An early interest in art helped me cope with family tragedy. Encouraged by a high school art teacher, I took the McGill University art examination which resulted in an invitation to study at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with Group of Seven artist, Arthur Lismer, director of the school.
Lismer, an inspiring educator, taught me how to see and how to draw. I completed my formal art training at Mount Allison University under the instruction of Alex Colville and Lawren Harris Jr. On graduating with a BFA, I was employed by CBC-TV as a graphics artist and learned the importance of communicating information creatively.
After marriage, while raising two daughters and continuing to work part-time as a commercial artist, I returned to painting and began exhibiting locally and regionally. During the 1980’s, represented by a prestigious Toronto gallery, I had “sell-out” shows of realist acrylic paintings every two years.
However, being a production artist was not what I wanted. I left a safe career to experiment with ideas and methods. The result was HORIZON PAINTINGS, at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 1995. Exhibitions in public and private galleries followed: IN TRANSIT at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery and PATHWAYS at St.FX Art Gallery. In 2014 THE LIRI VALLEY PAINTINGS at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery honoured the sacrifice and memory of Canadian soldiers who fought in the Second World War Italian Campaign. This exhibition was followed by SPECTRA, a focus on colour, in New Brunswick and Halifax galleries.
More recently TREES FOR LIFE, 10 paintings highlighting the dominant species in the Acadian Forest, and a plea for understanding the effects of climate change on the natural world, was previewed at the J. Franklin Wright gallery in Port Hawkesbury. In 2021 it will be exhibited at the Arts Centre at the University of New Brunswick. I live and continue to work in northern Nova Scotia following a 15 year career teaching drawing and painting, creative and critical thinking. Making art and making a life is an ongoing inquiry.