Doris McCarthy, who is 98 and studied under members of the Group of Seven at OCA in the late 1920's, still does I believe. She paints during the summer at Georgian Bay:
Author: Lynne Atkinson
Doris McCarthy
In 1999 Canadian writer, Elspeth Cameron wrote a comic parody of a day in the life of Doris McCarthy. It is included in the 1999 catalogue, Celebrating Life, The Art of Doris McCarthy produced in conjunction with a retrospective and McCarthy’s Artist of Honour designation at The McMichael Canadian Collection.
Cameron portrays a typical McCarthy day with the title, ‘If you think Doris McCarthy paints, you’re wrong!’ It’s a hilarious portrait of the busyness of the artist caused mostly by McCarthy’s own attention to the details of fine living and daily routines … everything from the 5:30 a.m. cup of coffee in bed; to morning exercises; to catching a ‘coon (in the house) then depositing it further afield; to personally answering the mountains of mail and phone messages, meditating, skating, shopping, fixing the eaves, shoveling, studying for and attending a university class and preparing her meals (as outlined in the Canada Food Guide).
Much is revealed through Cameron’s window of a characteristic McCarthy winter’s day. Imagining the hectic pace helps the reader understand why McCarthy craved the simplicity of her Georgian Bay summers and why Georgian Bay can lay claim to nearly 50 years of McCarthy productivity. Since 1959, this great Canadian artist created the bulk of her canvases during her summer residency each year on the Bay.
McCarthy purposely kept all details of her Georgian Bay life simple. Few gadgets meant few repairs. With little to go wrong, more time could be spent painting. Along with her painting companion and teaching colleague Ginny Luz, McCarthy set the daily routines decades ago. While her city life may be hectic, Georgian Bay’s simplicity was the ideal spot for McCarthy to develop her scheduled productivity.
It took me several years to enter into the painter’s Georgian Bay world. Despite becoming McCarthy’s city housemate in 1987 (read Go-Get-It-Gal), I was not invited North immediately. Little was encouraged to distract the artist from her work and back then, I was a mere distraction.
But with time, necessity forged cracks in the routines. Doris’ painting companion and dear friend Nan Wright gave up her car but was still keen to join Doris and Ginny for a few days of painting. I was booked as the chauffeur and slowly began to encroach on the painters’ summer world.
What I found was unlike any ‘cottage experience’ I’d had before or since!? With deference to Cameron – if you think McCarthy relaxes at the cottage, you’re wrong!
5:30
Rise to put the electric kettle on for tea and the stovetop wash kettle on LOW for the inevitable breakfast dishes. Ah, ha! Mouse caught in the trap. While the kettle boils, toss the mouse out for the snakes to enjoy.
5:35
Back to bed to sip tea and watch the sunrise over Gower Bay. Oh, oh, a duck family with bathtub babies is going by!
6:00
Throw back the covers, march to the dressing room, pull nightie over the head, grab large towel and wrap it about as a modesty shield.
6:02
March towards the water’s edge; grab face cloth off the line.
6:03
Drop towel, enter the water, suppress squeal – don’t draw attention – submerge body and float for 3 minutes. Grab face cloth off rock and scrub body. Exit water; grab modesty shield and dry vigorously.
6:10
Back to dressing room, change, hang towel on line and prepare breakfast.
6:15
Bring tea or coffee to lollygaggers to wake them. Make own bed – tidy corners, adjust bedspread, fluff pillow – work around cat under the covers if necessary.
6:20
Read or meditate in corner chair while lollygaggers stir.
7:00
Exercise on floor with eight pound weights attached for leg lifts.
7:30
Breakfast with Ginny and Lynne (homemade bread, granola, and marmalade, plus ½ banana, Florida orange and tea) Count wedges in orange and marvel that there is the same number as in yesterday’s orange.
8:30
Clear dishes, pour hot water from stove into dishpan over dishes, soak.
8:35
Empty ‘pee buckets’ and rinse with dishwater (after doing dishes), set outside so the ‘sun can do its blessed work’ then attend to other chores (draw water; bury the onion bag; cut back growth).
9:00
Enter studio and ‘tackle’ canvas.
12:00
Lunch (cucumber sandwiches on thinly sliced homemade bread, followed by one homemade cookie and half a beer).
12:30
Return to studio and work.
