Rereading Annora Brown’s books, Old Man’s Garden and Sketches From Life, is a spring tonic for the soul.
The abundance and beauty of the wild flowers in southern Alberta is something we take for granted, but there was a time when most of them were ignored. Who bothers with weeds?
Admittedly, Fort Macleod in the 1930s wasn’t a very attractive place – wind, dust, rock, depression. Within a short time after Annora completed art school in Toronto, she was called home to tend her invalid mother and her father.
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Care-giving and housekeeping didn’t leave much time for sketching and painting. Through a substantial portion of her life these demands weighed heavily. Bills from her time in the east also had to be paid.
Yet Ms. Brown never went very far without her sketchbook and water-colours.
Sometimes she only got to the rock pile down the alley, but there she found precious flowers. Sometimes, with a friend from the city, she would head off toward the Porcupine Hills.
Later she habituated Waterton’s mountain slopes. The wild flowers spoke to her, and she tried to capture their poetry in paint.
Neither extremes of weather, ravenous insects, nor rocky ledges deterred her.
She struggled not only with the elements, but also with political obscuration. Easterners couldn’t believe artists existed in the West. Urbanites couldn’t accept the work of a woman from Fort Macleod. But the quality of her work and the persistence with which she labored demanded attention.
Today her work hangs proudly in many homes and galleries. A huge collection is housed in the Glenbow archives. When there is a public exhibition, enthusiasts want to see more.
One reviewer wrote: “When the lily blooms no more, should man be yet alive, Annora Brown will review for him the glory that was and advise him of the glory to be.” (Westart, 1972).
