Meet Mary Burkett

I wish I had possessed the foresight, when I began work as a traveling musician in 1996, to keep a written record of some of the more unique people I’ve met in my travels. By now that record would be a tome but one, I think, well worth reading. And this past week I would have added an entry called “Mary Burkett.”

A couple of weeks or so ago, I received an email with links to maryburkettart.com and another for a documentary on Amazon Prime entitled “Beloved: Children of the Holocaust.” I visited the website and watched the documentary. Together, they tell the story of a genteel, gracious, neighborly soul who has stumbled onto the public stage in recent years after making a New Year’s resolution to “learn to draw a little bit.”

She makes clear at every opportunity that she is “just an ordinary person” and “not an artist.” I would challenge her on both of those assertions (and, in doing so, invoke CS Lewis’s memorable argument in “The Weight of Glory” that “there are no ordinary people.”) I am quite certain that I represent a consensus in my estimation of her “not art” work.

In a nutshell, Mary is a portrait artist who does drawings of children who died in the Holocaust. The portraits depict children prior to “the madness and the evil” of Nazi Germany. The innocence of those faces only underscores the horror of their loss and brings renewal to the call “never again.” Her work has been celebrated by the White House, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and millions who have seen her work in exhibitions and on social media.

I spent four hours with Mary last Monday. It was me asking questions and her enthralling me with stories and insights. It was to be in the presence of one whose work is an embodiment of “art lovingly done.’’

It was a pure gift. Meet Mary Burkett.