This is not just a passing fancy of Clayton's, but a lifelong passion which began when he was the very tender age of about 6 years old when he used to walk across the fields of corn to his great grandmothers old unpainted shanty of a house, and farm. The view of the place, together with his great grandmother's stories from the past created such vivid image in his mind, of “the olden days,” and he became more and more curious about the past, as it pertained to his local area. He was aged ten when he began to collect information and old photographs that depicted the Burford area of bygone days...


While attending Burford Public School, during the process, of compiling information and interviewing individuals for his grade four history project, Clayton met the local historian Mel Robertson and Shirley, his wife, who was the local librarian at the time. Clayton was inspired to continue researching various aspects of local history, particularly the buildings and the evolution of the man-built aspects, the Village of Burford, along with all the small hamlets found within the geographic Township of Burford.


In 1978 one of Clayton’s ink sketches, which he had entered into Burford's annual fall fair, was published on the front page of the former Burford Advance weekly newspaper. Clayton had won first prize in his category in the Arts and Crafts division. It seems that from that time onward, he was inspired to occasionally provide the newspaper with his historical articles, accompanied by his ink sketches. Clayton also took out a subscription to that newspaper, at age 16, and continued to save each and every issue, which he still has to this day. Throughout the next thirty years, Clayton’s articles and sketches appeared randomly in the local paper and it wasn’t until 2009 when he would have a weekly historical column of his own in The Burford Times.


Clayton Barker has enlightened readers about Burford Township's rich history for more than 50 years, through his historical columns in the local Burford Advance and Burford Times newspapers and four self-published books.



Awards:


...the wearing of the pins (Photo by C. Stevenson 2015)



I’m happy to have received the following awards and nominations over the years...


2013 - Ontario Heritage Trust "Community Heritage Achievement Award" presented by the Mayor of the City of Hamilton, for Clayton's initial role in saving the "Westbrook House," which was the last surviving building from the 1812 era, located at the site of the last battle fought on Canadian soil against a foreign power ("The Battle of Malcolm's Mill, Nov. 6th, 1814). The building was constructed about the year 1810 in the village of Oakland, Brant County, Ontario. It has now been re-constructed at the Westfield Heritage Village in Rockton, Ontario.


2013 - "Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal," presented by His Worship, Mayor Ron Eddy of the County of Brant, for Clayton's life achievement and volunteerism in heritage in and around Brant County.


2012 - National Achievement Award (Heritage) nomination.


1997 - Ontario Heritage Trust (formerly Ontario Heritage Foundation) "Community Heritage Achievement Award" presented by the (former) Corporation of the Township of Burford for his initiating / inspiring the movement to form an historical society in the geographic Township of Burford, in 1986. (Note: "lighting the wick" is their exact wording)


1995 - Nominated for the Ontario Historical Society's "Cruikshank Gold Medal" and "Carnochan Award."



My Artwork:

Back in the 1980's and 90's I was doing a lot of commissioned watercolour paintings and ink sketches. After the 90's my ability to get into the "zone" got worse,  because I had moved so many times, after my marriage split up, and it got harder to pull all my supplies and equipment together and find a spot to set it all up and work and feel like painting...I haven't picked up a brush now since 2015. I do not do commissioned work anymore, but if ever I should feel like painting again and manage to pull together my stuff, I still have a couple outstanding painting projects I need to complete and finally get "off my plate," but also, it would be nice to be able to just do work on paintings that I've always wanted to...just for myself...






CLICK image to see some examples of what I used to do.