sculpture
Report a Mistake- Date Made 1930-1975
- Event --
- Affiliation English Canadian
- Artist / Maker / Manufacturer Cockayne, Mr. George
- Object Number 75-1057
- Place of Origin Continent - North America, Country - Canada, Province / Territory - Ontario, Municipality - Madoc, Township / District - ORDT = Hastings
- Category Communication artifacts
- Sub-category Art
- Department Folklore
- Museum CMH
- Earliest 1930/01/01
- Latest 1975/12/31
- Materials Wood
- Measurements Height 163.0 cm, Length 31.0 cm, Width 23.0 cm
- Caption Doorstop Lady, Madoc, Ontario, 1960
- Additional Information George Cockayne's carvings are at the margin of what is usually considered folk art; yet he shares with many little-known and untrained artists an awesome creative skill and imagination. Arriving in Canada as an orphan in the early 1920s, he has worked on farms and in lumber camps ever since. In the late thirties he had saved enough to buy a "rock-and-bush" farm in central Ontario, which remains his home. Through his art it has been possible for George Cockayne to maintain a link with the world beyond his own dirt road. His art has been a means of continuing to meet people, of getting some response to his ideas and of sharing his beliefs and problems. Most crucial has been the role of his art in the preservation of a personal equilibrium, bringing a feeling of self-worth to a life that has often been lonely and difficult. What he has done of necessity and to "make a go of it" in everyday life, he continues to do in carving, that is, to use his imagination. According to George Cockayne, this doorstop was "the top of a cedar tree.... I'm making countless cedar fence posts and I wondered what I could do with that piece. I needed something to hold my door open.... That door catches an enormous amount of wind, and things have got to be tight." The doorstop was without a head for a year or two, and then, because "it looked something like a woman," he made a head for it and painted the body. When you're a bachelor, "it's nice to have someone to come home to."