CDA Essentials 2017 • Volume 4 • Issue 6

16 | 2017 | Issue 6 N ews and E vents Art has always been Dr. Carol Martin’s hobby, but she never imagined it would bring her to the Governor General’s residence at Rideau Hall. A s a child, Carol was always drawing and once decorated a friend’s bedroom door with oil pastels after mistaking the pastel sticks for chalk. As a young woman, she carved a sandstone replica of a duck figurine from her box of Red Rose tea as a gift for her boyfriend Bill (now her husband). And as a practising dentist, she began designing tartans, one of which would become the official tartan of the Office of the Governor General and Canada’s vice-regal community of Lieutenant-Governors and Territorial Commissioners. It may seem like an unlikely accomplishment for the only practising dentist in the small northern Alberta community of Beaverlodge (population 2,500). No one was more surprised than Dr. Martin when she realized that her tartan design had been chosen by the Office of the Governor General of Canada. “Who would have ever thought?” Alberta Dentist Designs Official Governor General's Tartan How she earned the title of tartan designer for the Governor General is a story about what can happen with a stroke of good luck when a hobby is pursued with passion. Just as her artistic talents first led her into dentistry, it was dentistry that brought her back to art. After being invited to be a clinical evaluator for the National Dental Examining Board of Canada, Dr. Martin travelled to Ottawa and visited the Canadian Heraldic Authority, an office of the Governor General of Canada whose principal objective is to ensure that “all Canadians who wish to use heraldry will have access to it.” She brought along a coat of arms that she had drawn just for fun and had set up a meeting with Bruce Patterson, an authority in heraldic symbols (also known as a Herald) to get feedback on her design. Although her coat of arms did not follow “acceptable heraldic practice” in its design, Carol Listen to an interview with Dr. Carol Martin at oasisdiscussions.ca/ 2017/06/20/dcot