Wigan Album

As a student at Wigan Art School in the early 1960's I believe may be the same Maris Bate who was also a student there. I remember her as a lively, bubbly personality. Great to see she's kept up with her art work which is more than I can claim.

Beautiful artwork - very Christmassy.

What a lovely painting,she is a very talented lady.Id love to know more about her,I can't find anything anywhere.

Maureen.
Keith uploaded another of her paintings to the site a short while ago - see Item 29706.

Maureen

Maris lives in the north east but she does visit Ashton occasionally to see some of her relatives.
She painted purely for pleasure.
I was looking at her Bath Springs painting in the school room last week and astonished to see that it was painted on the back of a piece of wallpaper.

Keith

That would be Maris. She was also very good at maths.

Thank you both Philip and Keith..that's real talent isn't it.

Great painting of great times in the past. This scene is very unlikely to happen again, health and safety would close the school.

Its just how it was in the fifties with deep snow to play in. Some lads with short pants and wearing wellies- knees chapped with the cold. Girls as well with knees bare above wellies - we didn't feel the cold though - just thrilled to be sliding about in the lovely snow! I notice some of the girls wearing pixie hoods no doubt there would have been little lads wearing balaclavas as well typical of the time! Absolutely no mention of staying off school - there was always the fear of 'the school board man' anyway! It's all captured there in the painting - wonderful memories.

Happy times no doubt. Today those kids would be wearing those silly green hi viz jackets just so they can play in the snow, and if not yet then they soon will be. Health and Safety is just a tool of control in many ways, more step by step regulations dictating what people can or cant do with their lives and taking personal responsibility away from the individual, same with privacy, and these ridiculous (it's there to protect you from harm and stop companies being sued) excuses they come out with. These days they want children to play on artificial grass, which I've heard isn't good for your health.

Wonderful painting Keith...so evocative of the 50's/60's.

Ha me! This painting has brought back memories of my classmates and I running back into School after playtime in the snow. Each and every child, boy and girl laughing and sporting rosy red cheeks and noses.
I wish that today's kids could have the same freedom that we had.

And what a snowman! It must be five feet tall ... hurry-up with that snow, Susan, his head's coming off.
I like the extra modelling that has been given to the foreground children.

Maris’s paintings were all done from memory with whatever materials were to hand. Remarkable.
I had a chat with her at a school reunion last year about things in general and her paintings in particular. As I walked away I wondered if I’d been chatting with a genius.

DTease: I can see you on the left with your balaclava on dragging a young girl through the snow, you look like you've not got a care in the world. To young to have a cauliflower ear. Young and innocent times.

Thats him again on the left - spitting image of the lad in the other photo. Looks like he's trying to 'fascinate' little Valerie at the same time! He's not got his wellies on though when he need 'um!

John G, it's funny isn't it? You can never get anyone to admit that they wore a Balaclava when they were young and yet they seem to be turning up all over the place at the moment.
Maybe, John G it was that young girl who GAVE me the cauliflower ear!

Someday, Veronica I will tell you just what it was that "Fascinated" Valerie.

Keith, there was a Maris Bates at AGS a year above me, so she'd be 74/75 now.. She came from Bryn, lived a couple doors down from the Bath Springs Pub.. is this the Maris who did the paintings?

Yes it is Janet. It seems a long time since you were in the Bowling Club on you last trip over from the US.

Yes Keith,, three years this summer.. Didn't know it when I was over there, that I had Breast Cancer, it was discovered a couple months after I got home... I am all done and dusted now and in great shape, ( health wise that is, the shape, needs some reshaping, lol )and hoping to be back for a visit, if not this year, next year... You take care Keith..

By the way Keith.. I have to say I had no idea Maris was so talented.. her paintings are very very good.. The one of the Bath Springs and surrounding area, I sent the link of that pick to Claire, who runs the Baths.. She is very interested in the History of the place.. Her 4/5 great granddad and my 3/4 great Granddads Lomax were brothers.. so we are distantly related.. She made a copy of the Bath Springs painting and has it hanging in the Pub..

Sadly Maris passed away about a month ago. She was a legend in Bryn.