Her works are as varied as her subjects. They range from extended family groupings to beloved pets to portraits of Members of Parliament. “I love commissioned work. Helping a client actualize a dream or fantasy, turning the idea into an image, takes me into frontiers I wouldn’t have explored otherwise. Every assignment involves research. I’m always learning and growing and stretching my own boundaries. Art is a way of life for me; the combination of creativity and innovative problem-solving is my biggest high.”

A Renaissance Woman

As the only child of an Egyptian mother and a British RAF father, raised by an Arabic governess who had been educated at the Sorbonne, the only place Rosemary was permitted free rein was in the many Cairo museums. There artifacts were available for close examination, and curators took her under their collective wing, creating a lifetime penchant for self-directed education and an enduring appreciation of museums and galleries.

When Rosemary was five the family moved to England where she attended school until her mother brought her to Canada at the age of 13. Kralik’s artistic talent blossomed at Fisher Park High School and her scientific illustrations were published by the time she was 18. When her plans for pursuing a university education were foiled at the age of 19 by her mother’s refusal to help her obtain papers to travel to a Mexican art school, she married an architect two decades older than she, and worked as an illustrator and photographer. The marriage ended four years later and she embarked on a multifaceted career to support herself and her two-year-old son.

Throughout her life, art has been Rosemary Kralik’s mainstay. She has worked as a graphics designer in advertising, as a forms designer, and as a systems analyst and management consultant for the federal government. In the ‘60s her daring and innovative fashion designs were popular in Ottawa, and in 1972 she established Atelier Kralik on Hinton St. For 28 years artists from many countries and disciplines congregated there and exhibited their works.

Kralik offers an interesting response to my comment about the many facets of her career: “The concept of the Renaissance was very much alive in my upbringing; it was one’s duty to develop as many facets and abilities as possible.” She epitomizes another meaning of the descriptor “Renaissance Woman” as well — fighting for a revival of culture, skills, or learning forgotten or previously ignored.

The Agricultural Dimension

Archeological evidence of agricultural activity in Egypt goes back to 4000 BC. Six thousand years later, in the spring of 2000, Rosemary Kralik started Tiraislin Farm in the Lanark Highlands near Perth. I am only mildly surprised to encounter yaks, Highland cattle, emus, several varieties of horses (Morgan, Leopard Spotted Appaloosa, Arabian, Palomino, Belgian…), a guanaco (a very attractive relative of the camel and llama), a donkey, sheep, goats, ducks, geese, and five dogs and several cats. I hide behind this fearless woman as the yak bull heads straight for us.

Rosemary runs a farm because “art is life and life is art, and agriculture is the mother of all art.” She believes that in a democracy people get the government they demand, and that a well-informed public is essential to the preservation of family-oriented, sustainable agriculture around the world. Kralik abandoned her attempts at placard-waving activism years ago, and decided that the way in which she lived her life would be her “magnum opus.” She makes time to be one of the Directors in the Lanark Federation of Agriculture whose motto is “Farmers Helping Farmers.”

Putting the “K” Back in New

“Why is it that the price of new is forgetting what we knew?” she asks. Her horror at the devastating impact of the Aswan Dam on Egypt, much of it unforeseen at its completion 46 years ago, is palpable. She fears the growing clout of the modern agricultural/industrial complex the way Dwight D. Eisenhower grew to fear the unbridled power of the US military/industrial complex.

From research and first-hand observation Kralik knows that animals raised in a healthy environment are more disease resistant, and she believes that they are healthier for the humans that eat them. She has learned that there are many symbiotic relationships among different breeds of livestock; and she believes passionately that seed and crop diversity are essential to sustainable farming. She believes it is obscene for capitalistic multinationals to eradicate centuries of agricultural knowledge around the globe, and to charge farmers more for seeds than they can recoup from their crops.

Kralik feels that her best chance of influencing others to join her in the fight for the survival of human-scale, sustainable agriculture is through leading by example and sharing her knowledge. For her next art project she is planning a series of paintings depicting the encroaching agricultural crisis threatening local farming. Each painting will be set against a backdrop of the various types of cedar fences common in the Lanark Highlands.

A Brush with Immortality

The energy and passion that she brings to her art and her agriculture are evident at Rosemary’s virtual Atelier Kralik. Throughout the month of April several of her pieces will be on exhibit during the Perth Museum Spring Art Show & Sale. To discuss a commission, you can reach her by phone at 268–9999 or send her an email.