Nancy-Lou Patterson

Nancy-Lou Patterson is widely-known as a writer, artist, scholar, teacher, novelist and poet whose educational and artistic career spans five decades. The daughter of academic parents, she was born in 1929 in Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her BA in Fine Arts from the University of Washington in 1951, afterwards working for two years as a scientific illustrator at the University of Kansas and at the Smithsonian Institution, and then for nine years as a lecturer at Seattle University.

In 1962 she moved to Waterloo Region with her husband, E. Palmer Patterson, who was to teach at the University of Waterloo. In addition to her position as Director of Art and Curator of the University’s art gallery, in 1966 Professor Patterson taught the University of Waterloo’s first Fine Arts course, and in 1968 she founded the Department of Fine Arts, twice serving as Department Chair.

As a scholar Patterson is well known for her writings in the area of mythic art and literature. She has written extensively on the traditional arts of Swiss-German and Dutch-German Mennonites of Waterloo County, and also on the art of Native Canadians. Her work includes both book and exhibition reviews, and exhibition catalogues. She has published both poetry and fiction, including six novels Apple Staff and Silver Crown (1985), The Painted Hallway (1992), The Tramp Room (1993), Barricade Summer (1996), The Quilted Grapevine (2000), and The Haunted Bed and Breakfast (2003), as well as many essays on mythopoeic literature.

Patterson’s artistic career began in 1953 when she created a mural for an Anglican Church in Kansas, and includes a series of stained glass windows designed in 1964 for Conrad Grebel Chapel at the University of Waterloo. Her liturgical commissions have involved work in textiles, stained glass, wood, metal, terra cotta and calligraphy.

In 1993 Patterson was named “Distinguished Professor Emerita” by the University of Waterloo, and in the same year received an Honourary Doctor of Letters degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in recognition of “a life dedicated to expression.”

This biography is from the Nancy-Lou Patterson Special Collections at The University of Waterloo Library. Copyright © 2000 University of Waterloo Library. Reprinted here with permission.