In Mary Scobie’s most recent show, Mel’s Revisited, the painter takes us down memory lane to the heyday of the beloved former diner.
Born and raised in Sackville, Mary fondly remembers popping into Mel’s to buy Seventeen Magazine. When she later attended Mount Allison, she would meet friends there to socialize. Mary started documenting Mel’s long ago, “Every time I came back to visit my parents, I’d take different pictures of Mel’s. I was just attracted to the sign and the front. And, I’d take them in different lights and different times a day. I even remembered one time asking them at night to turn the neon sign on so I could take some nighttime shots, which is one of the ones I used for for the show.”
The inspiration for the Mel’s Revisited show came after a painting that Scobie submitted to the annual showcase of Mount Allison and Sackville Artists created a buzz. The piece sold quickly. According to Fog Forest’s owner, Janet Crawford, many people voiced their disappointment that they had missed out saying “I wanted that painting!”
In preparation for this solo show, Mary dipped into the Mount Allison Archives. What she found was a “lovely resource of old photos”. Two of the pieces she did came from black and white photos that she found in a photo essay done by a former student of the Fine Arts program. Rendering colour paintings from black and white photographs presented a new challenge for her, one that she really enjoyed.
“There was one view of Main Street that had not only Mel’s, but a whole bunch of other storefront signs and neon signs that was from the 1970s and so the cinema and the drug store had signs, and the barber shop had a wooden sign. And so I think it appealed to me, both as an artist and as a graphic with my graphic design background.”
Mary he has worked for many years as a freelancegraphic artist for music and arts organizations in Victoria, British Columbia.
As for what is next for Mary, she remains interested in painting Sackville scenes. ” I’d love to do some more of the interior (of Mel’s) with more people, but I didn’t have very many photos from that, so who knows? Maybe people have photos that will come out from this show. You know, that could be an inspiration for another one. And then I love doing ones of the Waterfowl Park and other areas around town as well.”
Mel’s Revisited: New Works by Mary Scobie closes today at Fog Forest Gallery.
