While travelling—in the ‘80s and ‘90s—Maureen would take her camera out whenever people started to look interesting. And people often do look interesting.
A stop in Atlantic City on the way home from the family’s year-long sailing trip made for some fascinating subjects, and Maureen brought these other travellers together into a composition called “Boardwalk.”
Boardwalk, 1994, Maureen Harvey
Now, there’s rarely any knowing what kind of life an artwork might have after leaving the artist’s hands. In this case, a friend of the family was opening a prominent Edmonton restaurant at the time Maureen was finishing up her “Boardwalk,” in the mid-nineties. Melinda Ringrose went to school with the Harvey kids. She (now a Stewart) and chef-husband Larry chose about five big paintings and some small ones for their Hardware Grill, soon due to open in the old WW Arcade hardware. The paintings went up, the restaurant opened, and many satiated customers went on to see them.
And then one day, Marianne Scott called, then of the Scott Gallery, where Maureen sold her art. Marianne called to say that the Hardware Grill had contacted her about a restaurant customer who recognizes her mother in one of the paintings. Not only her face, but the dress and the pearls were ones that her mother always wore.
Meanwhile, the Hardware Grill said that they had served their guest—the daughter—her meals in front of the painting, at her request. She wouldn’t sit in the restaurant proper: she wanted to be served on a table in front of her mother’s likeness. The painting, though, was on the wall as you entered the restaurant, in the foyer. This meant that everyone who wanted a meal had to navigate around this table and the woman eating lunch with her mother in the painting.
Soon, it wasn’t enough that the daughter could see the painting with her mother in it in the foyer of Edmonton’s then top-level restaurant: she wanted one for her own. The Scott Gallery arranged for Maureen and the daughter to meet. She lived in Vancouver, and on one Edmonton trip, met Maureen at the Scott to discuss details. The daughter-now-client wanted her mother on her own wall. But not just mother: she also wanted dad in there, and dad liked squirrels, so could Maureen add one as well? Of course she could, right there on his shoulder.
In the storytelling, the client’s mother had 8-9 children and was “as big as a minute—not quite 5 feet tall,” says Maureen. She would often take off on excursions without telling anyone in the family where she was going. She’d often take a friend. In Maureen’s “Boardwalk,” there’s a woman beside her. Maybe her friend? The family wouldn’t know where she was or what she would be doing. “On these tours, though, people are treated very well,” confirms Maureen. So mom’s travels brought her to the east coast of USA to be photographed and painted by a prairie girl and seen by her daughter over lunch while visiting Edmonton, painted again, and finally over to the west coast.
Maureen, while working on the new piece, did what she’d always do and consider scale in her composition. “We need some height! To be a part of these figures. An emu! That’s what we need. We needed the necks of the emus for heights. And facial expression. . . for smiles.” Meanwhile, the client’s mom was a tiny woman, and the father was a big man: much bigger than mom. Maureen wanted to get it right and would have to check it with her client. For one of the visits, Maureen met her client in a coffee house in the Vancouver airport to show drawings of dad and mom and how they would be incorporated into a larger painting. There weren’t many people around, so Maureen spread her drawings over a couple of tables. Once everything—colour, composition—was agreed to, she rolled everything up and proceeded on to Victoria to visit family.
After a bit more back-and-forth, the piece was completed and sent to the new owner, who could now sit and have lunch near mom and dad whenever she liked.