“She really highlighted some of the early things she had done, especially with being one of the co-founders of the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops, and just her love for that landscape and painting,” Taylor recalled. “She was, I think, 91 when I met her and spoke with her, and she also was still incredibly fiery. She was still painting, she lived full time in Mexico, and she still rode horses every day.”
As Taylor and Mulcaster chatted, Mulcaster shared some stories about her earlier days as a painter in Saskatchewan and at Emma Lake. Mulcaster’s experiences “foregrounded how she was quite a pioneer as a female artist with that group,” said Taylor. The conversation also left Taylor feeling that there hadn’t been enough of a spotlight shone on Mulcaster’s artwork.
“She was quite vivacious, tough, industrious—and she still communicated all of those things in her nineties,” said Taylor. “But I do feel like a lot of the male painters overshadowed the female painters from that period—particularly the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops—not in their production of work, but in their ability to then have exhibitions.”
Taylor recalls a story that Mulcaster shared about her early days as an artist. Mulcaster told Taylor that when she arrived at Emma Lake, she didn’t have a place to paint, and she wasn’t afforded the space of her male colleagues. Rather than leave, however, Mulcaster remained undaunted.
“She came back with her own supplies—like wood, a hammer, nails—and built herself this studio shack there,” said Taylor.
