About the Artist
Mary Fielder
A retired Canadian Armed Forces medic, self-taught artist, and storyteller preserving the details that make a service history personal.
Mary was born in Quebec in 1973 to Maltese and German immigrant parents. She joined the Canadian Armed Forces at 17 in 1991 and trained at the medical school at CFB Borden before her first posting to 2 Field Ambulance at CFB Petawawa.
With 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, she deployed to Bosnia on Operation Palladium in 2003–2004. Her later postings included the National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa, Canadian Forces Station Alert, and 22 Wing North Bay. She retired in 2011 after 20 years of service.
Today, Mary works from her home-based studio in Bowmanville, Ontario. Her art brings military careers to life through carefully rendered medals, trade badges, decorations, dog tags, and the personal details that matter to each client.
Army to Artist
Service became part of the medium
Mary has been making art for as long as she can remember. Her years in uniform gave her an intimate understanding of the objects, traditions, wear, and small visual details of military life.
That experience shapes a collaborative process. Mary listens to the history behind a commission, develops the composition in pencil, and creates work intended to preserve a person’s service and memories with care.
Her work has appeared in service members’ homes, exhibits, and businesses. In 2018, she won the Royal Canadian Medical Association’s coin design challenge.