Celebrating Dataw Artists – Mary Ann Berger
by Marie Doyon and Bill Riski
If you have yet to meet our featured artist, Mary Ann Berger, you’ll at least now know part of her fascinating story. She is undoubtedly a born artist with innate talent. But like many other Dataw artists, her skills were not completely realized until she moved to Dataw Island. These days, at age 92, Mary Ann has traded paintbrushes for pen and paper (actually a computer). She is writing her life story. Stay tuned.
Where are you from and what do you make?
I was born and raised in St.Louis, Missouri. After being awarded a scholarship to Fontbonne University in Saint Louis, my life seemingly changed forever. The decision to major in art was made because I didn’t know what to choose! I thought about sociology and then ultimately chose art. The courses were elementary at best: illustration, lettering, watercolor, oil. I was the editor of the yearbook and took classes at the People’s Art Center, later associated with the Saint Louis Art Museum. The former provided a wealth of experiences that I would use throughout my life in the art world and business.
While in my sophomore year, I met the man who would become my husband for the next fifty-seven years. Ray attended Washington University in Saint Louis. We met at a dance arranged by the faculty of Fontbonne (Sisters of St Joseph of Carondelet). Get-togethers, sometimes known as “mixers,” with area colleges and universities were common in those days. I remember this one was the “Harvest Hop.”
After graduation, we married, and Ray took a position with DuPont at the Savannah River Nuclear Plant. As he furthered his career, we made several moves throughout the country, including going back to St. Louis, then to Indiana, and ultimately Massachusetts, where we raised our children, three boys and one girl. When we lived in West Lafayette, Indiana, I earned a teaching certificate at Purdue University and was hired by a local district to teach art for kindergarten through twelfth grade. My children were just babies then, but I was able to pursue jewelry making (the lost wax method) and learn enameling, which I liked very much. I did some sculpting work during this time as well.
When we moved to Andover, Massachusetts, and the children were all school-aged, I attended a workshop on re-entering the world of work offered by Brandeis University. As a result, I completed internships at the Boston and Maine Railroad, where I worked in budgeting, and later at the Temple, Barker, Sloane Consulting group. While exploring opportunities for a third internship, I was offered a (paid!) position at the Honeywell Corporation, where I began as a “gopher” and eventually became an analyst supervising inventory control. After ten years, I was offered a nice retirement package. However, a new opportunity presented itself at Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Their Dean of Faculty was establishing a new program to recruit top students from Harvard, Yale, Brown, and other Ivy League schools to pursue a teaching career. The Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers, as it is called, hired me to administer the program. My role at the Institute varied as the program evolved, and I wore many “hats”; it was quite an exciting and rewarding experience.
When our family moved to the Boston, Massachusetts area, I was able to access classes at the Museum of Fine Art and the deCordova Museum. I took lessons with a member of the Copley Society, where I learned portraiture using live models. I was fortunate to receive additional guidance and encouragement from fellow artists at the Andover, Massachusetts Senior Center during this time. And thus, I began to paint people almost exclusively.
Interestingly, I only sold a painting (pictured here) once I came to Dataw! I credit David Dolan with providing excellent advice and encouragement to do so. From there, I sold several more paintings and received requests for commissions.
What inspires you to create?
I have to say, it is the human figure that inspires me to paint. Family also serves as an inspiration.
I have painted my husband, children, and grandchildren several times over. I also love painting my relatives using old black-and-white photos.
These are my three sons. I chose not to paint their faces when I saw I could distinguish each one by the way they were standing.
Which artists have had the most impact on your creations?
As for artists, I like Picasso….one of the first paintings I did was inspired by his work. I wanted something for my dining room….(here it is, and it is still hanging in my current dining room.)
I also admire the works of Frida Kahlo and Gustav Klim.
Is there a work of art that has changed your life or how you view the world in some way?
Alice Neel’s self-portrait, which she painted at age eighty and as a nude. It is now displayed in the National Portrait Museum in Washington, DC. In fact, she inspired me to do MY self-portrait at age ninety, although fully clothed.
As a (long time member) of VAC, what do you like most about us?
Definitely Open Studio! We had many sessions- these were so valuable- where we critiqued each other’s work in progress. I remember one session where I had just tried using a palette knife for my oil painting. Hearing that constructive criticism helped me realize that this was “my style” and one that I continued to use. It got me out of my skin! Painting is still a skill. The key to making good art is to be excited about it. You have to be invested in the piece.
The folks in Open Studio were also like a support group where we shared not only our frustrations or difficulties with art but also our personal lives. We helped one another through divorces and deaths. When my husband died in 2011, the group was an amazing source of support for me. Everyone in the group attended Ray’s funeral; that meant so much to me.
Gallery of Mary Ann Berger’s art
(Click on an image to see a larger version and move back and forth between images.)
