It’s hard to refuse a request from artist and philanthropist Marcy Friedman. Pat Mahony understands this firsthand. She recalls Friedman “confronting” her to suggest they start a life drawing class together.
Mahony’s first instinct was to say no—she hadn’t drawn figures since college—but she was soon convinced. Her mother recently died and Mahony felt a void.
After two weeks of hesitation, she told Friedman if a good group came together, Mahony would relent. Under Friedman’s guidance, Fred Dalkey, Boyd Gavin and Jian Wang signed up. Mahony couldn’t refuse.
“It’s one of the best things to happen to me artistically. It changed my whole vocabulary,” Mahony says.
“There is an undeniable cross-fertilization of ideas and viewpoints that comes from verbal collaboration,” Friedman says. “The biggest plus is the ensuing friendships that are formed.”
The eclectic group of painters met once a week to draw and paint a live model from 2011 to 2020, when the pandemic intervened. They recently reconvened to prepare for their group show on display this month at Twisted Track Gallery.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s well worth it,” says Mahony, who hosts gatherings at her in-home studio in Carmichael.
Mahony is glad to get back to the figure. She was “quite good” at the subject as an art major at UC Santa Barbara, but a sudden need to support her family found her laying down her paintbrushes for years as she worked in management at Sears and later as a stockbroker.
When her financial life stabilized, she resumed her love of art and took a watercolor class at Sacramento City College. She caught the eye of instructors Darrell Forney and Gregory Kondos, and Kondos “took me under his wing.” She earned a one-person show at the college in 1981 and joined her mentors at the Artists’ Contemporary Gallery.
Now her work resides in the permanent collection at Crocker Art Museum, Springfield Art Museum and Nevada Museum of Art. She’s represented by the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis and Winfield Gallery in Carmel.
While Mahony came to be known for her riotous landscapes and serene still lifes, the drawing group helped her “jump right back in” to her love of figurative work. Now her colorful, gestural figures are an important part of her oeuvre and the group members an important part of her life.
“These people really do become your family,” she says.
For information, visit mahonyart.com and twistedtrackgallery.life.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
