Art lover and patron, Sheila Hugh Mackay devoted her energies to the promotion and encouragement of art and fine craft in New Brunswick during her lifetime and in her will generously endowed the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation to continue her work in perpetuity.

The daughter of Hugh (Yip) Mackay and Geraldine Jane Caruthers Mackay, Sheila lived in Rothesay and then Toronto. She attended Rothesay Netherwood School and then McGill University. She worked in advertising, marketing and Financial Management in Toronto and London, England. In the early 1980s a serious illness brought Sheila from Toronto back to New Brunswick. Ms Mackay served as a director of ARTSatlantic magazine, the Canadian Crafts Council,the New Brunswick Crafts Council and the Embroiderers’ Association of Canada.

Crediting Mary Crimmins and Rosamond Campbell with sparking her interest in arts while she was a student at Rothesay Netherwood School, Sheila Mackay continued to perfect her techniques and design work in fiber. She took classes at Sheridan College and the Ontario College of Art. She made yearly pilgrimages to Carmel, California studying with such artists as Yvonne Porcella, Judi Warren, Jean Ray Laury, Gail Perry and Françoise Barnes. Her work encompassed quilting, embroidery and fiber sculpture. Life time friend and first administrative director of the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation, Anne Fawcett noted that needlework was a passion.

“Fortuantely, market demands do not intrude on her creativity and so she has never lost a childlike sense of whimsy”

Exhibitions 1995 Couplings and Other Delights Sunbury Arts and Nature Centre St. Andrews, NB solo (quilts) 1991 Sheila’s Bugherd ABEC December solo (quilts) Slugger and the Saint John River NBCC’s St John River Celebrations exhibition Dilletant’s Delight Art Studio Insight Aruba Dilletant’s Delight Saint John Arts Centre May 2003

From 1987 until her death in 2004, Sheila dedicated her energy and resources to the betterment of the Arts community in New Brunswick. In 2004 Ms Mackay was awarded the Prix Éloizes - Soutien aux arts.

Click here to read more about the history of The Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation.