Fortunate to have had one of Scotland’s leading artists as a high school teacher, Sally Blake was equipped to be a Sunday painter through university and during a spell of teaching English. A year at the Nova Scotia College of Art led to two years at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Montreal, where Group of Seven artist Arthur Lismer, then in his late seventies, was still inspiring students. A twenty-year career teaching art to children and adults followed, in Halifax, Ottawa, and Montreal.

In Montreal, she joined a photographer friend in writing a history of local architecture, which went into two successful editions. She also wrote, illustrated, and published a book on city trees, while organizing a community festival of the arts.

Living in Malpeque, PEI, Sally ran the Princetown Gallery with her husband Bill Hooff. Her watercolours have been shown in many Island galleries. More recently she has been hooking traditional mats, with cotton strips on burlap, a technique learned from her neighbours on the North Shore of PEI. Gardening is her other chosen medium. She would have been equally happy as a landscape architect!

Source: https://womensworks.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/sally-blake-hooff/

Arts education

- Arts degree from St. Andrews, Scotland

- Nova Scotia College of Art

- Diploma from Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (studied with Arthur Lismer)

Arts involvement

- Art teacher to adults and children in Halifax, Ottawa and Montreal for 20 years

- Co-founder and coordinator of “Arts Westmount,” an annual festival of all the arts in Montreal

- Co-author, illustrator and publisher of “Montreal's Little Mountain / La Petite Montagne” (an architectural history) 1979; new edition by Optimum, 1985

- Established and ran the Princetown Gallery, Malpeque, Prince Edward Island 1985-1993

Arts awards

- Nova Scotia talent Trust Scholarships for study in Montreal

- Bronfman Family Foundation Grant for publishing (1979)

- Prince Edward Island Arts Council Grants (1986 & 1991)

Solo shows

- Morin Heights

- Eptek National Exhibition Centre

- Confederation Centre of the Arts Art Rental and Sales

- Holland College Centre for Creative Arts.

- Gallery 18, New London, PEI

Group shows

- Nova Scotia Society of Artists

- Arts Westmount, Montreal

- Island Artists

- Island Images

- Great George Street Gallery, Charlottetown

- Eptek, Summerside

- Robertson Library, University of Prince Edward Island

- Gallery in the Guild

- Details, Charlottetown

- Ellen's Creek Gallery, Charlottetown

Sally Blake Hooff died at Clinton, Prince Edward Island, on December 28, 2024.