gifted and shares with readers not only his Art but his reminisces of an era long gone. Steam trains on the prairies of Canada and how so many lives were caught up in the functioning of trains, whether goods or passenger. Train safety has come a long way since Joe started out as a young man, fortunately for the workers and their families, but the work of a Switchman is still hard and difficult and much there with the actual job has changed but little. One of the biggest dangers now is careless vehicle drivers, something that is a plague on the rural areas of Canada and has by dint of more road traffic increased since Joe's time. Well done Joe for your best efforts at Art and at Train works.
April 1, 2019
This book was enthusiastically read by one of our library patrons who enjoyed the local history (Regina SK).
June 16, 2015
This was an excellent book. Joe Varro's book had some wonderful art work in it and interesting little stories about his time on the railways. I'm glad he was able to have a career on the railways and then to be able to document his time in the form of various types of art.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews