Lifetimes: Pat Bailey opened young minds through art – TheRecord.com

Artist Pat Bailey was born Dec. 11 in Kitchener, some eight decades ago, though she always kept the year a secret, right up until her death.

“She used to say, ‘age is just a number and mine is unlisted,’” said friend Neil Johnston. “She was a unique person.”

Though Bailey might have been cagey about her age, she was not an egotist.

“She was very humble,” said her great niece, Kate Moffett. “Her opinions she would share with you but if she won any awards or accolades, she wouldn’t share.”

The youngest of three children, Bailey came from an artistic family. Her elder brother, Don Bailey, was a professional dancer in New York City when he died of leukemia in 1948. Her sister, Corinne Moffett, who died in 2013, was creative and several more artists would spring from the Bailey clan over the decades.

Her father, W.R. Bailey, managed a Kitchener rubber company. When Pat was a teenager, her father was asked to come to Edinburgh, Scotland to help establish a plant in a post-Second World War effort to revitalize the country’s industry. Pat and her mother, Dorothy, accompanied him and, for six months, Pat attended Scottish schools and made lifelong friends.

Returning to Canada to complete high school, Bailey went on to receive a teaching diploma from Stratford Normal School. Did she always want to be a teacher? Moffett doesn’t think so.

“Her friend was going to the teacher’s college,” said Moffett. “(For Pat) it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

What she hadn’t considered was where teaching would eventually lead.

“She really liked art and she found a way to integrate art much more,” said Moffett.

Bailey completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University. She began her career in Galt then moved to Toronto, working for two school boards, one as a master teacher where she was helping teachers in the classroom.

Then a wonderful opportunity arose. Bailey read about a new arts school that was looking for administrators.

In 1981, Bailey became the founding artistic program director for the Claude Watson School for the Arts, the first of its kind in Canada. The school was run by the Toronto District School Board, offering enriched arts programming to gifted students in Grades 4 to 8, headed by Johnston, the founding principal.

“That was the best staffing decision I ever made,” said Johnston, who remained friends with Bailey until her death.

She helped write the curriculum and used the programming to encourage and mentor students, exposing them to the arts so they would, in the future, become art supporters.

“Her goal for the school wasn’t to produce artists or performers,” said Moffett. “Her goal was to enrich learning.

“She was opening kids’ minds through art.”

Bailey’s career was focused on children, though she never married nor had children of her own.

“She was fiercely independent,” Moffett said of her great aunt’s solo lifestyle. “She liked it that way, it was one of her quirks.”

Bailey was also less than domestic and used to joke she wouldn’t bother having a kitchen if it hadn’t already come with her Waterloo condo. Her life was about art.

“She was always working on something,” said Moffett, noting Bailey particularly loved painting portraits, often of family, friends or kids of friends. She was also inspired by natural landscapes.

After nearly a decade at Claude Watson, Bailey retired and moved to Waterloo but spent much of her time at her Sauble Beach cottage, where she built an art studio extension. Bailey had summered at that cottage with friends and family for more than five decades.

In Sauble, she was involved with the local arts scene, exhibiting in shows around the Lake Huron community. At home in Waterloo, she was an active member at the Button Factory Arts.

Though Bailey never taught adults, Johnston said she continued to inspire them in their artistic endeavours.

“She was quietly supportive with the encouragement she provided,” he said.

Johnston remembers when he first met her, in the art school’s group job interview. He wasn’t impressed because Bailey was so busy encouraging the nervous woman next to her, she didn’t try to put herself forward as a candidate. Johnston didn’t hire her and was surprised to see her turn up for the next job interview. This time she was laser focused and impressive.

After retiring Bailey did a lot of travelling and kept in contact with her many friends from around the world.

Johnston said it was well known that “when Pat makes a friend, she never loses that friend.”

Bailey died of cancer June 9, 2020. Three of her paintings remain unfinished.

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