Mary Lee Mattison ART – Mary Lee Mattison

Commercial Art

Work I did for the Lowell National Historical Society.
‘Discover Lowell: Your backyard,’
Their campaign was to let locals recognize the important historical city they live in.
My printed posters went on every Lowell RTA public bus advertising local tours.

Public printed poster I did for the Lowell National Historical Park Ethnic Festivals held in the Lucy Larcom Park. The original design was pen and ink then printed in b/w. It was such a hit I was asked to color (Watercolors) one for Lowell National Historical Society, one for the owner of WLLH, and the third (below) I kept.

One of my Granddaughters wanted a poster of a pink unicorn. I said, “We don’t buy posters in this family; we make them!” So we painted her a huge 20″ x 30″ image (acrylic/marker on Bainbridge Board) of a pink unicorn for her room.
She was thrilled!

**Cliff Jumper Transformer**
Mary Lee Mattison 2020
20″ x 30″ Acrylic on Bainbridge board

Every Apple Tree has its own Shape and Personality.

I love to substitute teach for elementary schools, the younger the kids the better!
I am always a bit sad when I enter a K or Pre-K classroom in the autumn and see the inevitable, identical construction-paper apple tree orchard all lined up along a wall like wooden soldiers. Each one is carefully copied from the teacher’s example and indistinguishable from one another (except for the child’s scrawled name on the back.)

When did you ever see an apple orchard with rows upon rows of the exact same tree? The parents come for an open house and say “How lovely! Which tree is yours?” The students try to figure out, just by looking, which of the duplicate trees they made.#

**These apple trees are all the same. Copied exactly from the teacher’s example.**

**These apple trees were left to the**
**child’s own design**

Just for fun, I had my little art class kids do the same project. I gave them each the same cut-out paper tree elements. The only instruction I gave was to “make a tree from these 9 pieces of paper
There were 2 rules: Their tree could not look like mine, and they had to sit where they couldn’t see anyone else’s work. As you see, each child’s tree has a unique personality.
Now that’s what a real orchard looks like!