Note to readers: I have always stayed away from mentioning my own activities in this column. This week I was having a more difficult time than usual coming up with a subject, and while waiting for inspiration I sat down and wrote a piece that the Sisters of Saint Ann asked me to write for their newsletter.
Sara John Fowler, the CEO of Mount St. Mary Hospital, asked me to undertake a very special commission. It was a gift to the Sisters of Saint Ann in gratitude for the significant financial contributions the sisters have made to both the pastoral care component of Mount St. Mary Hospital, including music therapy, and to mission education.
Fowler wanted the hospital to honour their contributions in a thoughtful and lasting way. She asked me to paint a picture of the hospital.
I was honoured to be asked, and of course I agreed. I steered her away from an exterior view, and passed over a picture of the garden, suggesting a painting of the Chapel of Blessed Marie Anne Blondin at Mount St. Mary.
On the day I went in to take some photographs, Marie Slade, the music therapist, was there with her guitar, sitting in a circle of a dozen residents. These are people I have come to know in my 13 years leading the art group there, and I have become familiar with the various wheelchairs, scooters and walking frames which make a new mobility possible in such hospitals.
The chapel is octagonal, and has a ribbon of clerestory windows surmounted by an octagonal wooden ceiling. In the centre of the ceiling is a large light well, from which a powerful force of light pours down all day. With the circle of residents being carried along on the wings of Marie鈥檚 music, the atmosphere in the room was beautifully elevated. I knew it would make a lovely painting.
After consultation, I proceeded with the painting, using acrylic paint on thin mahogany plywood. At every step of the way I felt things were going unusually well, as if many people were wishing me well. The composition of two circles, one above the other, was unique and remarkable to me, and the contrasts of light and dark worked out beautifully.
The colour of the mahogany board was perfect in tint and tone for the wooden ceiling, so I didn鈥檛 paint it at all!
Both my grandfather and my father were United Church ministers, and I was a child of the manse. My dad told me that at theological college he skipped out on Hebrew and took architecture as an elective. One our family鈥檚 Sunday drives, he stopped at every interesting church, and the symbolism of the architecture of worship were natural to me. Thus, I was happy to engage with the Christian aspects of the chapel, especially as this painting was meant to be a gift to a sisterhood of Roman Catholic nuns.
From the bottom up I painted: wheelchairs, then people, then Mary and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, then the trees and blue sky outside, then the beautiful wood of the ceiling, and finally the light well, pouring down an inexpressible spirit. Everything seemed to be in its proper place.
It drew the tender sculpture of the Virgin, the beautifully carved Christ which was brought as a gift from the St. Ann鈥檚 Residence at Queenswood (so appropriate to have the Nazarene carved from wood 鈥� he was born into a carpenter鈥檚 shop, and died on the cross).
To complete the trinity, the tabernacle that holds the host, draped in an elegant cloth, was glowing with ghostly presence and surmounted by a light 鈥� a modern version of a candle, I suppose.
Everyone seemed quite happy with the painting when it was presented in the very chapel it depicted, on July 29. The sisters had been having their monthly meeting, and after their agenda Fowler and Shaun McCumber, board chair of the Marie Esther Society, came in with me. Speeches were made, the painting was unveiled and a small round of applause greeted its arrival. For all concerned, it seemed a very satisfactory moment.
Sister Marie Zarowny, provincial leader of the Sisters of St. Ann, in her words of thanks, told of their recent study of a painting by Sister Mary Osithe dating from 1932. Sister. Mary was a hugely influential artist and teacher at St. Ann鈥檚 Academy here and painted many scenes of importance in the history of the Sisters. Their extensive art collection was given into the care of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria a few years back. This new painting, she said, is part of an ongoing tradition.
Other artists have sometimes said to me: 鈥淗ow can you stand painting commissions?鈥� It鈥檚 difficult to get the collaboration just right, and can easily lead to unhappy artists and clients.
But I thrive on it, and this project shows why.
Of course, it鈥檚 encouraging to know the painting will be bought and paid for before you begin. The subjects brought to me are often more interesting than what I can dream up. The enthusiasm of the sponsor as the idea unfolds is encouraging. And the satisfaction of seeing your efforts received with surprise and delight is something that just doesn鈥檛 happen for the artist in a gallery context.
At the conclusion of the presentation, the sisters, many dressed in palest violet, sang a song of blessing to us all 鈥� and to the painting too, I think. And as they sang Ora Pro Nobis 鈥� 鈥淧ray for us, Saint Ann鈥� 鈥� they held up their hands to us and gently waved their elderly fingers in blessing.
I wouldn鈥檛 trade it for anything.
