By Ann Carroll
Montreal Gazette
August 24, 2000
A stroll through Margaret Ellis Nachshen's house is like a visit to a private art gallery. The walls of Nachshen's two-storey Beaconsfield home are covered with her oil paintings, watercolours and prints.
But one of her favourite works, The Wonderful Whatsit, is missing from the collection. The watercolour, part of a junkyard series that portrays ordinary machinery, old pipes and paint cans, and abandoned trucks, is crated and on its way to Vancouver for the Aim for Arts international juried exhibition.
The exhibition, which runs Sept. 1 to Oct. 6, is sponsored by the Federation of Canadian Artists in conjunction with Aim Funds Management Inc.
Nachshen is one of 210 artists chosen for the exhibition from among 1,380 entries worldwide.
While she doesn't expect to win a prize in the competition, Nachshen said the experience is worth the effort and expense: ``It's nice being recognized by your peers.''
Selection of your work by a panel of accomplished artists adds prestige as well as market value to the pieces on display, especially if they rate special mention, such as Nachshen's painting of a country home and garden scene in Dorchester, England. The picture took first place in the adult art category at the 1999 British Airways Art Competition.
Another painting, a watercolour of an artist in a garden, won Best of Show at the Society of Canadian Artists juried members' exhibition in Toronto this year.
Nachshen is also excited about her participation in the 104th annual Open Exhibition at the National Arts Club in New York City. Works chosen for the all-women show, sponsored by the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, were selected by the jury and will be open to the public Oct. 5-27.
In addition, she will be featured as a Canadian artist in the 14th issue of International Artist, a U.S.-based magazine for serious artists.
Welcome recognition after a lifetime of drawing, Fine Arts courses, intensive art workshops, attending exhibitions and devoting as many hours to her home studio as possible, while raising two children.
Drawing comes as naturally to Nachshen as breathing and eating.
``I've always been able to draw,'' she said, recalling the illustrations she sketched in her nature diaries at elementary school in a small village in Cheshire, England.
At 13, she was accepted for after-school classes at the Chester College of Art, but the high-school headmistress nixed that idea for fear it would interfere with the school's intensive academic program.
Nachshen bided her time and eventually found an outlet for her drawing skills at a physiotherapy school in Glasgow. ``I drew my way through the anatomy and physiology exams,'' Nachshen recalled, noting that her professor accepted well-labeled diagrams in lieu of essays on the subject.
After graduation, Nachshen came to Canada for a visit, then stayed and worked at hospitals in Manitoba, Ontario and at the Montreal Children's Hospital. She retired when her children were young and signed up for an endless series of part-time courses in Fine Arts and Creative Writing, as well as specialized workshops in art technique.
``I still go to life classes in a private studio,'' she said. ``Art is like any other skill: you have to keep it up.
``It's not enough to be able to draw. You have to practice all the time.''
Nachshen said she has begun experimenting with watercolour monotype printmaking, in an effort to be braver and more expressive in her work and less dependent on realistic interpretation.
Pieces she has created in the junkyard series illustrate a move away from fairly formal compositions - a old high-pressure valve lying on its side in the grass - to a more abstract approach: an old paint can gushing rivulets of colours across the canvas.
Nachshen said she was instantly drawn to the everyday objects, found in an old junkyard near her Owl's Head ski lodge.
``Whether I am painting a garden, a stack of jewel-coloured dishes or the engine of a Mack truck, I strive to convey the immediacy and excitement of the visual impact that first stopped me in my tracks and made me want to capture that particular image.''
It's a knack that sets the artist apart from other nature-walkers. ``I like things that other people walk by and dismiss,'' Nachshen said. ``People go for walks and see nothing unusual - I come home and my head is full of ideas.''
Art can be physically and emotionally draining, she said, and shouldn't be compared to leisure pursuits, like knitting. ``Knitting is a hobby; art isn't a hobby, it's a way of seeing things and a way of being. Knitters can pick their needles for 10, 20 or 30 minutes at a time and then put their work away. I can't just go downstairs to my studio and just start painting - it requires a lot of forethought, visual intelligence and planning.''
The solitary, concentrated pursuit has its compensations. ``If you draw for hours and hours, I think something happens to your brain - you almost get a high.''
Copyright The Gazette (Montreal) 2000 All Rights Reserved.