Fine Arts
Living art-fully in small-town Ontario By Scott Williams
Oh, those face masks! You don’t go far in Madoc, Ont. without seeing them: at the LCBO, the Foodland, the Home Hardware – and on people just walking down the street. Eye-popping colour and painstaking attention to detail: the hallmarks of their creator, artist Diane Woodward.
A cancer diagnosis and successful treatment in late 2019 left Woodward feeling grateful and wanting to give back. When the pandemic hit, she hesitated only briefly before completely upending her life: after painting every day for 44 years, she stopped cold turkey and began sewing masks: “What better thing could I do for my medical friends than help people not get sick?” She’s now made well over 3,000 and has given most away for free – just shy of 2,000 in Madoc (posted population of 1,350) alone. Perhaps no coincidence that the village has been left largely unscathed as the pandemic swirls around it. The woman does nothing by half measure. At the age of five she was already an active craftsperson, and by seven was selling marionettes and paper flowers through a boutique in Old Montreal – once staying up till 2:00 a.m. on a school night to complete an unexpected midweek order for 125 flowers. Studying art at Dawson College 22
and Concordia University was an “accelerator,” getting her through “25 years of garbage in five years.” Building her career over the subsequent two decades in Ottawa, she describes herself as “relentless” and “completely uncompromising,” building a body of work numbering in the thousands of pieces, while also co-owning one gallery and helping manage another. A resident of Madoc since 1999, she describes herself as calmer now – but still works up to 18 hours a day. “I’m a shark,” she says. “If I stop, I drown.” Understandable, then, that #LabourIntensiveArt is one of her favourite hashtags on Instagram, her preferred social media outlet. Her work is immensely varied – from tiny wooden items that look like refugees from an eccentric, erotic chess game, to enormous painted tableaus on wood or canvas. Each item is unique, but immediately identifiable as Woodwardian. Animals feature prominently, as do many Hindu deities,
