I have a special interest in a handful of artists whose work I've stumbled on in my travels, and because I always take photos, the pleasure is lasting. With some of these people it's their personality and their life story that's even more engaging than their art. I like art, but I like artists even more.
Take Maud Lewis for instance.
Her little house was my favourite work of art in the Halifax Art Gallery. Yes, the whole house, restored in all it's glory, is sitting in the middle of the gallery. Her childlike pictures of flowers, birds, butterflies, and animals were painted with leftover boat paint scrounged by her miserly husband, Everett.
They lived 32 years in poverty in this small house in Nova Scotia, and by the time she died in 1970, she had covered nearly every surface with joyous paintings. I loved it.
The house lacked electricity and indoor plumbing. She lived with painful physical handicaps from birth. And to top it off her husband was no picnic. But this room is still full of charm and joy.
Painfully shy, but with a sweet disposition, Maud was a prolific painter and spent her days painting at her window, often finishing two or three pictures a day. She rarely left her house and painted without inhibition from happy childhood memories and her imagination.
Maud Lewis sold her small paintings to tourists for $5 or $10, never more in her lifetime. After her death the crafty Everett, an itinerant fish peddler, produced and sold forgeries of her work.
The Three Black Cats, pictured below, sold at auction in Toronto for $22,000 in 2018. Isn't that always the case? It had been purchased directly from Maud for less than $10 in the late 1960s.
I left the gallery with a new awareness and affection for this famous Canadian folk artist. I left the gift shop with a copy of "Maudie" the film version of her life starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, a moving story that I expect softens the hard edges of her life.
These happy pictures are evidence of the joy Maud found in art and the act of creativity. Her imaginative Christmas scenes have a childlike innocence but also a sophisticated sense of colour and composition.
Maud Lewis, what a wonderful example of the power and life-enhancing pleasure of creating art.
