Mary Pratt and me

I own four books about the Canadian artist Mary Pratt including the newest one by Anne Koval, a biography that I am enjoying very much. 

The biography is an easy to read narrative that examines how an artist's personal life is mixed up with the art she creates.  Each chapter selects works by the artist that chronologically travel through her life story and also mirror Pratt’s emotional and lived experience.  The book also shows how a woman with a strong creative need really has to believe in herself and have determination if she is to be seen and taken seriously as an artist when there is a large family in her life.

I learned many things about Mary Pratt in this book.  One thing is that she believed, like most people of her era, that a woman's purpose was to marry young and have a family.  Born in 1935, she was 22 years old when she married Christopher in 1957.  By age 30, she had four children.  

I also like the Koval biography because it talks about how Mary managed to do it all.  She took care of her husband who was quite moody.  She took care of the children.  She hosted her in-laws nearly every weekend.  She seemed (from all the paintings in evidence) to have a beautiful home.  And, all through it, she participated in art exhibitions.  Although she eventually had a room of her own, her early work was made in various rooms with a portable easal and a rolling cart with her paints on it.    

Salmon on Saran by Mary Pratt

Mary Pratt came to Kenora, the town where I lived, in 1991.  She was to speak to artists about her work.  The event was sponsored by Visual Arts Ontario and was hosted by the Lake of the Woods museum.  The museum put on an exhibition of local artists and I made a needlebook complete with needles.  I sewed clipped sections from printed knitting patterns to the felt pages.  I thought it was interesting that the knitting pattern-language (k 1 , p 1, k 1, p 1) is a secret code that mostly only women understand.  

My friend Barbara worked for the museum and Mary was to stay overnight at her home on the lake.  Barbara hosted a dinner for all the VAO people who accompanied Mary.  I remember helping Barb with the meal and also attending it. It was lovely. What an honour to be invited. 

Jelly Shelf by Mary Pratt

At the talk she gave the next day, Mary Pratt spoke about how the feminist movement helped her work  to be seen.  In 1975, she was curated by Mayo Graham into an exhibiiton at the National gallery of Canada entitled Some Canadian Women Artists.  Feminists saw psychological meanings in her paintings of fish cut open on tin foil, and fruit contained in glass bowls or jars.  Mary might have perceived a darker underlying meaning, but she claims that she chose these subjects because of their sensuality.  In her talk, she said that it was the surface of things that she was in love with.  She wants her viewers to gasp when we look at her work because of how our body responds.  Anne Koval uses the word erotic to describe how Mary Pratt chooses her subjects.  

Cod on Foil by Mary Pratt

However, Anne Koval has also included several chapters that show how the paintings are metaphors.  An example is the chapter about the several wedding dress paintings Mary Pratt did in the mid 80's.  The artist is quoted as saying that the paintings were about the "important business of a woman giving herself to a man.  It's a traumatic event.  Giving is something women do."  

Wedding Dress by Mary Pratt

I remember her standing upright at the front of the room in Kenora, wearing a dark dress, quite frail.  She had a microphone in her hand, and her slides were projected on a screen behind her.  She sat beside me both before and after her lecture.  During the refreshments we continued our visit and I told her that I had four kids too.  She asked me if I was an artist and I gushed and babbled about the solo show I was to have that fall in Thunder Bay.  I don't remember much except how much awe I had for her.  I was 39 at the time, and she was 65.  She told me she wanted to buy Needlebook.  I said that I would give it to her.

Mary Pratt gave me a word of advice.  "Always photograph your work when its finished. Have large transparencies, not just ordinary slides taken.  Find a professional photographer who will take care of these things.  Pay the money, because when they want to write a book about you, they will need good images, and this is how you will have them."  

I began to follow that advice, and am continuing to this day.   

After the symposium, I mailed her my needlebook.  I also sent some slides of my work so that she could see them.  She had a hip replacement that summer and her reply didn't come for several months.  I've framed her letter to me and it hangs in my studio.