Anne Kingston

The cult of Doris

By Anne Kingston - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - 0 Comments

Living to 100 is only the latest feat in the life of the singular painter Doris McCarthy, who once cut off her finger for her art

TANNIS TOOHEY/CP (Click for image gallery)

Doris McCarthy turned 100 last week—an achievement the artist’s many friends attribute to the same steely determination that has animated her life. Over those 10 decades, McCarthy has touched thousands as a painter, teacher and mentor of generations of artists. Her greatest life lessons, however, have been through intrepid example: in showing how life can be lived with verve throughout a lifetime and how creativity ripens with age.

Known for her insightful, quick wit and no-nonsense ways, McCarthy is very frail now, confined to bed at Fool’s Paradise, the home she built on five hectares overlooking Lake Ontario near the Scarborough bluffs. “It’s a miracle she made it to 100,” says artist Wendy Wacko, McCarthy’s former student and the producer of the 1983 docudrama Doris McCarthy: Heart of a Painter. “I swear she was holding on just for that.”

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