White for Anne & Patricia

About 28 years ago, while operating my little shop under the trade name Dory Buff, Anne Meredith Barry & Patricia Grattan paid a visit as they were out driving around my bit of coastline. 

Anne Meredith Barry was a brilliant human and visual artist, who I first met while studying Textile Arts at the Avalon Community College in St. John's.  She gave a talk to my class in which I remember her telling us that while it's important to learn from our instructors, it was breaking the rules and making our images our own which separated us from the herd (or in my case school of fish?).  She told us that one of her art professors absolutely forbade the use of glitter in the world of fine art; which of course made her decide to use glitter in her fine art!  Years later, at St. Michael's Printshop, she would encourage me to not feel bad about 'losing' time taking care of my child and parting from printmaking while my son was young, as she had done with her own boys.  Time she never regretted.  That was really important to me at a time when women were kind of being pushed to think that they had to choose between a career and children.  You really can have both.  The career of an artist lasts much longer than a childhood.

Patricia Grattan was the person in charge of the Art Gallery of NL at the time.  I was feeling the rare priviledge afforded me by the visit of these two extraordinary women in my space.

Anne and Pat suggested that I paint the walls of my little gallery room, where my etching press is now situated, white.  They thought that it was important to give the artwork the most dominance by taking away from the background information.  I told them no, I would stick to the traditional green of the shop's walls because of the importance of the history of the building.  

I never said I was a quick learner.  I decided to finally take that advice all these years later- I've painted the walls white (mostly finished...) and boy, does it ever work!  What on earth took me so long?  It's only paint!

What do you think?  I've had far more people noticing the colours of the paintings when they come in to visit at Norton's Cove Studio lately.  And I have Anne and Pat to thank!

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