Mary Filer (1920-2016) trained as a nurse and an artist and lived a vibrant and intellectually stimulating life creating dazzling pioneer work in ‘cool’ glass art sculpture in Victoria and Vancouver. During the 1950s, Filer studied under Group of Seven artist Arthur Lismer and painter John Lyman and taught university art. Her involvement with architects and her partnership with Harold Spence-Sales, who started the first School of Urban Planning in Canada at McGill University, led to a honourary doctorate from Simon Fraser University in 1991 and an Allied Arts Silver Medal from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in 1992. Major examples of her sculpture are at SFU Harbour Centre and the Vancouver General Hospital. Her work is in numerous collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Toronto Art Gallery, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Christina Johnson-Dean graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. (History, Art), completed Education at San Jose State University for a Professional Teacher’s Certificate and taught elementary school. She then travelled around the world, teaching E.S.L. in Thailand and elementary school in New Zealand. She immigrated to Canada, where she completed an M.A. (History in Art) at the University of Victoria, worked as a teaching assistant for the department and created courses on local art history for Continuing Studies. Her publications include The Crease Family: A Record of Settlement and Service in British Columbia (1981, B.C. Archives) and B.C. Women Artists 1885-1920 in the exhibition British Columbia Women Artists (Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1985). She has also taught in School District #61 Victoria (mainly Special Education and E.S.L.), while she and her husband raised their two daughters.

Christina Johnson-Dean's profile page