Martha
Frances
Lake
Patton
I have been drawing and painting since my childhood discovery of the delights of using
color and line to express thought and feeling in a beautiful way. Art and academics, family, and
politics have always been intertwined in my life. After school in nine communities, art and
liberal arts studies at three colleges, including study abroad, (JFK assassinated, (Feminist Second
Wave, marriage, and the births of two sons, (Civil rights demonstrations, Vietnam War, Anti-War
Demonstrations; MLK Jr. assassinated; RFK Assassinated), I graduated from Boston University
in 1970 (Kent State; Jackson state), with a degree in Fine Arts (cum laude). In 1974 (My younger
sister Pam’s death), (Watergate), on my thirty-first birthday, I graduated from Lesley College
with a Master in the Arts of Education.
I began teaching, continued painting, was unhappily divorced, and most happily married
a second time (Anti-Nuclear Weapons demonstrations; Greenpeace; Earth Day); continued
raising children, and began exhibiting art in 1981 with a mural, “Sharing the Earth” for the
Wayland Children's Center. Since then, I have painted for commission, exhibited in individual
venues, and with several groups- Women Exhibiting in Boston, Artists for Survival, Womankind
Educational and Resource Center for Women, Inc., and Arts Wayland- before becoming a
member of Lexington Arts and Crafts Society in 2006. My most recent exhibits have been with
Womankind at the Danforth Museum of Art; as an individual at the Tower Gallery in
Framingham, with Arts Wayland members at Massachusetts Audubon Society at Broadmoor,
with the Weavers Guild at LACS; and an exhibit for a “Web of Benefit” fund-raising event in
2009.
My focus on painting for aesthetic and political expression evolved to include weaving in
the early 1990s when I became fascinated with the possibilities of expressing concepts and form
in fiber and began constructing fiber arts mobiles. In the series of mobiles, objects used as
symbols are woven, knotted, or netted into warp fibers of cotton or wool, and light and dark,
color and line, are used symbolically to present representations of nature, society, and
consciousness.
I retired from teaching in the mid 1990s, continued painting and weaving, became active
in Arts Wayland and Womankind. My children married and I joyfully became a grandmother.
Participation in Womankind expanded to include the creation of exhibiting opportunities for
others. (Terrorist Attacks 9/11/2001) My answer to the attacks of 9/11 was to care for
grandchildren and to make art: creativity seems the necessary response to the destruction of
terror.
Work with fibers in the mobiles has led to delight in the fiber itself and the endless
aesthetic possibilities using color, line, and texture in tapestry and wall hangings. Weaving
continues, although the experience of painting with grandchildren has led to a series of new
paintings in watercolor- a wonderful new medium and enthusiasm for my senior years!
MFLP
Martha Frances Lake Patton
