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Carolyn Mallory has always had a creative side.
First, she is a writer. So far, she has three books to her name and is working on a novel. She also writes a lot of poetry about the things she says can’t be expressed any other way.
“I have always found peace and tranquility from my anxious mind in the arts. It’s something I can’t live without,” says Mallory.
Besides writing, Mallory also discovered a love for drawing at a young age.
Carolyn Mallory of New Minas spent years living in the Canadian artic and paints from many of her photographs of the landscapes. – Contributed
Growing up in Northern Ontario, art was not taught in her high school. Thankfully, her parents were supportive, so she took private art classes via correspondence – with paper and stamps! Eventually, she could take one year as an extra credit course in the evenings when a teacher was found.
As an adult, Mallory has taken classes at the Haliburton School of the Arts in Ontario and other classes with many local Nova Scotian artists.
“I’m always learning. That’s the best part of life, to always be learning,” she says.
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Today, Mallory is a painter.
Mallory only painted in watercolour for the longest time, usually capturing the world around her, including plants, animals, and landscapes. For the last couple of years, however, she says she has been trying her hand at oil painting and is enjoying the freedom it entails.
Watercolour takes much more planning because you have no white, she explains. The paper is your white and you have to “save” the whites wherever you want them to occur on your piece.
“Working with oil, on the other hand, is almost the exact opposite of working with watercolour,” she says. “You have white and paint from dark to light, adding the highlights at the end. There is no need to save anything. I generally have one oil painting and one watercolour painting on the go in my studio.
Into the Light is an oil on canvas painted by Carolyn Mallory of New Minas. – Contributed
“It’s been such a joy to learn more about both by practising with oil.”
As for knowing what to paint, Mallory says she typically paints from her own photos. Because she lived in Iqaluit, Nunavut, where she and her husband raised their family before moving to New Minas, this has become the focus of many of her paintings.
She loves the vast landscapes and the minutiae of the tiny tundra plants. More and more, she says, she has been trying to paint some of the microcosms on large canvases. Now, she is also trying to expand her repertoire to include sights in Nova Scotia that inspire her.
Tundra Pearls is an oil painting by New Minas’ Carolyn Mallory. – Contributed
Mallory says she keeps a folder of photos that she would like to paint at some point. She then looks through that folder and tries to imagine how to begin one of the pieces. Something that didn’t appeal to her last month might have somehow worked its way into her subconscious and the image is then ripe for painting.
Sometimes Mallory works on a series of things and then it’s easier to figure out what to paint next. For instance, she did a series of bones on the tundra and says she has so many photos in that folder.
“It’s fascinating how ever-present life and death are on the tundra and I wanted to express that in my art,” she says.
Besides these landscape pieces, Mallory says she has recently started to paint portraits. So far, she has only completed two, including a self-portrait.
It is a whole new learning curve, she says.
In the future, Mallory says she would like to reach a greater audience with her work.
Tundra Pearls is an oil painting by New Minas’ Carolyn Mallory. – Contributed
She admitted it’s a challenge as an artist to do the work and to also market herself. She also hopes to travel this year because new places, ideas, sights, and experiences are all great sources of inspiration. Besides, getting to see art from elsewhere is such an uplifting and humbling moment, she says.
When Mallory is painting, she says it is like nothing else in the world exists. She gets lost in the colour and texture of the piece she is working on. Time slows down and her mind is quiet. She says she feels accomplished with every stroke of the brush.
“It’s like falling in love with beauty and the world that I’m depicting. There are moments of frustration when I’m trying to figure out something for the first time or when I can’t get a colour quite right, but this is overshadowed by joy. Pure joy,” she explains.
Mallory says she spends about a third of her time painting, another third writing and the final third doing some freelance editing. She says it’s a nice balance for her.
Aside from those three things, she loves to bike, read, swim, cook, garden and socialize – not necessarily in that order.
In the summer, Mallory usually works on an expedition cruise ship that travels through the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. She gives watercolour painting workshops while onboard and lectures about arctic plants and insects, the subject of two of her books. Here, she also has the opportunity to showcase her artwork onboard and sell some paintings.
“It’s the most wonderful gig and I’m always thrilled to be asked back by Adventure Canada,” she says.
This year, however, she is expecting a grandchild when the sailing is scheduled, so she has chosen to stay home for this special event but hopes to be back on the water next season.
To view Mallory’s work, she is a member of Tides Contemporary Art Gallery in Kentville, which can also be viewed online at tidescontemporaryartgallery.com.
She is also part of the Evangeline Artist Co-operative in Wolfville and will have an upcoming show at Jack’s Gallery, behind Just Us Coffee, starting at the end of May. Or she can be found on Instagram under @carolyn.mallory.
As for her advice to aspiring artists or even to her younger self, she says, “do what you love. Experiment and work hard. The reward is in the work.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
