Born in Fort Collins, Colorado, on November 3,
1910, Mina Conant later said that she was making artwork by the age of five. During
that creative childhood, her family moved to Denver and she grew up here, eventually
graduating from East High School. While beginning her Batchelor of Fine Arts at
Denver University, Conant met John Billmyer, who was then an aspiring architectural
student. Conant and Billmeyer worked together for a time as janitors at Chappell
House in the 1930s, scrubbing toilets and cleaning in exchange for the chance
to study with the Chappell teachers: Vance Kirkland, John Thompson, Frank Mechau
and Margaret Tee, among others. Somewhere alone the line, Billmyer shifted his
focus to ceramics and the two headed for Ohio, where Billmyer completed his ceramics
studies at Cleveland Institute of Art and at Western Reserve University. The couple
married in Cleveland in 1933.
John Billmyer and Mina Conant
moved back to Denver in 1947, when Billmyer accepted a teaching position
at Denver University. They brought along their two young daughters; another was
born the next year. Conant (who worked under her own name almost without exception)
had clearly spent her time in Cleveland well, honing her artistic skills and her
professionalism. She rapidly reestablished herself here, showing at the Denver
Art Museum the year after her return. In 1953, her wood-block print, “Dreaming
Cat,” was offered as a membership premium at the Denver Art Museum; in 1954
she won First Place honors in oil painting at an annual show in Canon City; two
years later she was creating a mural for Boettcher School. While raising her children,
Conant clearly continued to pursue her own art career. Her 1964 exhibit at the
Neusteters Gallery of Fine Arts was that venue’s second show; the first had
been Emil Bistram.
Bright colors and playfulness infuse
many of her paintings, along with facile line quality, symbolism and visual
puns. In 1969, she explained a symbol-laden painting called “The Tree”:
“Here’s a [spinning] top… because I like to
be at the top… The pear is because I like things to come in pairs …The match is
because I like things to match…” The same painting held some deeper associations
as well: “The rose in the glass is the rose spectre. You’ve heard about
that? It dates all the way back to medieval times - it indicates magic. I’ve
always been fascinated with magic, since I was a little girl. I learned how to
call up the devil. I felt he was there, but by the time I turned around, he was
gone… Do you like the winged lion? That’s my husband.”*
This
type of layering - whimsical and spiritual - is a constant component in Conant’s
work. Childhood is an obvious theme and is certainly the one most frequently noted
in Conant’s press coverage, but spirituality is just as likely to
be present, often in the same paintings. It’s no accident that many
of Conant’s mural commissions were for Denver-area churches. She was
a devout and involved Episcopalian, a woman of conscience who thought deeply about
life.
Around the time of her fiftieth birthday, Conant
had a life-threatening bout of pneumonia. In fact, her condition was so
serious that the Last Rites were administered. As she drifted in and out of wakefulness,
so ill she was unsure of seeing another day, Conant made a vow to herself: If
she survived, she’d celebrate by painting one thousand new pictures.
Against expectations, Conant made it through the night. As she recovered and began
painting again, Conant memorialized her vow with a new addition to her signature:
a small butterfly, which she cited as a symbol of rebirth. If you look closely
at the insect’s wings, a nearly-disguised number can be found, counting
her main paintings from her post-pneumonia recovery onward. By 1993 she was up
to 850.
While she’d had mural commissions and other community-project
involvement prior to her illness, after the pneumonia Conant emerged as a vocal
activist for peace and environmental concerns. She protested the Vietnam War (sometimes
anonymously, out of concern for her husband’s teaching position).
Her daughter Joanna remembers helping to bake oatmeal cookies for the protesters
camped along the railroad tracks leading into Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.
When Billmeyer retired from teaching, the couple moved to Tucson, and
Conant’s social activism was transferred to that community. In the
1990s she was posting flyers throughout Tucson protesting Arizona’s
polluted air and water. These concerns are hardly surprising and were present
in Conant’s subject matter for many years, soft-spoken but present
under the whimsical surface. For example, in the 1962 painting “Rainbow Ribbons,”
a graceful man holds a multi-strand ribbon garland. A knot in the center allows
him to fan the ribbons out like wings - pretty ethereal stuff. In Conant’s
symbolism, however, God placed the rainbow in the sky after the Flood “as
a symbol of His promise that the earth would not again be destroyed by water.”**
But humans had created their own potential destruction through the power
of the atom: this is the knot Conant saw tied in the rainbow, snarling that promise
for the future.
By speaking in symbols, Conant packed her innocent-looking,
charming paintings with additional meanings that allow each work to resonate more
profoundly with the viewer.
The Savageau Gallery is proud to own Mina
Conant’s estate, an amazing legacy of several hundred works. Please
inquire for details.
FOOTNOTES
* Rocky
Mountain News, Dec. 8? 9?, 1969, p.76, text by Pat Hanna
** Denver
Post, November 18, 1962, page 10
SHOWS
“15 Colorado Artists,” Denver Art Museum, 1948-9
3rd Annual Exhibition of ... Colorado Artists, Central
City CO, 1950
Denver Art Museum, Schleier Gallery, 1953
61st Annual
Exhibition for Western Artists, Denver Art Museum, 1955
10th Denver Metropolitan
Exhibition, Denver Art Museum, 1958-9
“Fifteen Colorado Artists,”
Pogzeba Art Galleries, Denver, 1959
6th Midwest Biennial Exhibition, Joslyn
Art Museum, Omaha KS, 1960
The Gallery (314 Detroit), 1960, 1962
Neusteters
Gallery of Fine Arts, 1964, 1969
Denver Art Museum, Own-Your-Own Shows, multiple
years
“Land, Sea and Air,” Denver Art Museum show, 4th floor of
City Hall
MURALS AND OTHER WORKS
IN PUBLIC PLACES
Boettcher School, mural. 1956
Colorado General Hospital, Pediatrics Outpatients Clinic, 1965
St. John's
Cathedral, in the St. Francis chi1dren's chapel, mosaic panels, 1956 & paintings,
1993
St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church, Brighton, Stations of the Cross
Calvary Temple Church
St. Mary's Episcopal Church
AWARDS
AND DISTINCTIONS
Cleveland Print Club, prize
Denver Art Museum member's
premium, woodcut print, 1953
Blossom Festival, Canon City CO, 1st prize for
oil painting, 1954
Denver president of Artists Equity (c. mid-1960s)
TEACHING
Denver University
Denver Art Museum
Denver Public High Schools
Workshops taught through Colorado Chautauqua
Children's Museum, Denver
REVIEWS AND ARTICLES
Rocky Mountain News,
September 11, 1948
Rocky Mountain News, February 22, 1953
Rocky
Mountain News, April 25, 1954
Denver Post, May 27, 1956
Denver
Post, “Empire” section, June 30, 1957, p. 19
Denver Post,
“Roundup” section, November 13, 1960, p. 33
Cervi's Journal,
November 16, 1960, p. 40
Denver Post, “Roundup” section,
November 18, 1962, p. 10
Rocky Mountain News, May 22, 1964, p. 89
Denver Post, “Contemporary” section, August 15, 1965
Denver Post, “Empire” section, November 30, 1969, p. 74
Rocky Mountain News, December 9, 1969, p. 76
Rocky Mountain News,
“Now” section, May 13, 1977, p. 13
Denver Post, September
25, 1977, p.2
Denver Post, July 28, 1993
Denver Post,
June 22, 1999 (obituary)
