Bill Porteous is an artist and art teacher in Victoria. He and Jack met in 1974 at a summer workshop put on by the now defunct Northwest Coast Institute of the Arts, and the National Film Board of Canada, and became close friends, sharing a devotion to their art and mutual respect. Bill believes in the place of art in our society, and works diligently to encourage municipal and private support of the arts. (interviewed by Angela Andersen, Victoria, B.C., February 2001)

How did you know Jack Wise?
My first meeting with Jack Wise describes the Jack Wise I got to know. Jack Wise was introduced as an artist who would give us an insight into another kind of consciousness about art. So Jack walked in, at first, and assumed a kind of semi-lotus position. He was smoking a Cool cigarette and he had been drinking a lot of coffee because he was very speedy. He caught himself, in a sense. He went "inside" and said "O.K., just a second. I'm going to go back outside and come in again." And he walked out the door, and he came back in, and sat there in the full lotus position and did a little bit of yogic breathing and centred himself and then proceeded to talk in a very, very Gandolfian type of demeanour.

Untitled (Yellow Circle) Jack Wise

That, in a sense, reflects the Jack Wise that I knew. On the one hand, probably I haven't met as dedicated an artist, in some ways. Jack was devoted to his work and to the idea that art was transcendent and not purely of this earth and that in order for someone to paint that, one had to become it. So that was the "highest Jack." That's the Jack we all loved and respected. The Jack I knew was that Jack and was my friend, and he was also a person who suffered from having to live up to that image of himself. I think I would be remiss if I didn't say that also Jack was human, and he needed friendship and he needed compassion as a human being, not as someone who was purely living in the light, so to speak. I think Jack should be given a lot of credit for the fact that he was true to his work. His work was not about pictures, it derived from his state of consciousness. In fact, I think I remember this correctly: Jack said he thought an art work was no better or worse that the state of consciousness of the artist at the time they were producing it.

Do you think you can get a sense of the person that he was through his art?
Well, which person are we speaking of? The Jack that smoked Cools? The Jack that had a difficult time in the world, and with responsibility, that everyone has, or the Jack that painted at the tip of the brush? Which Jack? So I think that although it may be interesting for people to know that Jack wasn't perfect, or that he did these things, I don't know what that has to do with the art, in one sense. Is Jack's art only interesting because he was interested in spirituality, and in Zen Buddhism or Tibetan Tankas? What if you didn't know anything about Jack and you looked at one of his paintings? Would it move you?

When he went to Tibet, apparently he asked them, "How do I paint mandalas?" And according to what I recall Jack told me, he said, "Go home and paint them." So that's what he did. When he came back, that's what he did. The work is what this is about. If Jack really was about telling stories or convincing people to be transcendent, he would have chosen another medium. His work is pure, in my mind. There is no question that Jack was at his highest self when he was painting. So you could say in spite of his perhaps difficult life, he was able to transcend the worldly condition we all share and work in a pure form when he did his work, and I think that's to be celebrated.