Catherine Craig is a fourth-year student majoring in Great Books and political science, and one of St. Thomas University’s talented artists. Craig is a painter; she does primarily oil paintings of landscapes with big skies.
“I’ve always loved art and I’ve been drawing and sketching since I was young,” she said.
Craig said she started painting two years ago, but now sells her work at art auctions in Fredericton, and a stall at the farmers’ market. She also gets asked for commissioned pieces.
“I actually really got into painting in the first place through the art auctions at Isaac’s Way. I wanted to be involved because the proceeds fund art programs for kids.”
Craig said what is special about art for her is the way it moves the audience and the artist.
“You have so little control over how the piece takes shape it’s practically an act of faith. It manifests things that can’t be articulated in any other way.”
Craig said J. M. W. Turner, the English romanticist landscape painter, is her biggest inspiration. She also loves Stephen May, a local artist, and 17th century Dutch artists, because of the way they create pieces about the movement of light.
When asked why she thinks art is important, Craig quoted Plato’s Republic.
“Socrates says, speaking rhythm and harmony, though on art more broadly, that art ‘insinuates [itself] into the inmost part of the soul and lays the strongest hold on it, bringing with [it] and imparting grace.’ It is through art that one is able to become for themselves ‘beautiful and good.’”
Craig is currently applying to PhD programs for political philosophy, but said she will always be painting as a hobby, and hopes to have it as a job for as long as possible.
