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Mary
was born in Somerset, England, March 16th, 1946. Her family
emigrated to Canada in 1948 and took up residence in Toronto. Kleinburg
had been her home for many years and she lives happily with her husband
Gary, son Ben and her rescued Yorkie named Zoe. Mary spent many
Sundays with her children, Shelagh and Ben, at the McMichael Art Gallery,
teaching them an appreciation of art. Mary comes from a creative
family. Her grandfather was a highly respected lace designer in
Nottingham at the turn of the last century, and her father was a skilled
cabinet maker. She and her father worked together on many of their
furniture designs. |
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| Mary sold her first works of art in grade three. Small
squares of specialty paper with wonderful multi-coloured butterflies done
in pen and ink. At school Mary worked under mentor, Nancy Main, well
known as the founder of the Etobicoke School for the Arts. |
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| With a fine arts background and experience in Oil,
Watercolour and Acrylic painting, Mary’s passion is in the teaching of the
craft to her students. She runs a very popular studio in Kleinburg
and has passed on her joy of painting to many hundreds of
students |
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| Mary enjoys painting in many styles. She loves to teach
the discipline of strokework, based on the old German and Bavarian
styles. Her real passion is “Primitive or Naïve” art. This art form is
really the art of the people. The first immigrants to this continent left
wonderful examples of art behind in Europe and in their need to recreate
that art they began to paint on household objects and furniture as well as
walls. Well known examples of this art form are the works of Rufus
Porter, Grandma Moses and currently her great, great grandson Will Moses.
Mary uses Canadian subject matter in her creation of this style. |
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