Biography

I am a multi-disciplinary artist with degrees in English Literature (Mount Allison University) Interdisciplinary Fine Arts (NSCAD University), and Education (University of New Brunswick).

Born and raised in Kingston, ON, I spent childhood summers on Grand Manan Island where I have lived full time since 2007. Prior to moving east, I worked in administration at Queen’s University for 16 years (3 years in the School of Industrial Relations and 13 years in the Department of Psychology).  I am presently a part-time high school teacher and the Curator/Director of the Grand Manan Museum.

Living on an island, in a tall house overlooking Whale Cove with my poet husband, Wayne Clifford, two black cats and a wire-haired pointing griffon dog, I find that daily beach-combing walks, ocean vistas, rugged cliffs, and summer gardens are ongoing sources of artistic inspiration.  Being surrounded by the natural world, with its processes of growth and decay, where land meets sea, strongly influences the subject matter of my art.   Work as a museum curator/director and my background in literature also keep me mindful of the passage of time and processes of narrative construction. These preoccupations and concerns show up in my art, whether it be my ink drawings, photography, or my mixed media paintings.  For me, curiosity and the complexity of life require more than one way to delve beneath the surface of the multitude of ideas or feelings that keep arising.

Paintings

My encaustic paintings often incorporate scraps of old documents, photographs, steel engravings, flowers and other flotsam, ephemera and detritus of daily walks, as I create imaginary landscapes, construct new narratives, or explore the medium’s sculptural and textural possibilities.

I also paint in oil and cold wax, and acrylic mixed media, creating paintings that explore the passage of time, transience, surface texture, space and place, nature-based abstraction and landscape, patterning, still life, and automatic line drawings.

Photography

My photographic practice began in 1998 and lead me in 2004 to pursue a degree in Fine Arts at NSCAD University (formerly The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design). Before attending NSCAD I was involved with the Kingston Photographic Club, a member of CAPA (Canadian Association of Photographic Arts). My photography explores macro abstraction, montage narrative, memory and nostalgia, the interaction and impact of people with and on their environment, and the processes of change and decay.  My practice ranges from 35 mm to medium and large format, medium format pinhole, infrared and digital photography.

Ink Drawings

Begun as a portfolio exercise, many of my ink drawings are strongly intuitive and spontaneous. I think of these as “follow-the-line” drawings. They contain elements which tell mythic stories, deal with relationships, or look at the natural world—sometimes at a cellular level—using a visual language which is abstracted, pattern-based, metaphoric, and universally symbolic. Some other ink drawings draw their inspiration from my photographs and are abstracted and patterned translations and transformations of them. Sometimes the two intersect and inform each other.  A series of ink drawings (Peg Leg Ink Drawings) were commissioned for a book of my husband’s poetry, Learning to Dance with a Peg Leg:  Three Dozen Tunes for a Third Mate, Wayne Clifford, Frog Hollow Press, 2009.

Exhibitions & Galleries

My photography, paintings and ink drawings have been exhibited in libraries, museums and art galleries in Kingston, Halifax, Hampton, St. Andrews, Saint John, Fredericton, and on Grand Manan. You can see my work in person at my Rocky Corner Studio on Grand Manan, at the Grand Manan Museum, and often at group shows and occasional solo exhibits at the Grand Manan Art Gallery.  Please see my CV for more information on past exhibits, and my Blog page for information on upcoming exhibits and new work.

Rocky Corner Studio on Facebook

Represented by The Gallery on Queen, Fredericton, NB, Canada.

MJ in her Rocky Corner Studio in 2012