MANCHESTER, Ohio — Her artwork is known to people throughout the area and her husband’s skill with wood was a counterpart to her artwork.
But since 2002, Pat McCann’s paintbrush has been idle as she has grieved the loss of her husband, Floyd who fought his battle with leukemia for four years before he died.
Since Floyd’s death, Pat has been spending time with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with the idea of taking up her art again tucked into the back of her mind.
She’s also developed a new friendship with Kay Haag after Floyd’s death and it was Kay who was able to comfort Pat through her loss. Now, it is Pat who is offering comfort to her friend as she fights her own battle with cancer.
Pat said she is ready to begin painting again and was busy during the holiday season, filling orders for friends and customers who have waited more than five years to buy some of her artwork.
“I just couldn’t get with it after he passed away … but now I’m ready,” Pat said.
If you have attended the Ohio Tobacco Festival, Frontier Christmas in Washington, the Brown County Fair or even the Appalachian Fling at Eastgate Mall, you have probably seen Pat’s work.
It’s not typical landscape scenes painted on canvas. It’s more of what you would call folk art, since her scenes are painted on a variety of mediums including wood, skinning boards and saw blades.
Pat and her husband moved to Adams County from Lewis County in 1971 to manage a 300-plus acre farm, raising tobacco and dairy cows. Eventually, the couple moved to a smaller farmer adjacent to the 300-acre farm on Old Dutch Road, where they raised beef cattle and tobacco.
“I can remember milking more than 100 cows at a time,” Pat said of her days working the larger farm.
The idea of being an artist wasn’t something Pat had ever considered, but around Easter, 1984, she was looking at her grandson’s Easter basket, which had been handpainted. She said when she examined the artist’s work, she felt like she could do something similar.
A short time later, she decided to take an art class in Maysville, but after only one class, her schedule at the farm kept her from attending any more classes.
But she remembered what the art teacher told her after that one and only class, and took the words to heart.
“She said, ‘I think you could be good, just keep practicing,'” said Pat.
And practice she has since 1984.
Starting out with baskets and an assortment of wooden items, Pat began to paint landscape scenes, geese, Santa Claus and other country themed pictures, using acrylic paints. One of her signature items at the time were landscape scenes, depicting a farmhouse, barn or grist mill, on the panel of kitchen cabinet doors, using the frame of the door as the frame for her picture.
By 1986, she was encouraged by her neighbor, Shirley White to talk with West Union resident Esther Green about the Appalachian Fling at Eastgate Mall, a show Esther attended each year to sell her handmade quilts.
Pat said after talking to Esther she decided to attend the show and was pretty excited about how much money she made and the number of items sold.
Since then, Pat’s work has evolved, and she now focuses upon her rustic farm scenes painted on saw blades; one and two-man hand saws, crosscut saws, saw mill blades and even antique kerosene heaters, all of which have proven to be popular at the shows she and Floyd attended.
The saw blades range in size from a typical one-man hand saw to a 4-foot hand saw, to the larger two-man hand saws and some of the saw mill blades can be as large as four feet in diameter.
She has also continued to paint items with the well-known Mail Pouch Tobacco name on them, noting that it seems anything with Mail Pouch on it “seems to take off.” and since moving out of raising tobacco, she has begun to paint tobacco sticks with a likeness of Santa Claus on them.
To compliment her painting skills, Floyd began crafting Shaker-styled furniture from logs and old barn siding and the two traveled to craft shows four times each year, keeping them on the road enough they bought a camper to stay in during their travels.
“Everybody likes the way I do it and that’s all that matters,” said Pat, adding she understands her artwork, themed around country life, may not appeal to everyone.
In 2005, Pat’s friend Cindy Witt opened a country craft shop in Aberdeen, Ohio, and asked Pat to paint two signs for her business; one in front of her store and another located on Ohio 41. Pat said she hesitated about accepting the job, but decided to do it for her friend and since then she has slowly gotten back into her artwork and instead of her husband helping her, it is now her son Chuck who chips in when she needs saw blades sanded and primed.
Pat said she is also going to continue her work under the name she and Floyd created for their business, “Mixed Blessings Workshop.”
Contact Marla Toncray at marla.toncray@lee.net or 606-564-9091 ext. 275.
