The Nose Creek Valley Museum (NCVM) is inviting members of the public to expand their minds and enjoy a unique perspective on art with it’s latest travelling art exhibition “Mary Shannon Will…”
Curator and executive director Laurie Harvey said the exhibition of post-modern art comes to NCVM by way of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA), and is free of charge for all those who wish to come out to see it.
“She (Mary Shannon Will) was a sculptor and painter from Calgary and New Mexico,” Harvey explained. “It’s a very colourful exhibit. It’s fun. And it is definitely not something we have in our collection.”
According to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Mary Shannon Will was an artist known for colourful, witty ceramic sculpture and vibrant abstract painting. She died of ALS on October 20. 2021 at Chinook Hospice in Calgary. Will was born in Sampson, New York in 1944. Her childhood was spent in Seattle, Washington and then in Madison, Wisconsin, where Mary completed high school. Mary credited her father, an amateur artist who served in the US Navy and later worked in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, for encouraging her creative bent … Mary moved to Calgary with her husband, artist John Will, in 1971, and immediately set up her ceramic studio at their home in Lower Mount Royal.
“From 2005 on Mary returned exclusively to painting small, intimate, and square works where the layers of colour glow and shimmer to create a jewel-like depth,” reads a biography of Will on the AFA website. “These works are intuitive responses to the people, places and things that shaped the artist’s experience and perception of the world in which she lives.”
Harvey said in recent years the Nose Creek Valley Museum has been actively trying to bring in art exhibits during the summer months which are not typical for Airdrie.
“We usually try to get one or two art shows in the summer time,” she stated. “We try to focus on what we don’t have in our collection, and not on what we do. We try to bring in art shows that would maybe attract a visitor who wouldn’t normally come for the museum, but would come for an art show … We are just trying to broaden our horizons.”
The exhibition of Will’s post-modernist work is completely free of charge, emphasized Harvey; so those coming out can afford to come out with an open mind.
“They should come with no preconceived notions of art, and they should let the pictures speak to them as they want,” she said.
For more information on the Nose Creek Valley Museum’s hours and ongoing exhibits visit nosecreekvalleymuseum.com.
“Mary Shannon Will ….” will be on display until Aug. 30.
