DEPICTING HISTORY FOR THE FUTURE
Artist Barbara Paterson’s sculptures capture character of iconic individuals
Of all the things ever made by any Albertan, there’s a good chance the things that will last the longest on this earth are the sculptures of Barbara Paterson.
On Parliament Hill in Ottawa stands Paterson’s statue of women’s rights crusaders Emily Murphy, Irene Parlby, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edwards, the renowned Famous 5. That same image has been used on the Canadian $50 bill.
In Victoria, B.C., is her bronze of painter Emily Carr; in St. Albert, her bronze of local businesswoman and community leader Lois Hole; and, unveiled just last week at the University of Alberta, her bronze of Alberta’s first premier, Alexander Rutherford, and the U of A’s first president, Henry Marshall Tory. They are shown looking over a campus blueprint, envisioning the future.
Iconic is an overused word these days, but it’s safe to say much of Paterson’s work is correctly described as such. She creates iconic images of iconic individuals and they are made of bronze, built to withstand the coming centuries. She sees her job as representing these individuals in physical form, to show their character so the public can get some sense of them.
Her major bronze work has one other thing in common. Every statue has either a dog in it, or dog iconography. A dog sits beside Carr. Muir Edwards has a dog on her broach. Tory has cufflinks with a dog image. The Hole sculpture also features a little girl with dog images on the bands in her hair.
The figurative, historic nature of Paterson’s sculpture relates to the wishes and instructions of Paterson’s patrons and to her own strong sense of feeling grounded in Edmonton. And the dogs? They are Paterson’s quirky personal touch and speak to her lively mind and whimsical nature.
“It has become sort of a symbol of what I do,” she says of the dogs.
“We’ve always had dogs. It’s just a little quirky thing.”
Some artists make much more obtrusive personal gestures in their work. Paterson mentions two South African sculptors who placed a bunny inside the ear of a nine-foot sculpture of Nelson Mandela. When it was discovered, the bunny was removed.
Paterson was born here and has deep roots in Edmonton. Her great-grandfather was William MacKay, a Hudson’s Bay Company doctor. In the 1870s, he was one of Alberta’s first physicians. He was also chief factor at Fort Chipewyan, where he met his wife, Jane Flett, a Métis. She worked alongside her husband as a nurse, but encountered racism when the couple moved to Edmonton in 1898. Her own family was ashamed of her native ancestry and tried to hide it. But Jane Flett MacKay is one of the strong woman who inspired Paterson to create sculptures of other strong women, such as Murphy, Carr and Hole, who was Paterson’s friend. Paterson plans to do a bronze bust of Flett.
Paterson grew up in Garneau. She went to the University of Alberta in 1957, studying art under famous local artist Henry Glyde. She got married and spent much of her time in the following years raising her three boys. Eventually, she returned to study fine arts at the U of A, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1988.
The U of A school is known for its abstract steel sculpture, but Paterson never warmed much to it. “It was too harsh. It didn’t have the softness of the (human) figure.”
She was making a go of it as an artist in the 1990s when she won the Famous 5 commission. It was the first time a statue of women other than royalty was commissioned for Parliament Hill.
“I prefer to do women,” she says of her sculptures. “I have a real strong bond. They are strong women and they just sort of dragged me along with them.”
These famous women all ventured into the broader world, just as Paterson did. “Growing up in the age of females coming out of their shells, housewives coming out and not only being stay-athome moms — which I admire completely — but also working in the workforce, I’m fortunate that I found something to actually promote me in what I do.”
A satisfying contribution for Paterson then. A lasting contribution to us all.