Jo Parrott > Artwork

 

Jo Parrott

(1930 to 2012)

In loving memory

Artist Biography

Jo Parrott was raised in Southern Ontario.  After completing a degree at the University of Toronto which included courses in Art and Archaeology, she travelled to Europe to study the art treasures of its museums and cathedrals.  Returning to Canada, she took evening courses in life drawing and portraiture at the Ontario College of Art. Later, she studied at the University of Calgary and the Northwest Coast Institute of the Arts in Victoria.  Parrott completed a Ph.D. with a major in Art Education from Pacific Western University in Los Angeles.  She has studied privately with Canadian artists Nesta Bowen Horne and Brian Johnson, B.P.A.,F.C.A., and with one of North America’s foremost portraitists, Daniel Greene, N.A. of New York.

After teaching art seminars at Okanagan College for 15 years, Parrott resumed her career in fine art, portraiture and art consultation until her retirement.  Her paintings have been shown extensively in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Western Canada, and in the Toronto and Ottawa area.  Her work is represented in private and company collections in the Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany.

Irises 

Medium - Watercolour

Flying Free

Medium - Watercolour

A woman wanted her daughter painted and Jo wanted to get away from the usual. She asked the girl "What would you like to do if you  could anything at all?"

 The child said she'd like to fly and this was the result, titled Flying Free.

L to R – Mystery CIA field agent #1, Jo Parrott, Mary Smith and Mystery CIA field agent #2
Colosseum Risto Bar
Rome, Italy
1953

Exciting adventures of an Artist:

Mary Smith had a degree in social geography from the University of Edinburgh and one of her professors apparently was very keen on her.  When he heard that she and Jo Parrott were going to travel in Europe he gave Mary a list of contacts in several countries.  He never said, but Mary thought he had worked for some clandestine department in the UK government in the war.

When they were in Rome, they went with a tour group to the Colosseum. Both girls  hated the crowd and felt it spoiled the atmosphere. Mary got in touch with one of the contacts she had been given at a university in Rome and said they wanted to go to the Colosseum when nobody was there. One of the history professors had the right contacts and took them there at some ungodly hour just as the sun was coming up.

Jo said it was an amazing experience to stand alone in that huge space and let your imagination run on the horror and unspeakable cruelty that had occurred right where she was standing.

Jo and her husband Mike Parrott