MARY WESTRATE

A native of Holland, MI, Mary Westrate was introduced to art early on in life. Her mother and her two sisters were artists and she and her cousins spent many hours over the years drawing, mostly pictures of people.

Mary studied history at Calvin College and years later graduated with a business degree from Hope College after which she pursued a 30-year corporate career. In 2002, her youngest son David took a drawing class at Hope College. She was impressed and excited about his work. Around the same time, her mother gave her a picture of a dog that she had drawn as a child. Impressed with that, too, she decided to pursue some sort of art hobby. She signed up for a watercolor class, where she learned the basics of painting.

A year later, she joined an acrylics class. And then an oil class. And that was all she wrote; she was hooked. Since then, she has attended many different workshops and classes throughout the Midwest and has enjoyed every second. Mary also sells her work at Lake Effect Gallery in downtown Holland, MI.

My original goal was to paint my beautiful grandchildren. Painting them is my way of loving them. Then I discovered that when you enter the world of painting, you see the creation around you in a completely different way. It’s like your eyes are opened to a new way to view color and texture and light. You want to paint everything! God’s creation is magnificent! Hopefully I capture just a piece of that beauty on my canvas.