Details from a Larger Canvas: A Memoir

Kathy E. Zimon is a fine arts librarian (emerita) at the University of
Calgary. She is the author of Alberta Society of Artists: The First 70
Years and co-editor of Art Documentation Bulletin of the Art Libraries
Society of North America.

Helen McLean is an accomplished artist and writer who struggled against
her own, her family’s, and society’s expectations for women of her
time. Born in 1927, she was brought up in a conventional, middle-class
family in Toronto. The patterns of her life seemed preordained, making
no allowance for serious artistic ambitions. In the 1950s, women’s
jobs were only stepping stones to marriage and motherhood, still the
ultimate goals for women of her class and education. Yet, from a
pragmatic perspective, McLean had a privileged life. Her parents
supported her through university in the late 1940s and a postgraduate
year of study at art school in Utica, and she married a cardiologist,
thereby gaining all the advantages of the wife of a successful
professional (including two years spent enjoying London’s cultural
amenities).

It was during an 11-year sojourn in Calgary in the 1960s that the
restrictions of McLean’s life crystalized. From the moment of her
arrival, she found the harsh foothills climate spiritually desiccating,
and the city lacking in urban charm. While acknowledging the grandeur of
the landscape, she found it unforgiving and artistically uninspiring. A
move to an Ontario farm temporarily alleviated her malaise, but the
priorities imposed by a busy country life were also limiting. In
desperation, at the age of 50, she left her family for a year to devote
herself to painting and rediscovering the artist within. Since then, her
impressionistic, representational still lifes and sensitive portraits,
like that of Margaret Laurence, have brought her recognition as an
artist.

McLean’s prose is lucid and evocative. She is at her best in
conveying the appeal of a place where she feels spiritually at home,
whether that is a spartan cottage on Lake Ontario or a villa in the
vineyards of Piemonte. This memoir by a multi-talented artist is an
inspiration to all women who have set aside their own talent for the
sake of family, and proves that it is never too late to achieve
self-fulfilment.