‘Maggie’s absolute freedom, her hospitality, big floppy hats and committed heart put the art scene in Houston on the side of human rights and general soul.’ — Mimi Crossley, Houston Post
Maggie Dreyer at my 30th birthday party, Chaucers, Plaza Hotel, Houston, Texas, August 1, 1975, a little more than a year before she lost her long battle with cancer. Photo by Janice Rubin.
This is a slightly expanded version of an article I published in The Rag Blog in May 2014. I want to share it again on this Mother’s Day. Comments from the original posting are included and I encourage you all to add your own, especially those of you who knew my mother. — TD
MAY 13, 2014 — I dedicated my radio show on Friday, May 9, to my mother, Margaret Webb Dreyer. Since I was two days early for Mother’s Day, I now have no problem being two days late with this tribute! (Ah, fearful symmetry…)
Back in the 1970s, when I was working with KPFT, the Pacifica radio station in Houston, I interviewed my mother one Mother’s Day. I still have a cassette from that show but it is sadly silent. I have decided to tell Maggie’s story here through the words of others — and a few vintage ones of my own. For those of you who didn’t have the very special pleasure of knowing her, I would like to introduce you to Margaret Webb Dreyer.
“I was conceived in Houston during a creative collaboration between a newspaper journalist and an abstract expressionist.” — Thorne Webb Dreyer, Rag Reunion Memoir, September 2005
“Margaret Webb Dreyer (29 September 1911-December 17, 1976) — known to many as ‘Maggie’ Dreyer — was an American painter, muralist, mosaic artist, educator, gallery owner, and political activist who spent most of her career in Houston, Texas. Though she worked in a number of styles and media over the years, she was best known as an abstract expressionist painter. Her work won numerous awards in major juried shows and was exhibited widely in museums and galleries. — “Margaret Webb Dreyer” article, Wikipedia
Continue reading