4:00
Put the kettle on and expect friends to gather for tea.
4:10
Share tea and homemade cookies with all who
arrive for social hour.
5:00
Clear away dishes (and guests) and pour tot.
6:00
Dinner (one green veg cooked, one pale veg, one starch, meat and homemade rhubarb wine) set water on stove on LOW to heat for dishes.
7:00
Wash dishes and tidy all.
7:15
Play scrabble with whomever!
8:45
Set mousetrap with bacon tied down.
9:00
Fill hot water bottle and go to bed.
Repeat routine every day of the summer.
It took my first trip to McCarthy’s cottage to clue in to keeping up. Never again would I miss the morning dip though often I would linger longer than the allotted 3 minutes in the water. After Ginny’s frailty kept her from coming north for the summers, I began to spend endless days at McCarthy’s Georgian Bay studio.
Those times were extraordinary periods of catching up to McCarthy. Learning to love snakes. Learning to set boundaries. Learning to embrace simplicity. Learning to accept change and all its offerings. Learning to drink rye. Learning to love Georgian Bay. Learning to branch out… paddle farther…. explore deeper than McCarthy herself had ever done.
Two concepts stand as a model from this cottaging era. First is the notion of partnerships, as defined by McCarthy and her original partners in the purchase of several acres of rock on Georgian Bay.
The original five partners purchased the land in the fall of 1959 and a year later 3 partners remained. That partnership stayed intact for close to 40 years and only death and decay could end it. The partnership was based on common purpose: To live simple and productive lives throughout the summer months. The common purpose was bound by common values: a commitment to an agreed upon set of rules; a respect for each other’s talents; a recognition that together they could have the whole which no individual could afford; and a deep love of the natural world around them. Their partnership was struck without any legally binding papers, much to the vexation of lawyer acquaintances. It was a partnership created by trust and punctuated by a list of agreed upon tasks and items as outlined in the Cottage Log Book. McCarthy’s partnership is the original fractional ownership agreement without costly legal intervention.
Equally compelling is McCarthy’s approach to what is now termed ‘0-footprint’. As communities, organizations and individuals struggle to understand how to reduce their ‘wear and tear’ on the earth, McCarthy’s 50 years of summering on the Bay have lessons to teach us. This multi-millionaire business woman lives in a cabin that has seen very little altered over 5 decades. The studio add-on was built in the original camouflaged style of fitting into the landscape. The outhouse, once a one-holer, was re-engineered as a two-holer with each hole providing a separate service. This keeps the odour away and allowed for the development of the ‘onion-bag drop’ which permits a tidy burial of hard human waste. Water is pumped by a hand-pump, ensuring that needed water is drawn and re-used before finally being thrown out to quench the thirst of the summer’s dry bushes.
McCarthy sums up her sense of stewardship, “She who holds the deed, holds the land in trust for the future.†A powerful statement from a woman who is 97 years wise and has made simplicity a mission and living well a passion.
July 7 (070707) McCarthy turns 97 and Parry Sound is celebrating this great cottager by proclaiming the day Doris McCarthy Day in Parry Sound. An exhibition of McCarthy’s work opens at the Station Gallery at 1 pm with the artist present to cut her birthday cake. A historic moment indeed. The McCarthy Exhibit runs through to July 29th.
McCarthy’s cataloguing system proves the point of the artist’s productivity. Upon completion, each painting is noted numerically with the year, the month, and finally, the day. So the bulk of the artist’s canvases have 06, 07 or 08 for the month segment of the cataloguing. These paintings were completed in June, July or August when McCarthy is in residence on the Bay. To further narrow down the mystery, most oil canvases are 06 or 07 for June or July. McCarthy always paints the oil canvases first to allow them to dry and moves to watercolors in August.? The small sketches, either oil or watercolor, are done on site during painting trips and their months are likely to be April or June (May is the month to be home). Added to this are the occasional painting trips in the fall or the winter. Even rarer, McCarthy would paint a canvas in her winter studio. (All 5 x 7 canvases are done in Toronto as McCarthy had no way of transporting these large canvases back and forth from Georgian Bay, without significant cost.)
About the author: Lynne Atkinson is McCarthy’s close friend and confidante. She is a Carling cottager; co-owner of the Whistlestop in Parry Sound; and, the executive director of the West Parry Sound Health Centre Foundation.
