Joe Norris: Painted Visions of Nova Scotia

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

Few would argue that Joe Norris is Nova Scotia’s greatest folk artist.
This handsome, large-format volume consists largely of color
illustrations of his work, but there is also a substantial biographical
text by Bernard Riordon and personal accounts by collectors and friends.

Norris was 49 when he retired from fishing and started painting. His
subjects were homely objects that came to hand, or local vistas and
imagined scenes. My favorites include Moose 1975, enamel on plywood;
Kids Sleigh at Night 1987; People Watching the Porpoise and the Shark
1992; and Penguins Goin’ Down to the Sea 1991. Norris also painted
furniture: storage boxes, tables, rocking chairs, stools, even a large
fireplace. His work first toured outside Nova Scotia in 1976–78, and
is now held by museums and collectors across Canada and the United
States. Mira Goddard exhibited his first solo show in Toronto in 1979.

Joe Norris: Painted Visions of Nova Scotia is, and may remain, the
definitive book on this folk painter. It includes more than 100 color
reproductions of Norris’s exuberant paintings, which capture a culture
as well as a striking individual vision. Norris loved his place and time
deeply. It shows in this book, which contains a substantial bibliography
and an index.