By Liz MacKenzie
Maryse Maynard has a dream job: Director of Visual Arts for the School of Dance. She draws on a rich background in visual arts: performance, sculpture, photography and film, papermaking, wood carving, mixed and multimedia, and has collaborated in interdisciplinary works. She has shown in juried shows across Canada, and has art in public and private collections here and internationally.
Maryse is also famous for her stable of angels, which she will dispatch whenever and wherever needed. Parking problem? Her parking angel will get you a spot right outside the door. The angels are multipurpose and Maryse is generous in sharing their blessings.
Her Catholic education and introduction to angels began in French kindergarten at the Jeanne d’Arc Convent on Sussex Drive and continued at the Rideau Street Convent until high-school graduation.
Not surprisingly her work often reflects religious influences: candles, incense, little secret boxes on the altar, beautiful embroidered cassocks, lace cloths, and of course angels. “The concept of angels worked for me. To feel that other energies existed though they were not visible, added a spiritual dimension that was natural and comfortable.” Maryse recalled that every afternoon she and her three sisters would leave the Rideau Street Convent and troop over to the Théâtre Français, managed by their father Bob. They would climb to the section outside his office and watch snippets of newsreels and movies. “It was so boring and sometimes scary,” says Maryse, “the same bit of a movie day after day – and we never got to see what happened!” However, she credits all those hours in the dark as one of the important influences in her art.
After graduating from the Rideau Street Convent, Maryse worked for several years before resuming her studies. Jobs varied from secretarial work at the National Research Council, legal secretary in Ottawa and secretary in Toronto to hostess at Expo 67.
Her art training started as a mature student at the High School of Commerce, where she was taught the basic techniques needed to proceed with serious art studies. After a brief stint at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, she attended Ottawa University and graduated with a Major in Visual Arts. She recalls meeting her husband while helping friend paint an apartment. The second-floor tenant, a super cool young flutist named Robert Cram, popped his head in and said “You girls look like you could use a beer.” It must have been the best pick-up line ever, since months later, Maryse moved into the second-floor apartment, and so began a lifetime of friendship, love and partnership, and two daughters.
Maryse pursued her art and managed the household while her musician husband worked nights and travelled with the NAC Orchestra. Often a collaborator, she created sculptural pieces for performers and interdisciplinary works with composers and musicians, as well as mounting solo shows, teaching at the Ottawa School of Art and conducting workshops.
In 2012 she co-founded Gallery 200, a curated public gallery at 200 Crichton Street, home of The School of Dance. Gallery 200 adds a visual-art component to the School’s multi-disciplinary experience, acting as a bridge by focusing on innovative, contemporary work in a variety of media.
There are delightful symmetries in Maryse’s life. She and husband Robert now live in the converted Jeanne d’Arc Convent at Clarence and Sussex, where her education began. Daughter Pixie is a filmmaker, following in the footsteps of her grandfather Bob Maynard who was in the cinema business for 45 years, and his father who ran the first nickelodeon in Ottawa.
Maryse continues to pursue her personal art projects. She describes her current work in progress as “a multi-media project presenting some 50 clay masks that are faces I consider from the invisible realms. It will include lighting and music.”