| Ethel
studied under other members of the Group of Seven, the world-renowned
painters that pioneered a new style of landscape painting in
Canada, including A.E.H. MacDonald, Franz Johnson, Lauren Harris
and A.Y. Jackson. She was hired by Arthur Lismer to teach art
at the Toronto Art Gallery (now the Art Gallery of Ontario).
Ethel was recognized by her instructors at OCA as painting like
Tom Thomson long before she met or worked with any of the Group
of Seven. Her professional life was filled with both triumphs
and sorrows. She excelled at all she set out to do yet her disinterest
in "marketing herself" cost her deserved recognition. Bob Short,
a lifetime friend and Dean of Northern Vocational School where
she taught art said, "Ethel was only interested in creating
- putting pen to paper and doing that as well as she could".
Doris McCarthy, Ethel's colleague and friend since OCA maintains,
"Ethel was much more talented than I, yet never got the same
breaks".
 
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"The solace and inspiration of nature's
wild beauty inspires the artist to interpret and create, to carve
and to build, to sculpt and to paint."
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