Capturing Joy: The Story of Maud Lewis

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

The gay boats, smiling oxen, and happy characters who fill Maud
Lewis’s Nova Scotian world came more from her spirit than from her
experience. Lewis (1903–1970) lived a life of pain, poverty, and
physical limitation in a small cabin, which consisted of one room
(without electricity or indoor plumbing), and a sleeping loft. She had
physical birth defects, and hands crippled with arthritis. But despite
her physical challenges, she decorated her home with hand-painted birds,
flowers, and butterflies, and created hand-drawn Christmas cards that
she was able to sell.

Jo Ellen Bogart’s brief text about her life is simple but effective.
Bogart has long been interested in naive art and feels a kinship with
Lewis. Bogart’s selections include many of Lewis’s most popular
works, now held in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and reproduced here
with the gallery’s permission.

Montrealer Mark Lang is a painter, illustrator, and graphic designer.
He has created a very attractive layout with graphite drawings that
catch the spirit of the artist’s time and place. One suspects that
Maud Lewis would thoroughly approve of Lang’s images, sketches that
show her at work at her antique wood stove, talking with young adults
about her work, or driving with husband Everett (whom she married when
she was 18) on his fish-peddling route through beautiful Nova Scotia.
There are many books about this much-loved folk artist. Capturing Joy,
with its inspiring title, fine text, 12 color plates, and brief
biographical afterword, is a worthy addition to the total. Highly
recommended.