Chris Rantala battles the wall of wind and
snow kicked up between the buildings along Cumberland in the North Core. With a
bit of difficulty he manages to get the heavy signboard he’s just completed
safely off the back of his truck. He carries the signboard into Espresso Joya,
a new espresso bar and gallery. With its arrival, Thomas White, the owner, beams
with delight, thrilled with its look and weight. “It certainly won’t get blown
over by the wind,” he states.
Chris Rantala is a full time Thunder Bay
artist, who has found a supportive community willing to commission him for a
wide variety of projects, many you have seen as murals. He’s done about five
large murals and twenty smaller pieces that can be found in town and in
Kakabeka. He’s also taken commissions for signage, elaborate goalie helmets,
funky motorcycle tanks, paintings of children, people in canoes, general
portraits both human and animal, trains, classic cars, fighter planes and even
an image of a wood chipper with delivery trucks.
Chris laughs with an understanding of the
sentiment involved in the wood chipping commission, “Some of it’s not art, but
it pays the bills.” However, he doesn’t put down the commission work at all.
His love of the antique and Thunder Bay’s past has melded well with the desire
of the people who commission him. He does his research, visiting the Thunder
Bay Museum and the Archives, looking at old photos and old film reels.
“Creating a scene is a bit like being an archeologist,”
Chris says. “I find it really interesting; digging up old imagery and
discovering stuff you’ve never heard of before. I never knew there were racing
tracks in Thunder Bay back in the 1930s.”
Despite his enthusiasm for making a living
as an artist and his success with multiple commissions, he’s excited about his
prospects as a future graphic novelist, sketching out characters and ideas for
what will be his break into more personal work. A big project like a graphic
novel will stretch his imagination and talents, as he has to battle with an
intricate story line and create many hundreds of images. His elaborate and
detailed sketches indicate his love of a future past where technologies,
fashion and design elements are jumbled into something similar to that of the
steam-punk mix.
He spent his childhood in Kakabeka and
lives in the house his father built. His artistic influence came mostly from
his father and a talented aunt and uncle duo. He adds modestly, “There’s the
cliché that I was born with a pencil in my hand. I was drawing as early as I
can remember. I was drawing pictures of cars and houses on the back of my dad’s
envelopes when I was three years old.”
“I was always aware that I was going to be
an artist. I remember when in kindergarten we were put in smocks with easels
set up. I painted a steam engine with a caboose. The painting was shown to the
principal and my parents. They were all impressed that I was doing more than
stick figures. From that day forward that’s what I knew I wanted to be; an
artist.”
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He
went to Sheridan College, in Oakville, studying classical animation, character
design and layout. Figure drawing is enforced at Sheridan and this had a huge
influence on Chris. As important to him was the study of scene setting where
characters had to be dropped into an historically accurate scene, complete with
a suggested storyline and perspective. 
In his third year at Sheridan, Chris’s
father passed away. Chris greatly admired his father for living a self-employed
lifestyle; building houses and replicating Victorian furniture from old Sears
catalogues. Chris’s father had encouraged him to follow his passion.
More recently Chris completed a snow sculpture of Little Red Riding Hood
for Winterfest, with help from his girlfriend, Becky Davis. Chris has created a
few sculptures of his own, hoping to do more with his own spin, creating
personal works involving humour and surprise elements, mixing the familiar with
the new. Meanwhile he’s got his plate full of
upcoming commission projects. And he’s continuing to sell his work at craft and
art shows. Chris Rantala can be reached at chrisran88@gmail.com.
