Nellie McClung's visual art

Some poets are also visual artists, bill bissett comes to mind and he is the foremost Canadian poet who is also a visual artist. Ken Norris's Vishyun (Ekstasis Editions, 2023) featured cover art by bill bissett. Nellie McClung was a poet and also a visual artist. Despite mental illness Nellie embraced life with imagination and love, she had a sophisticated sense of humour, was both highly intelligent and really funny in conversation, and her satirical poems are more humour than satire. I first met Nellie in 1991 and later visited her home, which she named Casa Contenta, in the late 1990s; she stored her paintings in a room by the front door and my wife and I both bought paintings from her. Nellie's grandmother was the famous Nellie McClung, feminist and author; her brother was Judge John McClung. Nellie died in 2009.

Come Dance With me in Ireland (Ekstasis Editions, 2011), Nellie McClung's
selected poems edited and published by Richard Olafson. Introduction
by Carolyn Zonailo

"Sailboats in  Kitsilano", by Nellie McClung. This is the painting (on left) that I bought 

from Nellie and that I used on the cover of my selected poems, she gave us the smaller 

painting on the right and I hung them together, as pictured. 

Here is Nellie McClung's painting on the cover of my recent book,

Farewell, Darkness, Selected Poems (Ekstasis Editions), 2023.

"Red Cat and Dandelions" by Nellie McClung, from a series of cat paintings. Undated, probably 1980s.

"Aspen's Quiver" by Nellie McClung, around 1994. A different title
is on the back, but it is difficult to read. Aspen refers to Aspen, Colorado, 
"home of the Pawnees". 

Reverse of previous painting. 

                                                       

Two portraits by Nellie McClung. 

                 

A typical phone call from Nellie, her message left on the answering machine: "Carolyn, answer the phone, answer the phone, answer the god damn phone; I have plans and I want you and Stephen involved with them. We'll fly to New York and see David Letterman, be on his show, discuss Marilyn Monroe, then we'll fly to London and visit the prime minister at his home, we'll discuss anti-vivisection and get him onboard for working towards a better world. Carolyn, Carolyn, answer the god damn phone." We weren't the saints that Richard Olafson was regarding Nellie McClung's phone calls, he talked with her everyday.