Folks gather at the Yoga House at Rising Fawn Gardens for the Dedication of “Celebration”
Mary Jane Kelly, seated, with Linda Woodall and Karen Persinger
Ferris Robinson stands with her mother’s bronze angel
Ferris Robinson
Karen Persinger bought a sculpture of my mother’s for Rising Fawn Garden’s healing garden and hosted a dedication for “The Celebration,” a large bronze angel. Karen asked me to finalize my mother’s bio for the event, and these words came out:
Somehow my mother, Mary Ferris Kelly, managed to raise three wayward children, be a stellar spouse to our father, care for her birth-injured sister and aging parents, and nurse numerous animals, from kittens to dogs to spider monkeys, rabbits and abandoned mice. She kept a beautiful house, baked homemade bread, and cooked healthy hot family meals every night.
She can do anything. Like, literally. She built a treehouse for us herself in the back yard under the hackberry tree. She had help sinking telephone poles for the posts, but everything else was hammered by her hand. She laid a curving brick wall for the garbage incinerator in an afternoon, patting the mortar and stacking layer after layer of bricks. For a Halloween costume party in South Pittsburg, she covered two gigantic balloons with paper mache, adding layers every 48 hours, until she could craft a long crooked nose with warts, a pointed chin and other witchy features.
Buzz, Woo and I always believed we three were her primary purpose in life. For each of us, she went above and beyond at the blink of an eye. Yet somehow, despite being present as a mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend and volunteer, she created a magnificent body of work: totally unbeknownst to us, her raison ‘d etra.
As a little girl growing up in Athens, Tn., she lived with her older sister, Pam, tragically injured during her birth, a grandmother with advanced dementia, a lovely aunt, and her parents. There was a lot going on, and it wasn’t always pleasant. Mary Jane created a studio under the dining room table, safe from much of the action, and colored pictures in relative peace. Art was her “happy place” at a very young age.
She graduated from the National Cathedral School in Washington, DC, where she was May Queen, then went on to Sophie Newcomb in New Orleans where she studied under then-artist-in-residence Mark Rothko, and had me. My mother completed her degree, taking me along in a basket to class.
She moved to Jasper, Tn., when she married Paul Kelly, our dad, and they closed in a screen porch for her studio. She unpacked her paints, set up camp and that was that. The second we went to school, she went to work. Maybe because there was no time to dilly dally, she was prolific in her work. It was razer sharp, profound, often disturbing to small children and absolutely magnificent.
Our mother exhibited and won awards in numerous shows including Art in the Embassies Program, Savannah Art’s Festival and Calloway Gardens. Her work is represented in many juried collections, including “Tennessee Painting Today” at Cheekwood Museum in Nashville, UTC and the Smithsonian in D.C. Her paintings were hung in the U.S. Embassies in Poland and Ceylon, and she is represented in many private collections throughout the South.
In 2005, Linda Woodall, her friend and agent, entered her piece “The Cutting Garden” in the International Grand Prix de La Chatonniere in France. Two hundred candidates from eight countries submitted work, with 25 finalists from seven countries narrowed down to eight medalists. My mother took the coveted bronze medal de la ville d’ Asay-le-Rideau.
She began exploring angels about 30 years ago, and they weren’t the Hallmark sort. They were big and muscular, with their hearts showing on their faces: grief, hope, love …
There are a series of these angels, all with simple titles, in conte crayon drawings. One of them, “Male Angel Study II” is in the permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
She has been prolific in almost every medium - clay sculptures, paintings, etchings and drawing.
Ann Nichol’s article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press says it perfectly. “Mary Ferris Kelly has been a quiet presence in the art scene here for over 30 years. With so many family responsibilities - husband, three children, oodles of grandchildren and a sister she has cared for most of her adult life - she makes the most of the hours that she does find to devote to her art. By necessity, these hours are intense - and it shows in her work. She gravitates to media and techniques that are complex and time consuming.”
Of course, she does. Remember those paper mache witch heads?
She is self-effacing all the way around, but she is proud that three of her pieces are in the permanent collection at the Hunter Museum, her hometown gallery.
There are so many artists who have made their mark in this world. So many who have gifted astounding beauty and wonder that will last for generations. Most do this at a cost. They forfeit things like family and friends and day-in-day-out joy at this life.
But not our mother. The fact that her work is astounding and important and hard to fathom is lost on us. Because she is our mother. And art was always just something she did between packing picnics to Woods Creek and sewing brown velvet Pooh bears and baking castle birthday cakes with ice cream cone turrets.
How she managed to instill in each of us her boundless love, all while creating masterpieces, is a miracle.
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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. Her website is ferrisrobinson.com and you can download a free pollinator poster there. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.